US House Redistricting: Ohio

[Brittain33]

No offense, but I think that red district in northern Ohio is quite unlikely in comparison with some of the other splits. What happens to the partisan balance of the map if Cleveland isn't linked with west-central Ohio?

[Brittain33]

Does anyone else feel it's far more likely that the Republicans will pack and crack Dems as much as possible--as shown in the maps--than that they will send Republican districts reaching very far afield to pick up safe counties?

The first part of the equation makes more sense to me than others. Republicans don't care what happens to Dems, but as in Wisconsin where a breakup of Milwaukee suburbs to drown Eau Claire in a sea of Republican precincts seems unlikely, so too is rural western and central Ohio legislators agreeing to splintering their districts in order to help out Republican reps in distant parts of the state. Krazen's map may effectively pack Dems, but no Republican wants to represent either the red or yellow districts in northern Ohio. Nor does Delaware County want a rep from Canton. Just my two cents.  

[Brittain33]

Massachusetts Dems, incidentally, seem to have done the same thing. Look at how many districts enter the Boston Metro and the 1st/2nd split.

It's true that the Massachusetts congressional map links far-flung areas, and it's not right, but it happened for different reasons (protecting incumbents as seats were lost) and has a different impact. If we had a more closely-divided legislature, and Dems from Bristol County and the Cape and Islands held the balance in the legislature, they'd never accede to the current map. Instead, we'd have Rep. Marc Montigny.

I hear what you're saying about the need to shore up Republicans once the Dems in the northeast are packed. But I think resistance from the Republican regions needed to shore them up is going to prevent the maximal pack.

[Brittain33]

It's true that the Massachusetts congressional map links far-flung areas, and it's not right, but it happened for different reasons (protecting incumbents as seats were lost) and has a different impact. If we had a more closely-divided legislature, and Dems from Bristol County and the Cape and Islands held the balance in the legislature, they'd never accede to the current map. Instead, we'd have Rep. Marc Montigny.

I hear what you're saying about the need to shore up Republicans once the Dems in the northeast are packed. But I think resistance from the Republican regions needed to shore them up is going to prevent the maximal pack.

The main difference here is that Ohio Republicans have the speaker of the house. Boehner can probably get through whatever maps he wants.

That is a factor in favor of a national strategy, true.

[Brittain33]

Here is a clean-looking 12-4 map which keeps the Columbus crack and puts urban Canton in Tim Ryan's district, but doesn't go the full 13-3 route.

http://twitpic.com/4af7sr

[Brittain33]

Interestingly, Stu Rothenburg pegs Renacci as a weak incumbent who benefited inordinately from the wave. He also picks out Buerkle and Ellmers as behaving like one-term wonders, and Dold and Meehan as strong reps.

[Brittain33]

Do you have 2004 Bush/Kerry numbers for your OH-6? Four of those counties swung away from the Dems between 2004 and 2008, and the Obama Presidential numbers in Appalachia (which the non-Canton parts of the district are) don't correlate well with congressional voting.

[Brittain33]

Do you have 2004 Bush/Kerry numbers for your OH-6? Four of those counties swung away from the Dems between 2004 and 2008, and the Obama Presidential numbers in Appalachia (which the non-Canton parts of the district are) don't correlate well with congressional voting.

I don't, but they would be easy to generate, since OH-10 is mostly whole counties (unusual for me I know). 

I was thinking of OH-6, the former Strickland/Wilson district with those four counties along the Ohio river that swung against the Dems--the former Space district is beyond my expectations for a Dem to pick-up.

[Brittain33]

Oh, yes, OH-06 has heavily GOP suburban Canton, and somewhat less heavily GOP south suburban Akron, and that has been "traditionally Pubbie" since about 1856.

I don't understand, then. If it's so heavily Pubbie, why is it when combined with traditionally Democratic Appalachian areas that swung to McCain in '08, it's only at 51% McCain?

[Brittain33]

Oh, yes, OH-06 has heavily GOP suburban Canton, and somewhat less heavily GOP south suburban Akron, and that has been "traditionally Pubbie" since about 1856.

