So I was wondering the other day whether it was possible to create a congressional district that contained all of Madison and still voted for John McCain for president. With a bit of work, I came up with such a district (proof of concept map that went for McCain by 36 vote below the fold), but I'm pretty sure someone can come up with something better than me. So I decided to have a contest to see who can come up with the most republican district including Madison. The rules:
-The district must be contiguous.
-The district cannot prevent any other district from being contiguous (so you can't surround any areas that couldn't be a congressional district)
-You cannot use water contiguity on lake Michigan, either for this district or to prove that other districts could be contiguous.
-The district population cannot exceed 710,873.
-You must include every ward in Madison city, but you do not need to include any other part of Dane county including the adjacent cities or Madison Township, except as needed for contiguity.
-No Community of interest or compactness rules need to be followed.
-The goal is to create the district that voted for John McCain by the largest raw vote Margin over Barack Obama.
GO!
Proof of concept district: