US House Redistricting: West Virginia

[Brittain33]

Shelley Moore Capito lives in Charleston, I think, so that puts her in the 3rd district.

WV does need to figure out what it's going to do with the panhandle. Tough to keep it in the 2nd and keep that link of counties. I wonder if they'd consider linking Charleston and Wheeling in a single district and putting Morgantown in with the panhandle.

[Brittain33]

Capito is moderate on the wrong issues for that district.

I wonder if she'd want to represent the poorest and most isolated parts of the state (and perhaps country), too.

[Brittain33]

They split Kawanha and put Putnam into CD-3. This CD-2 is pretty strong for a Republican.

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/legisdocs/2011/1x/maps/senate/Senate_Redistricting_Proposed_CongressionalMap.pdf

That's pretty awesome from a Dem point of view. It cuts Capito out of her own district and moves some of the hardcore Republican counties from WV-1 into WV-2. Also, it looks much better.

[Brittain33]

Charleston legislators are opposing this effort to slash their county in two.

Really? "Slash"?

[Brittain33]

Putting Putnam into WV-03 is dumb.

Why? Isn't the pay-off for making WV-01 more competitive worth it?

[Brittain33]

Putting Putnam into WV-03 is dumb.

Why? Isn't the pay-off for making WV-01 more competitive worth it?

If anything, WV-01 is now less competitive.

Why do you say that? It picked up some Republican areas along the Ohio River, but lost some seriously Republican counties in the east of the state.

[Brittain33]

This was an interesting example of how things often end up working; a less than ideal status quo (the current map was drawn to screw a particular incumbent when the state lost a seat two decades ago and makes no real sense) is kept because any alternative are unpalatable.

cf. Massachusetts 4th district, likely to build on 30 years of insanity with the next remap.

[Brittain33]

Wasn't Oliverio virtually a teabagger himself?