US House Redistricting: New York

[minionofmidas]

I'm not sure your changes to SE Brooklyn would be welcomed by local operatives or either of the two congressmen involved, Muon.

[minionofmidas]

I'm not sure your changes to SE Brooklyn would be welcomed by local operatives or either of the two congressmen involved, Muon.

Brooklyn was one of the hardest areas on the map, and I suspect it will pose problems for the real mappers. I assume that I have to protect the minority districts of Velazquez, Town and Clarke, as well as maintain a black majority for Meeks in Queens. I started by drawing Velazquez's district which effectively creates a wall across the northern edge of Brooklyn.

Then I started filling in the three black districts. The black districts all need a lot of extra population and the likely area comes from current CD 9 in SE Brooklyn. If CD 6 expands north instead of west to pick up the population, it's hard to maintain the black majority. CD 6 could push east into Nassau, and then force CD 4 to wrap around the north into Queens following the current CD 5, and allow CD 5 to follow the current path of CD 9 into SE Brooklyn.

In any case, what's left must be divided by the Staten Island and Manhattan districts. There's any number of ways one can cut up SW Brooklyn between the two districts. So I picked one that wasn't too erose, but improved the Staten Island district's R performance.

Ah sorry, I meant SW.
it should not be supposed that the Hasidic areas are safe for a Republican congressional candidate just because they are safe for a Republican presidential candidate.

[minionofmidas]

Hideous, but it does get all the GOP seats to a +5 PVI at least, Dems to +8.  I'm not even going to pretend that this is realistic. 

Thank you, that's a relief.

[minionofmidas]

I just lost a map of NY that was 22 seats finished. It was one of those "pointedly non-gerrymandered" things again... clean lines, no unnecessary county splits, no unnecessary town splits, race used as an argument among many in NYC but no more. I had a packed in 77% Black seat in the middle of Brooklyn. I also had the four Long Island seats very very similar in vote percentage... starting marginally Democratic and getting ever more marginal as you went eastward.

[minionofmidas]

Shrug, I'd be really shocked if they did anything like the map I've drawn here, but it's "fair".



