US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[they don't love you like i love you]

If the "Democratic Hack Plan" looks something like this, I see no good reason for either Peterson or Walz to oppose it. What Democrat in his right mind wouldn't trade Bachmann for Cravaack?

Peterson would probably oppose it because he'd might lose the primary. Especially since Bemidji and Moorhead liberals would likely vote against him in favor of a more liberal Duluth or Iron Range Democrat if he had a serious opponent.) And while its true that northwest Minnesota is a fairly territorial place and prone to huge swings, it's not very populated (there's probably more people in St. Louis county than there is in that district's west end north of Moorhead [Clay county]), and it's also not likely that they'd prefer an Iron Range Democrat to either Cravaack (assuming he "moved" there) or some other Republican from west central Minnesota as these people are usually crazies. Republicans have a huge track record of losing elections in that area because of nominating nutjobs. Hell in 2006 they even lost the 10th district in the State Senate which even voted for Mark Kennedy!

If the courts combined MN4 and MN-5, that would mean a lot of Dems would be pumped into MN-3, or MN-6, or MN-2, or some combination thereof.  It would probably tip MN-3 more clearly to the Dem side. A map with just one northern district looks much cleaner, and there is no reason to separate the two northern halves, in favor of having two northern districts go three quarters of the way to the southern border, with MN-8 picking up exurbs that have zero in common with the Iron Range.

Not really.  The inner suburban legislative districts were perhaps 55% Democrat.  It is only in Minneapolis and St.Paul proper where the Republicans don't really contest the legislative seats.  

Even now, the GOP still didn't win a single legislative seat in MN-5. And the only ones they won in MN-4 was a State Senate seat and its two House districts in the far northeast corner of Ramsey county, of which one of the House seats is only about half in the district, the other half being in Anoka county.

Also while Minneapolis and St. Paul don't have 1/7th the population of the state, they aren't that far off. Put Minneapolis and St. Paul in the same seat and the only places that you could fit in it are probably Richfield and those small towns to the northwest of St. Paul that no one considers suburbs and for whom residents usually list their addresses as St. Paul anyway (Lauderdale and Falcon Heights. And St. Anthony on the Minneapolis side.)

Anyway my prediction is we narrowly hang on to our seat and the courts end up drawing the map again which more or less just keeps the current map.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Bachmann lives in Stillwater, which in the realistic maps above ends up in MN-4 along with St. Paul. In other words a seat she's never winning. A map that connects Ramsey county to the southern Minneapolis suburbs would never happen, even if court-drawn.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Bachmann lives in Stillwater, which in the realistic maps above ends up in MN-4 along with St. Paul. In other words a seat she's never winning. A map that connects Ramsey county to the southern Minneapolis suburbs would never happen, even if court-drawn.

Yes, but could Bachmann carpetbag and win a primary in CD-3 or CD-6 in the Twin City area map Muon2 posted above, which is probably how the CD's will in fact be drawn by the Court, if MN loses a seat?  That is the question.  If MN does not lose a seat, I agree with you that the CD's will hardly change at all (CD-4 will need to be expanded some is the main thing).

The map muon drew isn't going to happen. He used to some standards I know for drawing it but they aren't in Minnesota law, and even the courts aren't going to connect Ramsey county with the south Minneapolis suburbs, especially stretching out to Lake Minnetonka.

A court-drawn 7-district map probably would resemble the one posted above from the redistricting app. Bachmann could win the primary in the sixth there but would have a very difficult time defeating Paulsen in the third.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Duluth and Moorhead wouldn't really offend anyone. Duluth would prefer to be in the same seat as Moorhead than the exurbs.

I think a court-draw 7-seat map would roughly resemble the area code map, at least outstate. One district would take the northern third of the state where the 218 area code is. It'd be a heavily Dem seat where Cravaack wouldn't live and would likely elect a St. Louis county Democrat (like Tom Rukavina). With that type of district Peterson might as well retire as he wouldn't want to have to face constant primary challenges and exist in a caucus without so many of his fellow Blue Dogs. Much like the above map except the teal seat extends out to the Dakotas border. I figure that teal seat is sort of designed for Cravaack but I don't see a court specifically shoring up any incumbents, particularly a fluke one. In the more area-code based map he could run in the central Minnesota seat which would also be the best seat for Bachmann (who obviously needs to move, her home is basically ending up with St. Paul no matter what.), and still would have a good chance at winning, especially as its an open primary.

