This is another in a series of pictures showing what this year's blue wave looks like. Each congressional district has equal size in these cartograms. So far, I've done New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
Here's how things stood before the 2006 election. (Click the thumbnails for larger images.)
Here's how thing came out on Election Night. Unfortunately, the cartogram view diminishes the visual impact of the Democratic pick-up in the massive 18th District.
Next is a map showing the margin of victory. We came excruciatingly close in the 2nd and 15 Districts.
Finally, here's a map showing the margin-of-victory change from 2004 to 2006. The noticeably red districts were uncontested in 2004. The 4th Districts is also a very light shade of red (what happened there?), making it the first Republican-held district yet in this series to be colored that way. One thing that I take from this set of maps is that the disappointing results in the contested races do not reflect disappointing performances by the respective candidates. We had a good Democratic swing in the tight districts, and just happened to fall slightly short.
Because the Republican gerrymander packed Democrats into six districts (6, 9-11, 13, 17), Space (18) is our only vulnerable Democrat. As this election showed, the lines make it tough to beat Republicans. Nevertheless, the two Cincinnati districts (1 and 2) and the two Columbus districts (12 and 15) can at least be thorns in the Republicans' sides if we vigorously contest them every time.
The most remarkable thing to me about the Republican gerrymander is how effective they distributed Republican voters among the Republican rural districts. Roughly speaking, these are Districts 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, and 16. The Republican incumbents in these districts each got between 57 and 64 percent of the vote. This even distribution is exactly what the skilled partisan redistricter wants in order to make as many safe seats as possible without wasting votes.
Here are thumbnails of the districts. My favorite ordinary maps of congressional districts are from the Census Bureau and the Interior Department.
OH-01 (Cincinnati and suburbs), Chabot (R) defeats Cranley (D) 53-47:
OH-02 (Cincinnati and suburbs), Schmidt (R) defeats Wulsin (D) 51-49:
OH-03 (Dayton), Turner (R) defeats Chema (D) 59-41:
OH-04 (Mansfield), Jordan (R) defeats Siferd (D) 60-40 for open seat held by Oxley (R):
OH-05 (Bowling Green), Gillmor (R) defeats Weirauch (D) 57-43:
OH-06 (Youngstown and Huntington suburbs), Wilson (D) defeats Blasdel (R) 62-38 for open seat held by Strickland (D):
OH-07 (Dayton and Columbus), Hobson (R) defeats Conner (D) 61-39:
OH-08 (Dayton and Cincinnati suburbs), Boehner (R) defeats Meier (D) 64-36:
OH-09 (Toledo), Kaptur (D) defeats Leavitt (R) 74-26:
OH-10 (Cleveland), Kucinich (D) defeats Dovilla (R) 66-34:
OH-11 (Cleveland), Tubbs Jones (D) defeats String (R) 83-17:
OH-12 (Columbus and suburbs), Tiberi (R) defeats Shamansky (D) 58-42:
OH-13 (Akron and Lorain), Sutton (D) defeats Foltin (R) 61-39 for open seat held by Brown (D):
OH-14 (Cleveland suburbs and Akron suburbs), LaTourette (R) defeats Katz (D) 58-39:
OH-15 (Columbus and suburbs), Pryce (R) defeats Kilroy (D) 50-50:
OH-16 (Canton), Regula (R) defeats Shaw (D) 59-41:
OH-17 (Akron and Youngstown), Ryan (D) defeats Manning (R) 80-20:
OH-18 (Newark), Space (D) defeats Padgett (R) 62-38 for vacant seat previously held by Ney (R):