Enhance



Superenhance



Districts 1-4. Long Island, clean lines, single town splits.
D1 52-47 Obama, 84 white - 8 hispanic
D2 53-47 Obama, 75 white - 13 hispanic - 8 black
D3 53-46 Obama, 76 white - 9 black - 9 hispanic
D4 56-44 Obama, 70 white - 11 hispanic - 11 black
I don't think I drew any Long Island incumbent out of their seat, though who knows. Just goes to show you don't need creative mapping to make King fight for his seat for once I suppose.
D5 67-33 Obama, 40 white - 26 asian - 23 hispanic - 7 black
Broadly speaking Ackerman's old district. Open seat, actually - neither Ackerman nor Weiner lives here. I guess Weiner ought to just move.
D6 86-14 Obama, 49 black - 18 hispanic - 17 white - 8 asian
Meeks' district. Which is very reasonably drawn as is.
D7 71-28 Obama, 41 white - 32 hispanic - 20 asian
The district Joe Crowley has always wanted but would never think of asking for as it destroys deals elsewhere. Weiner also lives here.
D8 84-15 Obama, 49 white - 26 hispanic - 15 asian - 6 black
Arguably just a cleaned-up version of Velazquez' seat - Lower Manhattan, Williamsburg, a bit of Queens - but I suppose Jerry Nadler would be favored for it and the VRA police wants a word with me. Though he doesn't live here. Anybody know where Velazquez actually lives, btw?
D9 96-4 Obama, 68 black - 21 hispanic - 6 white
And my earlier version that I lost was even more packed with Blacks, lol. For one, it excluded all of Brownsville (if that's what it's called, I didn't look it up) whereas now it's split. For another, I was a little more careful this time with what I did with
D10 80-19 Obama, 46 black - 29 white - 16 hispanic - 6 asian
No idea which Black representative would run for which.
D11 68-32 Obama, 57 white - 20 hispanic - 14 asian
Yeah, the one major group in New York City royally screwed over by the current alignment is White Brooklyn Democrats, shared up between Nadler, Velazquez, the Staten seat and the Black seats. As a result, this is bona fide wide open.
D12 51-48 McCain, 70 white - 12 hispanic - 8 black - 8 asian
Always thought it ugly how Nadler's district wrapped around its Brooklyn portion. I thought Grimm was from Brooklyn; wiki has him on Staten wtf? Anyways, it'd take Republicans another Fossella style meltdown to lose here again.
D13 81-18 Obama, 68 white - 17 hispanic - 7 asian - 6 black
Upper Manhattan. The color line on the east side is ridiculously well defined on 96th street, the west side's is weird. Used to be that the poor lived closer to the river in Manhattan, but not anymore. Anyways that long north-south split is a retread from the 80s. Sets up Nadler against Maloney, though he might want to try the 8th instead. Actually, I suppose he's favored in a primary in either.
D14 95-4 Obama, 56 hispanic - 36 black
Rangel's district crosses the Harlem River. He's used to representing Hispanics (though not quite so many... but he had whites too in the last 20 years), he's never had a racially motivated primary challenge to my knowledge. 'Course, with his ethics problems, who knows.
D15 93-6 Obama, 59 hispanic - 30 black - 5 white
Northern boundary mostly traces the end of residual white population quite closely (except in the central portion). Serrano's district is still demoted from most Democratic in the country to third most Democratic in the state.
D16 75-24 Obama, 40 white - 30 black - 23 hispanic
North Bronx, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham. And exactly that. Custombuilt for Eliot Engel I suppose.
D17 60-39 Obama, 73 white - 13 hispanic - 8 black
Suburban Westchester. Nita Lowey. Hayworth lives here too.
D18 52-47 Obama, 76 white - 11 hispanic - 9 black
Rockland, Orange, southern Sullivan. Open I think, and wide open in a general election. Heh, it could be won and lost repeatedly on the Kiryas Joel bloc vote.
D19 54-44 Obama, 85 white - 6 black - 6 hispanic
Another Hudson Valley seat. Hinchey and Gibson. Hinchey might well be too weak to hold this, but a generic Democrat ought to win I think.
D20 58-40 Obama, 87 white - 7 black
Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs (city line is the district line too). Safe Paul Tonko.
D21 53-46 Obama, 93 white
Owens might hold it, but it's generically Republican at a congressional level.
D22 51-47 McCain, 93 white
Here we get to the awkward part of the New York state map. This iteration is far from perfect, obviously, but most of the others I've seen are worse. Anybody got a good suggestion - good not from partisan considerations, but just what belongs together versus the district totals we're forced to work with? I just don't like splitting urban areas when I can avoid it. Hanna would be happy though.
D23 56-43 Obama, 88 white - 7 black
Forced me to go west from Syracuse. IIRC the current version is not much less Democratic, actually? Still a little surprised Buerkle managed to regain that seat. If ever a seat was supposed to be "lost for good" it's that one.
D24 50-48 Obama, 92 white
Awkward part of New York state, second instalment. It got worse. I do hold that Binghampton, Ithaca, Elmira belong in a district together... though not ideally one that stretches exclusively west from there. Thomas Reed is the incumbent and would be strongly favored to hold it... until the next Democratic wave. Those pesky collegepeople will always be a problem though.
D25 58-40 Obama, 78 white - 13 black - 5 hispanic (Rochester)
D26 53-46 McCain, 92 white
D27 62-36 Obama, 78 white - 15 black (Buffalo)
Nothing to see here. Safe for Slaughter, Lee, and Higgins.

[minionofmidas]

Addendum: all seats within 500, no additional county splits, no additional town splits. Awkward split of Ontario County was necessary to balance populations.

[minionofmidas]

Of course, putting Weiner into the NE Queens district would not actually harm the logic of the map in any way - might even improve it, actually, to switch what's now the northwestern 5th and southeastern 7th. I just happen to have drawn it this way before looking up where he lives, and found it intellectually dishonest to change it after that.

[minionofmidas]

The LES as a whole has never been solidly anything. Except working class, I suppose.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah I think she's in Williamsburg somewhere

Oh so that's Williamsburg?