Of course an east/west split in northern Minnesota would effectively wipe out Bachmann by completely carving up her district. She'd have to either run against Paulsen, Kline or Cravaack in the primary or move to St. Cloud and run against Peterson. She'd lose against Peterson obviously, and would have a tricky time against Kline as the seat would still be south suburbs based. Bachmann can't win a seat that includes St. Louis County even if she defeated Cravaack. That leaves Paulsen, who has a bit of a solid base in Hennepin and benefits from the open primary. It looks like Bachmann may be doomed unless Minnesota holds all its seats as their isn't really a viable seat for her in a 7-district map (might be true of Peterson as well.)

BTW I'd say that unless he ends up with a sort of exurbs+north central Minnesota map that excludes St. Louis County, Cravaack is probably doomed at some point, you can't survive a seat with St. Louis County at the next Dem wave year. Think of Melissa Bean and Rob Simmons who won under similar circumstances, defeating a long-term very old incumbent who was very detached from the district. And actually Bean got re-elected only in two Dem wave years, Simmons only won some bland pro-incumbent years when the hot issues were greatly to his benefit. Cravaack is no doubt a top target in 2012 and if the seat largely remains the same if Minnesota keeps a seat probably the favorite to lose unless the DFL really blows it with nomination.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Here is the scenario where Craavack perhaps survives. Peterson is primaried out in the new northern district, and his voters all flock to Craavack for the General. Northwest MN is quite volatile.

Cravaack won't be in the same seat as Peterson. Northeastern Minnesota will be with the northwest or exurbs. And it can outvote the northwest easily, especially as Bemidji, Moorhead and the Reservations will still be voting Dem.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Bemidji liberals aren't going to flock to a Republican because a candidate who is probably closer to their views beat him in a primary. See Snowguy and ask if you can see him doing that.

Besides we're not talking about someone like Margaret Anderson-Kelliher or Keith Ellison being nominated. Even Duluth people usually don't give off a latte liberal or far leftist image. The most talked about candidate is State Rep. Tom Rukavina from northern St. Louis County. He is extremely popular and clearly looking at higher office as he did run for Governor this year. Northwestern Minnesota would have no problem with someone like him. He's pro-choice but otherwise fits the area's politics like a glove. Rukavina is very willing to play regional issues and anti-metro sentiment and rural northern Minnesota would prefer that to some carpetbagger from the exurbs. Someone from Duluth proper is unlikely, the most high-profile name there was Dayton's running mate and thus will be Lt. Gov.

Here's a pretty good description of Rukavina: http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/3522/rukavina-for-governor-popular-and-populist

[they don't love you like i love you]

All the areas Emmer won are obviously already in MN-3. The suburbs in MN-5 which would be displaced obviously didn't vote for him.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Yes but like I said the parts that are going to be displaced out of MN-5 if this somehow passed (unlikely, Dayton would veto any map that combined the Twin Cities and the courts aren't likely to draw that either) all would've been strong for Dayton. Emmer's strongest legislative seat that is mostly in MN-5 is 45A where he got 40.97% to Dayton's 46.32%. And that's including parts of Plymouth in it that are not currently in MN-5. Most of the inner-ring suburb seats had Dayton winning by about 20 points. All the Republican parts of Hennepin county are already in MN-3.

Also Obama won Hennepin County outside of Minneapolis by about 12 points, so it's kind of foolish to assume all those independent voters are Republican-leaning and that the same turnout numbers will apply in presidential years as the evidence shows otherwise.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Yeah no one would like it. Even people outside the cities. People in St. Louis Park or Roseville don't want to be in the same district as places willing to vote for Michele Bachmann.

[they don't love you like i love you]

So now that Minnesota hasn't lost a seat, what is likely to happen? Presumably everyone gets made safer, with MN-1 becoming more Democratic and MN-8 becoming more Republican?

If that is what both parties want, but I doubt the Dems will. They will want MN-08 to remain vulnerable to them. And the Dems will get their way, because the last map was drawn by the courts, none of the CD's need much in the way of population shifts, except that MN-04 needs about 50,000 people I think (the St. Paul district), and so the default option is basically a no change map, and I suspect that that is what will happen.

Yeah I bet the DFL in the legislature will be telling Dayton to veto any map that makes any significant changes. Please note that making 7 more DFL and 8 more Republican would be incumbent protection and could be easily done, but Peterson DOESN'T want Duluth in his district.