I don't understand, then. If it's so heavily Pubbie, why is it when combined with traditionally Democratic Appalachian areas that swung to McCain in '08, it's only at 51% McCain?

Because almost everything else in OH-06 is marginal in PVI terms (mostly the tonier suburban areas of Youngstown and Warren (well as tony as it gets for that metro zone, which ain't much), except for Columbia County, or leans Dem PVI, such as Jefferson and Monroe Counties, or is heavily Dem, to wit Belmont County.  

Ok, and if these areas swung Republican in 2008 in common with other Appalachian-steel areas, what are the implications for the viability of a 13-3 map based on this district's PVI being above your benchmark?

I'm going to be direct, because I want to discuss it. I find what you're doing to be amazing as a thought experiment to pack Dems in the smallest number of districts and redistribute the remaining territory along a somewhat arbitrary line of "safety." I think the maps are beautiful illustrations of what can be done with data. But no real map is going to go to this extent, no matter how seriously people take Republican leadership, no matter how many arms Boehner twists.

It's not that I'm biased as a Dem or that I lack balls or whatever, or I fail to appreciate why this year is different and why Republicans simply must do it. This is just not the map that people draw. I don't see anything in Pennsylvania or even Maryland that looks as attenuated and erose as the lines here, doing multiple one-precinct isthmuses to link groups of white voters and splitting municipalities in many places. I also don't see Republican legislators giving up coherent blocks of geography to represent amorphous districts designed with PVI in mind first. I think too many legislators share the common revulsion with extreme gerrymandering that strikes on sight that most of us have outgrown. Most of all, I don't think Republicans are going to draw themselves districts that are as close to the margins as OH-10 and OH-6 in your map, no matter what argument you can present, because they don't want to be at risk in good years or in bad years, and a bad year would wipe out your Republican delegation like Hamlet's family in Act V.

I believe you are coming up with the solution that needs to be done to create a hypothetical "13-3" map. And that is why I believe there will be no 13-3 map in Ohio.

[Brittain33]

Well your premise is wrong.

Well, then notify Dave Leip his atlas is wrong for showing the four counties from Columbiana south swinging blue from 2004 to 2008, and trending deep blue. That's my source. You must be misinterpreting "swinging" as "voting." The Indy suburbs swung heavily Democratic in 2008, but they didn't vote for Obama, and since you're assessing districts on winning percentage rather than a binary win/loss, the distinction matters.

[Brittain33]

Well your premise is wrong.

Well, then notify Dave Leip his atlas is wrong for showing the four counties from Columbiana south swinging blue from 2004 to 2008, and trending deep blue. That's my source.

Haha.  Yes I see that now. But you know what that is mostly? No, it isn't the tonier burbs of that rust belt dump trending GOP I bet.

I didn't think it was. It was working class white Democratic voters declining to support Obama for President. Whether this constitutes a Republican trend across the board that Pubbie congressmen can count on or a one-off blip that applies to races with an African-American (or otherwise "other") nominee, well, I'm not hiding my cards on how I feel.

[Brittain33]

There are not many white working class Dems in OH-06. It is a quite a white middle class district.

What do you make of the median household and family incomes in Columbiana, Jefferson, and Belmont County, home to 250,000 people in your OH-6 (not counting that last county on the end, which is a non-entity and has no people), compared to those of middle-class counties like Delaware and Geauga Counties?

It's low. Similar to that in counties to the southwest and west, far from Columbus. This is Appalachia. Very, very white, certainly. I had a friend from college who grew up in Columbiana County, it was a very difficult place to be if you were interested in books or anything resembling upward mobility. His father had worked in a steel mill, lost his job, and then went back to work in a different kind of steel mill making significantly less money.

I grant that you clearly know more about the other ~65% of the district than I do; perhaps the Youngstown and Canton suburbs are enough to make this a safe Republican district at 51% McCain. I think this gets into what one would consider safe here. I accept what you say about how it can't be made any safer, not with everything else that's being done--but this is why Ohio is unlikely to try to squeeze down to 3 Dem districts.