No, it's not. Williamsburg is more or less the area around 278 in the northern portion of the district, on the Brooklyn side.

Look at the precinct map. The northernmost inhabited part in Brooklyn, well set off from anything else, is Greenpoint, which has historically speaking been very very Polish. (No clue how true that still is, I think parts of it have gone Hispanic.) The second, much larger inhabited area, ending where the district ends, is Williamsburg. Williamsburg was one of the 50 largest cities in America when it was annexed by Brooklyn, a generation before Brooklyn was annexed by New York.

[minionofmidas]

Clinton Hill?

Is that that little Black enclave in "Clinton Hell's Kitchen goddam!? I've always wondered what that was, figured it might be projects.

[minionofmidas]

Did McCain actually win the white vote in Brooklyn?

*Almost* certain he didn't.

[minionofmidas]

Well, take my districts. The white vote in the West Brooklyn district must have broken *roughly* even, perhaps tilted Democrat, and the same goes for the area in with the Staten district and presumably for the white territory marooned on the western end of the southern Black district.
And non-Hasidic whites in Williamsburg vote roughly like their counterparts in Manhattan.

[minionofmidas]

Drawing the most Republican version of the 13th possible, just for the lols. 65% McCain.

[minionofmidas]

Not so very long. (Arguably you could take a further jump along the coast and include the Far Rockaway Hasidim too. I suppose you could get it up to 66%, possibly 67%.)

[minionofmidas]

Rangel's district isn't abolished in that map at all. It just becomes unequivocally a Black-influence Hispanic-majority seat. Which is the way it's headed anyhow - and which was never an issue for Rangel.

[minionofmidas]

Reworking the state with some updated ideas and the real census figures, and I have a problem here - the Upper Manhattan district now needs to cross into unequivocally Harlem, devoid of Whites areas (or into the Northwest Bronx). So I was wondering - maybe you could as it were merge Velazquez' and Rangel's districts, with some weird one-block connection along the East River? 

Superenhance



D11 68-32 Obama, 57 white - 20 hispanic - 14 asian
Yeah, the one major group in New York City royally screwed over by the current alignment is White Brooklyn Democrats, shared up between Nadler, Velazquez, the Staten seat and the Black seats. As a result, this is bona fide wide open.
D13 81-18 Obama, 68 white - 17 hispanic - 7 asian - 6 black
Upper Manhattan. The color line on the east side is ridiculously well defined on 96th street, the west side's is weird. Used to be that the poor lived closer to the river in Manhattan, but not anymore. Anyways that long north-south split is a retread from the 80s. Sets up Nadler against Maloney, though he might want to try the 8th instead. Actually, I suppose he's favored in a primary in either.
D14 95-4 Obama, 56 hispanic - 36 black
Rangel's district crosses the Harlem River. He's used to representing Hispanics (though not quite so many... but he had whites too in the last 20 years), he's never had a racially motivated primary challenge to my knowledge. 'Course, with his ethics problems, who knows.

[minionofmidas]

Yah, the swap in Queens was already argued-and-self-conceded by me a couple of posts below the one I'm quoting here IIRC.
The White Brooklyn seat has since been reconfigured to take in all the Brooklyn Hasidim, btw (it's still 64% Obama). But the merger of Greenpoint, hispanic parts of Williamsburg, some adjoining territory in Queens, the Lower East Side, Harlem, anything right by the river in between, and a bit of the Upper West Side (South of the Columbia campus, including the Hispanic enclave there. Forced simply by the remaining Manhattan White Sink being full) worked surprisingly well. Overall it's 33% White, 29% Hispanic, 22% Black and 14% Asian.

Oh, and while drawing Maloney into Riverdale would have made sense, it would have introduced an extra county split... and that's against my rules here.

[minionofmidas]

That's a gerrymander to elect another Republican (who would, of course, never be safe) that might actually work.
There is no reason to extend Meeks into Long Island. Expanding a little in the north works just fine.

[minionofmidas]

No legal challenge to keeping Meeks' seat as is is conceivable. Your map, on the other hand... (though it obviously would be upheld).