You can't really change MN-01 much and it probably won't much, though I bet it will become more Dem since it'll need to gain a little population, which can be easily done with DFL precincts in Rice County. Which the GOP would probably be relieved to get out of MN-02 in case Kline retires too.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Here's a map I drew mostly just keeping the current map. I'm assuming this'll be either court-drawn or based on an agreement between Dayton and the Republicans to mostly keep the status quo, an incumbent protection map would never be agreed to by the Democrats for reasons that'll be covered later.





MN-01: Mostly the same, except I put the town of Faribault into it and shedded some rural territory in Wabasha County to make up for it. Faribault fits better in this area and is usually associated with south central Minnesota, not the south metro, but it's a bit larger than the population MN-01 needs to gain. Marginally more Democratic as a result, but it'll probably remain R+1.
MN-02: Loses Faribault, games some rural counties, and loses Inver Grove Heights and much of Cottage Grove. This should make it more Republican, might go from R+4 to R+5.
MN-03: Takes in the pieces of Hennepin in MN-06 and the rest of Coon Rapids and part of Blaine. Not much of a change in partisan composition.
MN-04: Now includes all of Inver Grove Heights and part of Cottage Grove, two Democratic-leaning cities. I had to shift some territory in Washington County, I felt bad handing over some areas to Michele Bachmann even if they are only marginally Democratic. The seat is currently D+13, the areas it picks up are Dem-leaning but not by that much so it may drop to D+12. Still very safe.
MN-05: Picks up a few Dem precincts in the inner suburbs, no real change. Obviously still super-safe D.
MN-06: Loses all the areas I mentioned above, plus most of Stearns County. Still has St. Cloud though. MN-04 expanded into MN-02, but MN-03 did expand into some of the more moderate parts of here, but this might be cancelled out by the lost of the territory in Stearns, of course it also extends a bit into Chisago County. In the end not much of a change, Bachmann will win but never by much.
MN-07: What I did here is kind of interesting, I put Bemidji and all the Reservations in MN-08, just because the current split around Beltrami is kind of weird, just having all that territory in one seat is more logical. The gains are in Stearns County. On paper this makes the seat more Republican, but Peterson should have no problem, western Stearns County is fine voting for a Democrat as conservative as him (they send one to the State House, even after 2010), and he used to represent this area before 2002. The seat is currently R+5, might shift to R+6, but this won't be any problem for Peterson. Once he retires is a whole other story.
MN-08: This becomes more Dem, not deliberately but because that's the only way to draw it. You can't draw an incumbent protection map for Cravaack without removing St. Louis County and the bits to the east of it, and the only seat you can put that in is MN-07, which Peterson would not want since he has an easier time in the map I drew than he would in the primary in that seat. So Cravaack is obviously in trouble, but he was always going to be barring a GOP gerrymander. There isn't a huge change for the most part though, just the Bemidji area is shifted for part of Chisago County, at most this'll bump the seat to D+4, but unless the race is razor-thin if Cravaack loses he wasn't going to win the current seat anyway.

Thoughts?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Yeah I just think the split about Bemidji is weird. It makes more sense to have all of that area in one district.

I just realized I drew Cravaack out of MN-08. Not that that is a big deal in Minnesota (See Mark Kennedy running in MN-06 from Carver County, and Bill Luther running in MN-02 when he lived in MN-06), but it means the GOP will never draw the map. This'll probably be court-drawn like our last four maps. If I were Dayton I'd start talking to the Republicans about setting up an independent commission.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Western Stearns is NOT St. Cloud suburbia. As noted before, they currently elect a conservative Democrat to the State House despite voting for Emmer with over 50%. That is not how Republican suburbia works. All the St. Cloud suburbs are on the north or south side of the city or immediately adjacent, and most are in the same district. If you've ever driven here you can see why, St. Cloud sits on the interstate but not in a way that's easily accessible from the west, and no one wants to do a daily commute since even only 12 miles will take at least a half hour. The only place in western Stearns that'd be an easy commute is St. Joseph, which is not a suburb but a college town (and surprisingly Democratic considering the college is an all-female Catholic one, I'd suspect any college conservative enough to be one gender would be Republican.)

I'm not sure about the Reservation situation but I'll admit that could've been a factor. Still the split around Bemidji is weird, though I'll admit that a compromise plan or a court may not care about it.

