Links to my diaries

Since early July, I have written a few more diaries for Swing State Project. Since it is hard to post all the links here, you can click the link to my page and follow my diaries. To go to swing state project, just click this post's title, thanks.

Redistricting Maps for Minnesota

Northeastern Minnesota

Twin Cities core

Northern Minnesota

Southern Minnesota

So these are the maps for Minnesota redistricting. You can view the write up for them on swing state project. Yes, I did try moving the maps to paint but I was unable to move them anywhere so I had to use the maps you see here. Sorry.

South Carolina Redistricting Maps

Up Country

Charleston area

East South Carolina

Southern South Carolina

You can view the write up for the maps on swing state project. Feel free to vote on the poll on the bottom of the blog. I may soon have maps that show a 5-2 Republican delegation. Sorry for the poor quality of the maps. Feel free to comment.

Louisiana Redistricting Maps

Southwest Louisiana

New Orleans area

Southeast Louisiana

Baton Rogue Area

Northern Louisiana

You can view the write up for these maps on Swing State Project. I am sorry that I had to make so many. I just wanted to make sure that I did not miss any part of Louisiana. Also, it would be nice if you could vote in the poll at the bottom of the blog. Thanks.

New Jersey Redistricting Maps

Northeast New Jersey

Central western New Jersey

Newark/Jersey City

Central New Jersey

Southern New Jersey

These are the maps for redistricting that I made with Dave's Redistricting App. You can view the write up for these on swing state project. Sorry for the awkwardness of a few of the maps and that this is not the best quality in the world.

Nevada Redistricting Maps

Central Nevada

Las Vegas area

North Nevada

Southern Nevada

These are the maps for Nevada redistricting done with Dave's Redistricting App. You can view the write up for the maps on swing state project.

(Click them if you want a larger picture)

Feel free to comment on them.

How Caroline McCarthy can be NY's Next Senator

With a tremendous uproar in New York politics that began with Hillary Clinton leaving the Senate, some Democrats alienated some voters. That main man is legally blind Governor David Paterson. He caused the problems with one little choice. Caroline Kennedy voiced that she wanted Hillary's Senate seat. The Kennedy family voiced their support for her. Obama said he wanted Caroline to fill Hillary's seat. Even though Obama was president elect, David Paterson defied him and went with the New York political system. He followed Congressman Gary Ackerman who said Caroline Kennedy is like Sarah Palin. Paterson listened to Ackerman because they are part of a political system in New York that lasted for more than 100 years. He did not appease Ackerman completely. Paterson appointed Kristin Gillibrand from Upstate New York. Paterson may have wanted a woman to replace Hillary. He wanted a woman from Upstate so he could appeal to voters there. Unfortunately for him, Upstate New York casts about 1/3 of the votes in New York State, compared to 2/3 in the New York metropolitin area. Not only does Paterson have the voters angry with him (he was down double digits to Giuliani in a recent poll,) he has countless politicians angry with him. He has the Kennedys angry with him. Obama is not pleased so Paterson cannot count on a job in the administration. Now that he may have cost the Democrats a House seat, Pelosi is angry with him. Paterson has a poor future but what is more interesting is Gillibrand's future. She is a young popular politician. What is wrong with that? In New York, experienced politicians from the city are more popular. She is pro Second Amendment, therefore alienating voters in pro gun control New York City and suburbs. To add to her woes, she has two strong competitors. Carolyn McCarthy and Caroline Maloney. They are both from downstate and are well liked in the New York political system. They are both very strong candidates with a great chance of winning. This race can easily slip and slide but in my opinion, McCarthy will win the primary. Here is why:

Carolyn McCarthy, the Congresswoman from the 4th district will probably be the next Senator. She is from Nassau County on Long Island and is a leading advocate for gun control. She has supported child locks on guns and strengthened laws to stop mentally ill people from purchasing guns. She can boast about her gun control policy to win New York voters. If she were the only candidate from the New York area, she would beat Gillibrand. With Maloney in the race, McCarthy has to try to win the New York area vote. She can win Long Island easily, it is her home base. She can probably win Staten Island, it is filled with Catholics and public safety officers. McCarthy is Irish Catholic, like Gillibrand. Since Gillibrand is not from the New York City area, she will not do well with Irish Catholics there. McCarthy is well suited to win Brooklyn and Queens. She can win all the Irish Catholics there. Minority and Jewish voters will be the swing group between McCarthy and Maloney. Both candidates are pro Israel but it is not a signiture issue for both. McCarthy does not include her stance on Israel on her website. Maloney is a bit more vocal about her support for Israel. Since Jewish voters in Brooklyn and Queens may feel more close to a Long Island person than an East Side representative, they may lean slightly toward McCarthy. The gun control issue may help her with that. McCarthy will campaign as the tough on guns candidate (The reason she ran is that Gillibrand is pro gun.) Maloney can probably win the Manhattan and Westchester Jewish vote so overall, their vote will be split. Minorities will be key in this race. No candidate has portrayed herself as an advocate for them. McCarthy could do well with them because she can portray herself as a supporter of working class families with low income. Most minorities in New York have low incomes so they might like her. However, the minorities have no real candidate they can truly back and might drift between candidates or split close to 50-50. Overall, McCarthy's strategy and winning formula is to sweep the Island, win big among Catholic and Jewish voters in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island as well as doing well with Upstate Catholics in making inroads in Upstate cities because she is tough on crime.