[minionofmidas]

More than one way to skin a New York kitten, aka Presenting the Rangelmander.



3rd district (purple, King)
50.1-49.1 McCain, 79% White
Ungerrymandered but not too much, in order to keep it a McCain seat.
4th district (red, McCarthy)
59.1 Obama, 54% White, 18% Hispanic, 17% Black
5th district (yellow, Ackerman)
62.9 Obama, 42% White, 35% Asian, 16% Hispanic
The idea here is to make it possible that this will become an Asian opportunity seat in the nearish future, of course. Precincts given to McCarthy were handpicked for Whiteness.
6th district (teal, Meeks)
85.7% Obama, 45% Black, 22% Hispanic, 13% White, 12% Asian
No one should dream that a substantially different map is possible. Please, people.
7th district (grey, Crowley)
80.5% Obama, 53% Hispanic, 21% Asian, 18% White, 6% Black
And, yes, it's majority Hispanic VAP. Probably not enough for Velazquez to move here, alas. IRL, of course, you're not going to see this district.
8th (lavender)
94.6% Obama, 53% Black, 21% White, 20% Hispanic
9th (light blue)
83.9% Obama, 52% Black, 23% White, 16% Hispanic, 6% Asian
I have no idea who runs for what. Both are majority Black VAP. Note Coney Island.
10th (pink, open)
63.4% Obama, 60% White, 18% Hispanic, 16% Asian
The Brooklyn White Democrat seat - the one disenfranchised major group in New York's current map. Now with added bonus of uniting all the Hasidic areas of Brooklyn into a single district.
11th (light green, Grimm)
51.9% McCain, 62% White, 15% Hispanic, 15% Asian, 7% Black
About as safe as can be drawn (when considering Hasidim to not be safe R votes).
12th (slate)
83.3% Obama, 62% White, 18% Asian, 13% Hispanic
13th (orange)
83.8% Obama, 49% White, 34% Hispanic, 8% Black, 7% Asian
The Manhattan seats, though orange has a white piece of NW Queens. And yeah, I'm aware you'll have to swim or cross through another district. Maloney is in the orange district, not sure where Nadler is.
14th (black, just because. Rangel)
90.1% Obama, 45% Black, 34% Hispanic, 14% White, 5% Asian
The only district to introduce unnecessary county splits here.
15th (tomato, Serrano)
94.3% Obama, 63% Hispanic, 30% Black

Light green is part of Engel's and possibly Lowey's seat, of course.

[minionofmidas]

But the actual district drawn doesn't have to be Black majority under case law... things change if you're presenting a map that creates additional minority-majority districts and arguing that the state must draw more minority-opportunity seats than it is willing to, but that isn't the case with your map at all. (Though I wonder if it is possible, with some creative mapping, to draw an additional Hispanic-majority seat while keeping Rangel's as a coalition seat. That would probably entail gutting McCarthy's minority areas, and might be a worthwhile legal challenge. If the districts can be argued to be a community of interest. In other words, even if you can draw it you'll probably lose your case in court. But you'll get your day in court with such a map. Much like the second Black seat maps in AL and SC, then.)

[minionofmidas]

I call this map "too many objectives". Two Black majority seats, Three Hispanic majority seats, two Black plurality seats one of which is evidently Meeks' (and, yeah, the other one is Engel's. Near three way tie), and an ever so barely Asian plurality seat, not that it would actually elect one in 2012. And my Brooklyn White district. And a North-South split of Nassau.