Lewis is right about how Democrats see MN-08. But the main issue is that you can't draw a safe seat that includes Duluth and those northern mining towns anyway. The GOP's best chance is just to not change the map much and hope Cravaack can develop a special appeal to union folk. Considering that previous Reps elected under similar circumstances to him don't have much of a track record in surviving, see Rob Simmons or Melissa Bean, granted Simmons managed to hang on longer than one would expect but that was with a far more moderate record than Cravaack campaigned on, Bean benefited from two wave years right after she was elected. Watch Cravaack act as a solid vote for Boehner and then run on a ticket headed by Sarah Palin and see how strong he does.

Also making MN-01 more Democratic can't really be done, since it already contains all the Democratic parts of southern Minnesota. The only way to boost it is by adding Rice county which contains Faribault as I put in it and hyper-Dem college town Northfield. You could shed some of the very Republican counties in the west, but they aren't very populated anyway and to make up you may have to draw up to the southern edge of the suburbs, not exactly a Democratic area either. Walz is just fine with his current map anyway, he'd doubtlessly be against any major changes.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Extending MN-08 into the exurbs isn't likely to happen, those areas have never been associated with each other. The reason MN-08 has the current exurban counties is because before the exurbanization they were associated with the northeastern Minnesota area and still have some traces of it (how else could that area have a Dem State Senator from 2007-2011 or have a place like Rush City vote for Obama?) Also you appear to have put some actual suburban areas of St. Cloud into MN-08, which really makes no sense at all.

And while putting those eastern townships in Sibley County in MN-02 would make the map look slightly nicer, I doubt any court would care enough to split Sibley County for what are basically pure aesthetic reasons. Besides I like the fact that currently the drive from Mankato to Duluth passes through every district in the state.

[they don't love you like i love you]

No, I did not touch St. Cloud, and even gave kept in MN-06 the two townships to the east of it across the river in Benton County, so that it had some elbow room, even though it created an extra county split down into Sherburne. The court might try to give more of Benton to MN-08, getting rid of St. Cloud's elbow room, or all of it, but MN-08 will still have to impinge on Sherburne. (these alternatives are depicted below). I don't know a  more logical place for MN-08 to go, then where I made it went.

Here's the thing: MN-08 doesn't need to shift much. It's only about 3000 below population ideal per estimate, so just give it some rural territory in MN-07 and shift that one south or further into Stearns County like in my map. You actually put part of St. Cloud proper in MN-08 (the western tip of Sherburne County is in the city.) Putting MN-08 into Benton County which is clearly the St. Cloud area just doesn't make sense.

St Cloud won't shift, unless the population changes were enough to shift it all, and they are not. MN-02 needs a few people on its west side, and filling in that gap in Shelby seems like what the court would do. The court does fill in gaps like that even if it creates a county split, just like they did for the southern spike of Anoka County last time.

There's a reason the southern handle of Anoka was put in MN-05 and it's because it fits there better than anywhere else. Look at it on a street map and you'll see these are clearly just as connected to Minneapolis as places like Richfield. It really should be part of Hennepin County and there was probably a reason it wasn't put there, but that reason is most likely obsolete now. If you drive north on Central Avenue, you can't tell where Minneapolis ends and Columbia Heights/Anoka County begins unless you're paying attention for the sign which is very easy to miss. No one associates this area with Anoka County including especially the people who live there (Anoka is rather mocked by urbanites and even inner suburbanites who consider it a boring county of bland housing and farms. Wright and Sherburne don't get mocked as much because they are further out and more associated with St. Cloud, and Scott is saved by the casinos and amusement parks which mean it's still a fun place to visit.)

There isn't really a better place to put that panhandle. It doesn't belong in the district that elects Michele Bachmann for the reasons I mentioned, if you put it in MN-03 you'd have to extend MN-05 elsewhere into MN-03 which would be some middle suburb like Plymouth or Minnetonka which doesn't fit it as well, and though you could non-awkwardly attach it to MN-04 it clearly fits better in MN-05 with a main road line running through it coming from Minneapolis.

By the way, when the intra county splits come in, MN-05 is probably going to have to start chewing at Brooklyn Center. That is its next stop.

Of course. Really Brooklyn Center should be in MN-05 already (it's a run down white minority economically stagnant ghetto with a large gang presence that is certainly more urban than New Hope or Hopkins. I know people who live in Minneapolis proper who are scared to go there.) but can't really be neatly fit into MN-05. BTW no part of Brooklyn Park is in MN-05, that's an error in how DRA calculates district borders.

If MN-04 needs to expand (if it does, it will be by but a precinct or two or three), it will start chewing into Cottage Grove.

It'll expand more than that and will probably hit Inver Grove Heights first. Cottage Grove would be kind of a weird appendage. I bet all of Inver Grove Heights ends up in MN-04 and most likely at least a chunk of Cottage Grove.

If MN-02 needs to shrink a tad (the intra Dakota County splits), it may or may not end up entirely withdrawing from Washington County, but that is where it will be withdrawing from.

Remember that MN-01 also needs to grow into it. If MN-07 greatly expands southward it'll probably end up losing all of Rice County, which is great news for both any Republicans looking to succeed Kline and Walz.

[they don't love you like i love you]

MN-05 isn't that population starved. Under the DRA estimates it wouldn't even fit all of Brooklyn Center. My State Senate district will have to shrink significantly in area under the estimates too.

Where do you want MN-07 to expand again BRTD?  Remember this a court plan drawing, not what  Democrats might want at the edges. I agree that St. Cloud and its burbs should all be in MN-06, and if I didn't get it all, that needs to be revised. When MN drops to seven seats in 10 years, then all will change. But it didn't, and so it won't.  Benton  County is not all that GOP anyway. Sherburne is, and I could sense you distaste for MN-08 impinging on it - right away.   But cheer up, the numbers we are talking about here are small.

There are still areas in Stearns not closely connected to St. Cloud. It can go in there, remember that my map with it going far in had it it lose population around Bemidji. But MN-08 is very unlikely to take in Sherburne which would mean both of St. Cloud an an area that has very little to do with its population center. If MN-07 has to go down to the Iowa border instead of into Stearns, that's possible, and it won't affect the partisan makeup much, would make things a bit safer for Walz.

Oh I forgot above my main point, basically MN-05 took the chunk of Anoka because it was logical for it to go there, but that doesn't apply to Sibley County. The eastern border is there for a reason: There's a river there. This means that it's not as connected to MN-02 as most of it is (yes there's bridges, but it's not like you can take any random county road around it like you can within Sibley County or within Le Seuer County.) And there is little connection to that area, even the township north of Belle Plaine that extends the furthest east has little exurban growth or connection to the metro as there's no easy road access. There's really no reason to split Sibley, it's not very populated and the current border makes sense geographically even if not aesthetically. And if it stays that way you still get the very cool fact that if you drive from Mankato to Duluth you pass through every district!

[they don't love you like i love you]

OK here's a minimal change map based on shifting MN-07 down to Iowa.





Works pretty well. MN-08 only had to take in a few rural basically 100% white townships in Beltrami County. MN-01 lost some remote rural counties and regained most of Rice. MN-02 lost a few precincts in Inver Grove and was hardly changed otherwise. MN-04 expanded into MN-06, and MN-03 into Blaine. Nothing seriously changes.

Also I think Torie and jim need to drive on I-94 sometime. I'll concede that the influence of St. Cloud spreads a bit further west in Stearns County than I initially implied, but you could shave off all the township columns to the one immediately west of St. Cloud, and that's about 50k population. That may be high for rural Minnesota, but it also gives that area a comparable population density to Otter Tail County. And that area was settled and populated long before St. Cloud's growth.

Whatever the case this map shows that there is no reason to push MN-08 further into the exurbs. As I noted before, the only reason Chisago and Isanti were included before is because they were historically considered part of northeastern Minnesota and the whole I-90 corridor. Even today Lindstrom is considered a Swedish cultural center for example. That's not true about Benton County or northern Anoka or anywhere like that.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Because Faribault is in the southern part of Rice, it is just too far to commute from for those who might buy a house in an existing town,

Someone in a thread here from 2007 talked about commuting from Faribault to Bloomington.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/minnesota/85765-faribault.html

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See thing is while you could do it and I'm sure many do, there's really no reason to unless you have reasons grounding you to Faribault (own a house there, spouse works there, young living at home). Faribault doesn't even have lots of cheap or newly built housing, it's just another working class town in southern Minnesota that just happens to be located closeish to the metro. It also works only if you're commuting to the southern suburbs, it's about an hour to Minneapolis. Lakeville (the southern edge of the metro) is as close to Faribault as it is to Minneapolis though.

Admittedly though it's no more non-viable than commuting from Wyoming or Cambridge to the metro is and those areas are more than a bit more rootless but I'm not going to speak for the people who decide to live there. The lack of good farmland is a valid explanation for why all the land is sold to developers which don't do so crazily on the southern edge.

OK, below is a map of the Twin Cities CD's and adjacent ones, drawn based on population density. As one can see, MN-01 ends up with way too many people, and MN-02 needs to go south into what is not really the Twin Cities urban mass, to equalize. MN-06 needs to pick up a few people from MN-07, and MN-08 is desperate for people, and needs to invade the exurbs - somewhere.  Before it too the NE, and now it needs a bit more territory. I think my map gets pretty close in defining what that territory is (the bottom map), which includes some that is not even in the urban mass in Benton County.

So it seems to me that you just fill in counties, and then play at the edges, to make it work. And I think that is what the court was focused on last time.

Mine above shifts around less areas. I really doubt anyone cares massively about whether MN-01 reaches the South Dakota border or not, especially as jim noted above (he said MN-7 but I'm assuming he meant MN-1) that MN-01 is really a southeastern Minnesota seat that just happens to have a western tail of mostly empty territory. Having lived in that district for over five years I can assure you that there is more closeness felt to the metro than to anywhere west of New Ulm (and I lived in Mankato, I doubt people in Rochester or even Owatonna care about New Ulm), which is basically considered eastern South Dakota. That region even has a name, it's called the Buffalo Ridge which is quite distinct form southeast Minnesota. There's really no reason to do shifts to prevent MN-07 from reaching the Iowa border.

[they don't love you like i love you]

That is far more shifting than necessary. Also I think you drew Peterson out of his seat.

And MN-01 doesn't get more Republican, it lost a bunch of heavily Republican counties in exchange for a Dem-leaning one, a GOP-leaning one, and a swing one leaning just barely to the GOP. Obama no doubt won the new territory added to the seat.

[they don't love you like i love you]

That is far more shifting than necessary. Also I think you drew Peterson out of his seat.

And MN-01 doesn't get more Republican, it lost a bunch of heavily Republican counties in exchange for a Dem-leaning one, a GOP-leaning one, and a swing one leaning just barely to the GOP. Obama no doubt won the new territory added to the seat.

Yes, I changed my text, because you are right about MN-01. But if the court is really serious about a map that has the Twin Cities CD's match where the Twin Cities actually are, based on population density, this is the map. The rest to mind mind is just rhetoric. What this map does is avoid the outer three CD's taking in any high density population zone appending the Twin Cities area (like MN-08 does now), and just has the two suburban CD's in the end grab 27,000 people outside Twin Cities density template. In other words, the Twin Cities density zone is 27,000 people short of being 5 CD's in size, about 3,250,000 people.

This has nothing to do by the way with partisan considerations or where any incumbent lives. Why should the court worry where incumbents live by the way?

They may not care, but there is a principal about the least change as possible. That's what my map above is. As I've noted many times, extending MN-08 further into the exurbs is completely unnecessary as you can easily acheive ideal population just within rural Beltrami county (without even touching the Reservation.)

BTW Cravaack just opened his constituent services office. Singular. Now I know it's not uncommon to have only one office, but that's typically in small districts (area-wise), which this is not. Oberstar had four, in Duluth, Brainerd, the northern mining territory and exurbs. But the bigger deal isn't that but the location of this one, which is North Branch in Chisago County. 2 hours from Duluth and a good 5 hours from much of the district. And he accused Oberstar of being out of touch? This'll make a great campaign ad.

[they don't love you like i love you]

For MN, I've used the 2009 census estimates at the level of minor civil divisions to get the metro area pop for 2010. This is much more accurate than the direct estimates from the App, which I used only to draw the maps. Using that data, I've tried to minimize changes to existing districts while respecting counties and municipalities to the extent possible.

Well Bemidji is now in MN-08, which I doubt would bother too many. Some of the metro splits are weird though, I would say MN-04 is far more likely to expand to the Cottage Grove area via Inver Grove Heights than Woodbury, and I don't see why MN-03 would extend north into Andover instead of into Blaine instead. Also giving MN-01 all of the counties in the lower tier of MN-02 EXCEPT for Rice is basically the sort of thing that a GOP gerrymander would do instead of a non-partisan plan.

[they don't love you like i love you]

For MN, I've used the 2009 census estimates at the level of minor civil divisions to get the metro area pop for 2010. This is much more accurate than the direct estimates from the App, which I used only to draw the maps. Using that data, I've tried to minimize changes to existing districts while respecting counties and municipalities to the extent possible.

