Crossposted from RedRacingHorses.com
DKE'S PAGE WIDTH IS NOT AS WIDE AS RRH'S, SO THE STATS FROM SOME DISTRICTS ARE CUT OFF. FOR PICS WITH STATISTICS, LOOK HERE. http://s1105.photobucket.com/...
Well, this just may be the "most excellent" of all of my maps (I hope someone gets that California film reference)!
After a stressful week, and a looming weekend of homework, I needed a break. Therefore, I set out to get to 41 potentially Republican seats in the 80 district California Assembly (weird break, eh)?. Could I do it? If I drew a somewhat reasonably clean gerrymander, the answer would be no. I tried that and failed. I then tried as hard as possible to get to 41 seats, using as ridiculous of a map in terms of COI as possible.
The Democratic seats are super packed, but there is a good mix of Republican and swing seats... Let's just say that the people of Bakersfield will be receiving a giant gift basket with flowers and a thank you card.
Anyway, you may be wondering... could I get to that 41 seat potential? Find out below the fold!
The Golden State:
NorCal:
Bay Area:
Central Valley:
LA/Bakersfield Area:
SoCal:
AD-01: Safe D.
AD-02: Safe D.
AD-03: Safe D.
AD-04: Safe D.
AD-05: Safe D.
AD-06: Safe D. It's really ugly because I was going to crack the center part, but I decided against it later.
AD-07: Leans R. I even managed to liberate D+5 Atherton and all of its donors. This seat also has a nice little precinct next to the ocean.
R Opportunity #1
AD-08: Safe D. Stockton to Modesto pack.
AD-09: Leans R.
R Opportunity #2
AD-10: Safe D. The southern portion of this seat is very moderate, I just didn't have enough mountain precincts to run it to NorCal.
AD-11: Toss-Up/Leans R.
R Opportunity #3
AD-12: Safe R. Look at what I threw into this district via water contiguity for good measure? Heh.
R Opportunity #4
AD-13: Safe D.
AD-14: Safe D.
AD-15: Safe D.
AD-16: Safe D.
AD-17: Safe D.
AD-18: Safe D. This was one hell of a pack, and very necessary.
AD-19: Safe D.
AD-20: Safe D. Drawn for my friend, a fellow US Senate Page. Jonathan is a great guy who almost got on the California BOE (like Ricky Gill did) at age 17. He also blogs for the Huff Post. The only problem is that our political views aren't in sync... oh well, not everyone can be perfect ;).
AD-21: Safe R.
R Opportunity #5
AD-22: Safe R. Tom McClintock's base. I really with I could have used this for cracking purposes.
R Opportunity #6
AD-23: Safe R.
R Opportunity #7
AD-24: Safe R. Again, prime cracking material with nothing to crack :(
R Opportunity #8
AD-25: Safe D.
AD-26: Safe D. Suburban Sacramento vote sink. This is the area giving Dan Lungren so much trouble. I could have split it and ran a bunch of NorCal seats into it, but it is trending left hard, seeing as it voted at a higher percentage for Brown than for Obama.
AD-27: Safe R.
R Opportunity #9
AD-28: Safe R. Again, wish I could use some of those excess Rs.
R Opportunity #10
AD-29: Safe R. Ugh. I needed some of these precincts for cracking, but they're too block shaped.
R Opportunity #11
AD-30: Safe R. Thanks Bakersfield! Precincts are oddly shaped, so I'd need to split one for contiguity.
R Opportunity #12
AD-31: Leans R.
R Opportunity #13
AD-32: Safe D.
AD-33: Toss Up. Look, This district would be Leans R if the precincts weren't huge around Bakersfield. It boxed me in from exchanging some Rs and Ds from other seats.
R Opportunity #14
AD-34: Safe D.
AD-35: Safe D. Cam we just convince Lois Capps to run here instead of against Maldonado? She's used to this district's shape, so why not? :p
AD-36: Toss Up/Leans R.
R Opportunity #15
AD-37: Toss Up/(Leans R)?
R Opportunity #16
AD-38: Leans R.
R Opportunity #17
AD-39: Leans R for future State Representative Lewis (R-La Mirada), also known as TheCallOfDuty. This looks like the Hollister Bird.
R Opportunity #18
AD-40: Safe R.
R Opportunity #19
AD-41: Leans R.
R Opportunity #20
AD-42: Leans R. Probably this map's cleanest Republican seat.
R Opportunity #21
AD-43: Safe R. Back to ugly.
R Opportunity #22
AD-44: Safe R.
R Opportunity #23
AD-45: Toss Up/Leans R.
R Opportunity #24
AD-46: Leans R. I'm willing to rate this Leans R because of the 55% Whitman number. I also liberated Beverly Hills, which has both some light blue and light red precincts, and a whole lot of donors.
R Opportunity #25
AD-47: Safe R.
R Opportunity #26
AD-48: Safe D.
AD-49: Safe D.
AD-50: Safe D.
AD-51: Safe D.
AD-52: Safe D.
AD-53: Safe D. Ignore that missed precinct.
AD-54: Safe D and crazily compact. I seriously wonder what the CVAP is in this seat... it has to be really low.
AD-55: Safe D.
AD-56: Safe D.
AD-57: Safe D.
AD-58: Safe D. Again, ignore that missing precinct.
AD-59: Safe D.
AD-60: Leans R. Craig Huey for State Rep?
R Opportunity #27
AD-61: Safe D.
AD-62: Safe D
AD-63: Safe D.
AD-64: Safe R. Heh, thank you, Kern County!
R Opportunity #28
AD-65: Toss Up? Leans R? Somewhere in between? I don't know.
R Opportunity #29
AD-66: Leans R. Duuuude, San Dimas is in this seat. Most excellent! Bill or Ted could run here, but I'd prefer Ted, seeing as Keanu Reeves turned out to be super successful, while the actor who played Bill did not.
R Opportunity #30
AD-67: Safe D.
AD-68: Toss Up? Leans R?
R Opportunity #31
AD-69: Safe R.
R Opportunity #32
AD-70: Safe R.
R Opportunity #33
AD-71: Safe R.
R Opportunity #34
AD-72: Safe R.
R Opportunity #35
AD-73: Likely R (hey, our first one)!
R Opportunity #36
AD-74: Likely R. Likely R. Whitman over-performed McCain by 10 points here!
R Opportunity #37
AD-75: Safe R. Maybe this district can fight in a cage match with MD-03 and PA-07.
R Opportunity #38
AD-76: Leans R.
R Opportunity #39
AD-77: Leans R.
R Opportunity #40
AD-78: Toss Up. Again, this is one of those seats where I wanted to make precinct swaps, in this case with AD-75, but I was not able to because of block groups. I would have liked to add 2 McCain points onto this seat, and would have been able to.
R Opportunity #41
AD-79: Safe D.
AD-80: Safe D:
Hey, it looks like Scott Brown being Mr. 41 wasn't the last time we'd see 41 being important in politics.
Anyway, that was my map. I hope you enjoyed! Please leave comments, and remember my situation with block groups. Realize most of those Toss Up seats that ran into mountainous areas could have been shored up at least a little bit.