1st 78% White, 13% Hispanic, 52.0% Obama
2nd 65% White, 20% Hispanic, 53.0% Obama
3rd (south Nassau) 64% White, 17% Hispanic, 14% Black, 54.1% Obama
4th (north Nassau and all the way to Pelham) 72% White, 13% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 52.4% Obama
I wonder who would run in which district... where do King and McCarthy live? Ackerman is in the 4th, evidently.
5th (yellow Queens) 40% Asian, 38% White, 15% Hispanic (still plurality White VAP), 63.1% Obama
6th (Meeks, sans Rockaway now) 43% Black, 22% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 85.5% Obama
7th (grey Queens, with Bushwick, a corridor through Hispanic parts of Williamsburg, and Two Bridges and Alphabet City. I apologize for the way it looks in the East River, that's just the empty precincts' design. All cross East River districts have their own bridge or tunnel.) 54% Hispanic, 19% White, 17% Asian, 82.5% Obama
8th (central Brooklyn), 56% Black, 21% Hispanic, 16% White, 94.7% Obama
9th (light blue Brooklyn) 55% Black, 23% White, 16% Hispanic, 82.8% Obama
10th (pink Brooklyn) 61% White, 18% Hispanic, 16% Asian, 62.2% Obama. Compared to previous map, adds a bit of Williamsburg, loses a sliver in South Brooklyn (the neighborhood of that name. Which is in North Western Brooklyn, of course.)
11th (Staten) 62% White, 15% Hispanic, 15% Asian, 51.9% McCain. Not tampered with compared to previous version.
12th (Lower Manhattan with Greenpoint, Hunters Point. Nadler) 67% White, 17% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 82.0% Obama
13th (black Harlem River) 60% Hispanic, 29% Black, 94.9% Obama
14th (tomato Bronx) 59% Hispanic, 27% Black, 89.6% Obama
Kind of assuming Rangel is forced into retirement no matter what, if not in 2012 then in '14 or '16, so no use propping him up either.
15th (orange. Uptown, Riverdale, NW Queens Whites. Maloney) 59% White, 22% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 81.3% Obama
16th (my masterpiece) 33% Black, 31% Hispanic, 30% White, 75.3% Obama. Whites move into second place on VAP. Is Engel still safe under this map? Or does he discover an interest in running for mayor?

[minionofmidas]

Enhance. I could have sworn I added internal road links to the orange district... apparently not. Oh well.

[minionofmidas]

And what I think is my final NYC map (upstate to be drawn... uh... sometime soon. I notice my earlier plan doesn't work now.)



3rd 59% White, 18% Hispanic, 17% Black, 56.4% Obama. Yeah, I suppose this is actually the 4th, not the 3rd. Anyways, wholly in Hempstead and Long Beach apart from the Far Rockaway Hasidim.
4th 74% White, 11% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 51.5% Obama. Should be good enough for King. If he lives here. If not, well there's Ackerman I suppose. (googles it) Ooh, apparently McCarthy, King and Ackerman are all here! I suppose McCarthy chicken runs to the south, though.
5th 40% Asian, 36% White, 16% Hispanic, 64.2% Obama. And open, apparently, at least til Weiner's successor has been chosen. Plurality Asian on VAP as well.
6th 45% Black, 21% Hispanic, 15% White, 12% Asian, 85.5% Obama. Safe for Meeks.
7th 53% Hispanic, 23% White, 17% Asian, 78.9% Obama. Piece of work keeping this majority Hispanic VAP. Maybe Velazquez even lives in it? And where does Crowley live?
8th 54% Black, 21% Hispanic, 19% White, 95.3% Obama.
9th 52% Black, 23% White, 16% Hispanic, 83.9% Obama
10th 60% White, 20% Hispanic, 16% Asian, 60.9% Obama. I had to remove a lot of uberliberal areas in Park Slope etc in the last goround.
11th 63% White, 15% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 52.2% McCain. Inched up a tad by adding Marine Park.
12th 62% White, 18% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 82.2% Obama
13th 62% Hispanic, 30% Black, 95.3% Obama
14th 53% Hispanic, 36% Black, 93.0% Obama
15th 52% White, 26% Hispanic, 11% Asian, 84.2% Obama. Yeah, it's the orange district from College Point to Inwood. No, it's not pretty. Basically a district of leftovers. My particular apologies to the people of East Harlem. Maloney, probably Crowley as well?
16th 46% White, 29% Hispanic, 18% Black. Includes all of Port Chester just outside the map, but nothing else. (Similarly, Rockaway, Coney Island and Staten are all undivided).

Not strictly necessary county splits: two between Queens and Nassau, one necessary for the Asian plurality seat, the other just uniting a little marooned community that somehow came to be on both sides of the line.
None elsewhere. Not strictly necessary town splits: None.

[minionofmidas]

So, here's the Upstate part of my New York map. I do consider this a fair, communities of interest, map that a truly independent commission might draw.



Changes to NYC were minimal (compared to my last map) - I changed the numbers of the 3rd and 4th and of the 13th-15th, reverted to default colors, performed some mild gerrymandering in Huntington, found a quite populated unassigned precinct in the Bronx and adjusted boundaries there and in Scarsdale according to get back into my selfset 1000 deviation corridor.
(all but 5 districts are actually within 500, and 5 are within 100. Indeed two of those are 4 inhabitants off the ideal, but that's basically a random occurrence. That most districts don't use the 1000 to full extent is not, though.)

Adding figures for recap.
1st (Suffolk East) 78% White, 13% Hispanic. 52.0% Obama. Tim Bishop
Nothing to see here.
2nd (Suffolk West) 64% White, 21% Hispanic. 53.6% Obama. Steve Israel
Less safe than he was.
3rd (Nassau North) 75% White, 10% Hispanic, 10% Asian. 51.0% Obama. Steve King, Carolyn McCarthy, Gary Ackerman
McCarthy chicken runs to the south. Ackerman retires or chicken runs to the Asian seat or loses to King. Or defeats King. Or someone else does. But these are the less likely scenarios.
4th (Nassau South) 59% White, 18% Hispanic, 17% Black. 56.4% Obama. Open
McCarthy's, actually. She lives just outside.
5th (Queens Northeast) 40% Asian, 36% White, 16% Hispanic. 64.2% Obama. Open
Not open until Weiner resigned, and presumably not open once the vacancy has been filled. Probably won't elect an Asian, but I think a specifically Asian influence seat, especially as it almost draws itself and only needs to be enhanced by finetuning the edges, is called for. Getting it much higher would require a one-inch wide connector into Chinatown and not be justified.
6th (Queens South) 45% Black, 21% Hispanic, 15% White, 12% Asian. 85.5% Obama. Meeks
Nothing to see here.
7th (Queens Northwest & Bushwick) 53% Hispanic, 23% White, 17% Asian. 78.9% Obama. Nydia Velazquez
At least I *guess* she's the incumbent (She lives in Williamsburg, which is split. Crowley is somewhere in the Queens portion of his constituency, the whiter parts of which portion end up in the 13th though I think the majority ends up here.)
8th (Brooklyn Central) 54% Black, 21% Hispanic, 19% White. 95.3% Obama. Yvette Clarke.
As far as I can tell, Clarke lives in Flatbush, which is split but mostly here, and Towns seems to be living in Flatlands, which is in the 9th. Seeing as a lot of the dividing line runs through solidly jetblack territory and is pretty random, things could always be rearranged to keep them separate.
9th (Brooklyn Southeast) 52% Black, 23% White, 16% Hispanic. 83.9% Obama. Ed Towns.
Nothing to see here.
10th (Brooklyn West) 60% White, 20% Hispanic, 16% Asian. 60.9% Obama. Open.
I've pointed out what is to be seen here before.
11th (Staten Island & Brooklyn Southwest) 63% White, 15% Hispanic, 14% Asian. 52.2% McCain. Mike Grimm.
Nothing to see here.
12th (Manhattan Lower) 62% White, 18% Asian, 13% Hispanic. 82.2% Obama. Jerry Nadler.
Not sure he actually lives here, but he'd obviously represent it.
13th (Manhattan Upper & La Guardia) 52% White, 26% Hispanic, 11% Black. 84.2% Obama. Carolyn Maloney, Joe Crowley.
I've issued my apologies before. Not sure about Crowley, or Maloney and Nadler actually. Might it be preferable to split the 12th and 13th east-west?
14th (Harlem River) 62% Hispanic, 30% Black. 95.3% Obama. Jose Serrano, Charlie Rangel.
I *think* Serrano is here. Might be just across the line. He might run next door and leave this one to Rangel. Or Rangel might retire.
15th (Bronx Central) 53% Hispanic, 36% Black. 93.2% Obama. Open.