[Brittain33]

the GOP just isn't going to send one of their team to the showers. The thought of that happening is almost ludicrous really.

Ok. I hold my assumption that they're going to aim for dropping 1D, 1R, where the R won't be Stivers because they like him too much, and they try to minimize Dem chances in Columbus. Perhaps it's a ludicrous assumption on my part. We'll have to see if anything other than a 13-3 map is passed by the legislature.

[Brittain33]

You are kind of a stubborn chap aren't you?  

It seems like we both are.

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I believe it, but I also don't think it means that they're going to draw a 13-3 map. He said, IIRC, that they are looking to draw a Toledo-Cleveland district. Stipulated. They may do so--or it may be one person's idea--or they think it's a good starting point, and they'll try it, and see what comes out. And who is "they"? Legislative leadership? If so, can we assume that they have total control over the map and do decide what comes out, and that other Republicans won't be able to exercise some say? I doubt that it's going to be handed down from on high, but I don't know, but Muon2 didn't say it would be handed down from his source to the legislature as a whole for a vote. I too easily see a scenario where they ask their aides and mapmakers to try to draw a map with a Toledo-Cleveland district and a putative 13-3, and reject the result.

So I do believe he is telling us truthfully what he knows, but where you and I part ways is in the significance of his intelligence, and what's truly frustrating is that neither of us can assess right know who is right, me to be excessively skeptical, or you to see it is a sign of the outcome.

[Brittain33]

I am guessing you can do whatever you like with OH-2 and make it a Republican district anywhere in the state, that there will be no love lost for Jean Schmidt anywhere in the legislature.

[Brittain33]

Btw, Torie, as a fairly liberal Democrat I shudder at your maps, yet I can't help but have a huge admiration for the time, effort, thought, and attention to detail that you clearly put into them.

Ditto.

[Brittain33]

The 8th district for instance was designed to protect Phil Crane although he lost it anyway, even while W was winning there easily.

I remember it as the 8th shedding some safe Republican areas to the 10th to shore up Mark Kirk, but it backfired because Crane was such a weak incumbent.

[Brittain33]

It's nothing personal. Most maps get no comments at all, especially the ones that are inoffensive.

[Brittain33]

Someone at SSP submitted this 12-4-hope-Stivers-still-overperforms map, it's what I expect to see.

[Brittain33]

Horrible - just horrible!  Do you think the Ohio Pubbies are that dumb, or into masochism, or what, Brittain33?

I can't believe you're complaining about a very clean-looking 12-4 (notionally 11-5) map in a state with only a mild Republican bias.

[Brittain33]

Why on earth would they unsplit Lucas county when its already split, and really needs to be split further given how many pubbies are there West of Toledo?

Eh, I'm not so detail-focused on things like that. It's the rough shape of the districts that matters.

[Brittain33]

what I believe we have easily proven to be a completely unnecessary 4th district in Northern Ohio.

Suffice to say, there is still plenty of disagreement on this board about whether Ohio will be taking the map-drawing to the extent Torie has to accomplish his goals, and we aren't going to bridge that gap until the maps come out. That 4th district is "necessary" if you think Republicans will balk at the effort necessary to pack Dems into 3 districts and the consequent erosity of the map. (But seriously, I don't know.) 

I see the following Dem districts:

Toledo-Lorain
Cuyahoga
Cuyahoga-Akron
Akron-Youngstown

and a Columbus split. The 6th district made somewhat safer.

How the map-drawers do this specifically, or what county ends up in which Republican backbencher's district, is not important to me.

[Brittain33]

I mean, I'm really not trying to bait Torie or rehash debates that have run their course, but I think we can discuss alternative maps.

[Brittain33]

Folks from Athens won't be getting those prestigious federal jobs, the number of which has nearly doubled under Obama, and late term Bush.

What federal jobs are you talking about that have doubled in number? Total civilian employment is up through 2009 (presumably on Bush's last budget?) when the data series ends but not that dramatically, and after declines. So that can't be what you mean.

http://www.opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/ExecutiveBranchSince1940.asp