Well Bemidji is now in MN-08, which I doubt would bother too many. Some of the metro splits are weird though, I would say MN-04 is far more likely to expand to the Cottage Grove area via Inver Grove Heights than Woodbury, and I don't see why MN-03 would extend north into Andover instead of into Blaine instead.

Adding the rest of Coon Rapids, Anoka and Andover was the right amount of population. Blaine was not (it's too big). Personally, I would rather have CD-3 go into Wright and not into Anoka at all. It would avoid the river crossing and far western Hennepin is indistinguishable from Wright. But I wanted to build as closely to the existing districts as possible, so I continued with Anoka.

I don't think splitting Blaine like Coon Rapids is now would be a big deal. But I suppose that makes sense.

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Again this was a question of population. Adding LeSueur and Goodhue while losing the SW counties was just the right shift. Rice was less so. I could also argue that northern Rice is much more connected to the metro than either LeSueur or Goodhue, so if I'm trying to work with whole counties, that's the right split.

That's certainly not true in Le Sueur's case, for example my mom's hometown straddles the Le Sueur/Scott border and has changed since then into an exurb. No one really associates Northfield with the metro, it's just a college town close-ish to it. Faribault is definitely much closer to southern Minnesota than the metro as I mentioned earlier.

To your earlier question about CD-4, the answer is in CD-1. LeSueur and Goodhue take pop from CD-2 and keeping Cottage Grove in CD-2 is too much, so I used Mendota Heights in CD-2 instead.

Ugh, I'd hate to work in MN-02.

That leaves no room for CD-4 in Dakota except for W and S St Paul. CD-4 needed a lot of pop and Woodbury and Cottage Grove fit best, while losing Mahtomedi and the other WBL area towns in Washington.

I agree that the latter part is likely to happen anyway, but Woodbury just doesn't fit in MN-04. Then again it doesn't fit in MN-06 either, and there's really no way to properly attach it to MN-02.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I can't believe I never thought of this earlier: Using the app's figures to find out the exact racial demographics of my precinct. Hmmm:

48% White
19% Black
1% Native
6% Asian
20% Hispanic
6% Other

So how much of the white vote did Obama get? I've often wondered how Democratic Minneapolis whites are. Well he got 89% precinct-wide. Let's just assume he got close to 100% of the black vote. He probably got around 80% of the Hispanic vote, but their turnout is always a lot lower, so let's also assume they turned out at only about half the rate of the other groups. The Asians are actually more Vietnamese than Hmong, and Vietnamese are Republican similar to Cubans, but I don't think the Vietnamese here would vote much (they are largely illegal and don't speak English.) I did see something really weird a couple months ago in some apartment building's window or somewhere, it looked like a sort of tribute to Ngo Dinh Diem, definitely was a photo of him. But anyway probably about a third of the Asians here are Americanized hipster types just like the whites. The "Other" are probably mostly Somalis who don't vote.

So let's assume turnout is like:

58% White
23% Black
1% Native
4% Asian
12% Hispanic
2% Other

Obama got 89%, so assuming that 23 points was from blacks, 1 from Natives, 2 from Asians, 10 from Hispanics and 2 from Other, 51 points of that was from whites. That would put Obama at about 88% of the white vote. Even I didn't expect it would be THAT high. Actually even giving Obama 100% of the non-white vote gives him about 81% of the white vote. Of course whites city-wide are no doubt less Democratic than here, anything below 70% for Obama isn't likely anywhere though.

[they don't love you like i love you]

muon is definitely right about northern Dakota county. I work in that area (though as noted he put where I work in MN-02, where it doesn't fit either.)

What's weird is you have what is basically a rural area located there just across the river from the airport and a five minute drive from Minneapolis. It's mostly forests complete with deer running across the streets and even has some farming. If you drive through the town of Mendota (not Mendota Heights), you'd think it was some small town in outstate Minnesota if it wasn't for the visible Minneapolis skyline. It's even not all that accessible from the inner cities unless you have a car, no bus routes go there. Quite an oddity.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Republicans proposed a map that appears to make MN-7 safe for Chip Cravaack and shore up MN-3 a little while keeping Bachmann in a reduced MN-6. They drew a Duluth-Moorhead district.

http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/9131/gop-unveils-another-bad-congressional-map

No surprise there. Won't be signed.

Wow split Blue Earth and Nicollet. That really pisses me off.