Serrano's or a noob's. Who might well be a Black.
16th (Westchester South & Bronx Outer) 46% White, 29% Hispanic, 18% Black. 67.5% Obama. Eliot Engel.
Nothing to see here.
17th (Westchester North) 72% White, 15% Hispanic. 56.9% Obama. Nita Lowey, Nan Hayworth.
Not much to see here. Lowey wins.
18th (Rockland & Sullivan) 67% White, 17% Hispanic, 10% Black. 52.2% Obama. Open.
And with lots of Hasidim as the core swing demographic!
19th (Hudson Valley) 84% White. 54.5% Obama. Maurice Hinchey, Chris Gibson.
Can Hinchey hold this? It should probably elect a generic Democrat, but Hinchey is no generic Democrat.
20th (Albany & Mohawk Valley) 80% White. 57.7% Obama. Paul Tonko.
Safe even though not as safe as in my earlier plan, where it would have included Saratoga instead of Fulton and Montgomery (drawing Tonko outside of his district in the process.) Thing is, my preliminary numbers plan of uniting Binghampton not just with Ithaca and Elmira as it really ought to be, but also with vast rural areas to the west, fleshing out Syracuse with points west, and creating a district based around Oneida and Montgomery Counties that ended up including all sorts of odds and ends that didn't really belong... it doesn't work anymore. There's too many people west of Elmira, too few people in New York (pushing the Hudson Valley seats outward), also too few people in Oneida itself, and the result of keeping that setup is pretty inevitably a three way split of Binghampton. It just wouldn't do. That recognition led to a major realignment of districts 19-24 (19 adding Otsego and Schoharie). If the Erie Canal / Mohawk Valley / New York State Thruway can't have its own district, then the next option is clearly the cities east and west. Evidently it would be ideal to include Fulton County (or at least the main towns of Johnstown and Gloversville), but I ran into population constraint issues.
21st (Saint Lawrence & Saratoga) 93% White. 51.7% Obama. Bill Owens.
Not really all that much to see here. Adds Saratoga, loses Watertown. Obviously Owens won't ever be safe without a bipartisan gerrymander, but then in real life that's exactly what we'll be seeing.
22nd (Southern Tier) 90% White. 51.4% Obama. Tom Reed.
This one came out quite neat. Reed holds it until the next Dem wave and no longer.
23rd (Syracuse & Rome/Utica) 81% White. 55.5% Obama. Ann Marie Buerkle, Richard Hanna.
Two Republican incumbents in a seat that you'd expect to be generically fairly securely Democratic... though you'd be wrong, given Walsh's survival in 2006 and Buerkle's upset 2010 win. Whoever survives the primary still has a big red x on their back.
24th (deep purple remnant district) 91% White. 50.9% Obama. Open.
Yeah, ugly. Stretching from Batavia to Fort Drum, evading Syracuse in the process. Something had to give. Would presumably be quite securely Republican in congressional elections.
25th (Rochester) 72% White, 15% Black. 58.8% Obama. Louise Slaughter.
Nothing to see here.
26th (Suburban Erie & points south) 92% White. 50.5% McCain. Kathy Hochul.
I think that's marginally more Democratic than her current district. Obviously still a prime Republican target.
27th (Buffalo & Niagara) 72% White, 18% Black. 62.2% Obama. Brian Higgins.
The compact Buffalo district I drew at first works just fine - north to the county line, east to the Transit Road, south to Hamburg. What doesn't really work, then, is the 26th, which aquires an hourglass shape (especially once I noticed Genesee was just the population I needed in the 24th, while Wyoming is too small) and misses the main north-south thoroughfare (the interstate around Buffalo). I think this is a viable alternative. The partisan effect is fairly negligible. As to other options - stretching the 24th like a chewing gum? Splitting Rochester? Pleeease. (What might work is stretching the 22nd, but it's not going to be pretty either.)

So yeah, thoughts. Comments. Point-outs of obvious errors of judgement or overlooked improvements.