Kristen Gillibrand, the current U.S Senator from New York will have to work very hard to defend herself. It is very possible for her to win because she is from Upstate. While Maloney and McCarthy battle it out, Gillibrand sweeps Upstate and comes out with a victory. Now here are some key facts about Upstate: It generally has higher turnout in the general election than New York City and even Long Island. It votes less Democratic than the New York City area so overall, it will equal out to 1/3 of the primary vote. Gillibrand is so popular there that she may generate higher turnout there. It may not be cancelled about by New York area turnout because some groups such as minorities and Jews may not be inspired by the candidates because none of them really represent these groups. Gillibrand will probably win Upstate Catholics easily but if she does poorly, McCarthy will make some inroads among them. Again, Upstate cities such as Buffalo and Rochester may become competitive. Maloney and McCarthy could both make inroads there, even though McCarthy will be painted as only a candidate for the Island. Those cities are not right next to Gillibrand's home base of the Hudson valley but they will probably support her because she stands for Upstate issues. If the other candidates portray her as a candidate for rural issues only, the state comes into play. Actually, she does support alot of issues that are popular in the city and looking at her stands on the issues, she seems to be a New York area politician instead of a rural Upstate politician. She is a big supporter of the police force and does support gun control. The other candidates will almost certainly smear her as the pro gun candidate and she will have to prove she is pro gun control. She will not alienate enough pro gun rural voters because they will support her anyway and it will not stifle turnout as much. Gillibrand has one way where she can certainly win. She MUST make inroads in the New York area. It will be difficult for her to win the upscale and minority votes so she must try to win working class Irish Catholics. That is exactly her background and the Irish Catholics may like that. Most of the New York City ones will probably support McCarthy. If Gillibrand does very well, she might be able to gain votes among them. With minority voters, they mostly live in the city so they will probably not be attracted to Gillibrand. They may view her as out of touch with their issues. Even if the other candidates do not appeal to minorities, they are from the New York area so they will probably win the minority vote. Even though Gillibrand is pro Israel, it is not a signiture issue for her so that would probably not be enough to attract them. Overall, Gillibrand can win if there is high turnout in Upstate, she sweeps Upstate cities and she can make a few inroads in one New York area group such as Irish Catholics.

Caroline Maloney, the Congresswoman from New York's 14th Congressional district faces a very hard primary election. She is the candidate with the smallest chance of winning but since this race will be so close, she still has a very good shot. She is the only candidate who is not Irish Catholic, she is Protestant. Religion will probably not be a big role for her because she is not very religious. Her base is Manhattan and western Queens. Manhattan has about 5% of the state's population but casts about 10% of the votes for Democrats, not far from the 14% in Long Island which has almost double the population of Manhattan. That will be a big boost for Maloney. She will probably win the Bronx even though it is filled with the minority swing voters. Maloney's other base will be Westchester County. Since she represents the part of the New York area not part of the Island, she can probably win or come close to winning the outer New York suburbs such as Rockland County. The swing district for Gillibrand and Maloney is the New York 19th Congressional District. It contains the outer suburbs. As for minorities, Maloney will probably do well with ones near her district. If she can paint McCarthy as a suburban candidate, Maloney may even win minorities in Queens and Brooklyn. Even though Maloney is pro gun control like the other candidates, she will lose those voters to McCarthy. Maloney could even do well in western Queens because her district contains part of Queens. Maloney's demographic base is the rich voters and she needs to expand to other voters. She is doing that already by traveling to Upstate to attempt to win voters up there. Most voters there are working class but since she is urban, she has a shot at making inroads in Upstate cities. Overall, if Maloney can win, she will do win the outer suburbs, pile up high margins in Manhattan, come close to winning Queens and do well enough in Upstate cities.

This New York race is shaping to be a different New York race than usual. A usual race is when the New York politicians support one candidate who easily wins because of their support. This is different and all three candidates have reasons to be supported by New York politicians. Maloney has the best reason because she is from the city. McCarthy is from the suburbs. Gillibrand has the worst reason and it is because Paterson liked her. Even though Paterson is popular with some New York politicians, they may rather support somene from the area, not just somene Paterson likes. The demographics that already have a catergory are rich voters, Upstate voters and Irish Catholics in the New York area. The swing voters are minority voters as a whole and Jewish voters. Maloney would appear to win them because of her centralized location in the city. McCarthy looks set to win them because of her working class background. McCarthy looks poised to win because of her prevalence in the Island boroughs and the Island. If the race went the way I predicted, she would win by a couple of points but it could easily shift. Overall, this race will be filled with many twists and turns with unexpected shifts in support from demographics. It will be one of the biggest primaries in a long time and could truly be the battle between Upstate, the Island and the city.

New Version of Villaraigosa Article

Recently, Obama went to Costa Mesa in Orange County to give a speech. Why did he go to a Republican area in California instead of a heavily Democratic city such as Los Angeles or California? The answer is the Hispanic voters Obama is trying to court. They could decide the future in the gubernatorial primary. The potential Democratic field includes: Former Governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Other potential candidates could include California Schools Superintendent Jack O’ Connell and former State Controller Steve Westley though it seems difficult for them to make a serious run. I do not believe Dianne Feinstein will run because she is now the leader of the U.S Senate’s Intelligence Committee, a post she may not want to give up if she runs for Governor. If she does run, she would be the clear favorite and others could drop out of the field. Since it is a very tight primary field, a candidate, does not need 50% of the vote to win. A recent Field poll had Jerry Brown and Villaraigosa tied at 16%, Newsom with 10% and Garamendi with 4%. Dianne Feinstein was about 20 points ahead of Brown and Villaraigosa. Still, this is an early field poll and leads can change. Pundits seemed surprised Villaraigosa was performing so well but I was not. I have held the theory for a long time that in the end, the race will come down to Jerry Brown, Antonio Villaraigosa and perhaps Gavin Newsom with Villaraigosa winning by a few points.

Here is why:
1) Garamendi has long been a standing figure in California politics. He even ran in the 1982 California Democratic gubernatorial Primary but lost to Tom Bradley. He was a state senator but then was elected the Insurance Commissioner for California in 1990. In 2006, he ran for Lieutenant Governor against Conservative Tom McClintock and won by only four points. Garamendi's base is in Sacramento which he represented in the state legislature from 1974 to 1990. That did not help him in the primary for lieutenant governor in 06, because he lost that county by 5 points to Jackie Speier, the new congresswoman for California's 12th Congressional District (that district covers the Sunset District of San Francisco as well the northern part of San Mateo County). Garamendi won by racking up huge margins in Southern California, winning Los Angeles County by 29 points and accumulating a margin of 167,000 votes there, more than twice his state margin of victory which was 70,000 votes. Garamendi will probably lose the Southern California battle to Villaraigosa. From analyzing this data, Garamendi does not have a strong enough base to win the Democratic gubernatorial primary. It seems that time has passed by Garamendi.

2) Gavin Newsom is the charismatic young mayor of San Francisco. He has not run a statewide race before so there is no hard data outside of his home base of San Francisco to show how he will do statewide. I can speculate and we have some very good guesses to how Newsom will fare in the primary. When he first ran for mayor of San Francisco, he ran as a centrist Democrat, calling himself a moderate by that city’s standards. In the rest of California however, Newsom is viewed as very Liberal. He is young, extremely photogenic and articulate and could campaign in the style of Barack Obama. Like Obama, Newsom is reaching out to voters on the internet. He will dominate the blogosphere, facebook and twitter. Newsom’s problem is that his popularity does not seem to extend outside of San Francisco and even in San Francisco, he lost some popularity. State-wide he is viewed as too controversial on gay rights as his portrayal in Proposition 8 ads alienated some voters. This could hurt him among the 32% of the Democratic voters who supported Proposition 8. That vote came mostly from religious Hispanics and African Americans. This Proposition 8 stance will probably hurt in the general election. Also, the affair with his former campaign manager’s wife may return to haunt him. In the primary, Newsom will carry San Francisco but where else will he win? He will probably carry Marin County, just north of San Francisco because of his local roots. He can probably win university counties such as Yolo, Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Santa Barbara along with maybe San Luis Obispo and Butte counties. Still, the available amount of votes in those counties is too small to win. He is a progressive Liberal but so is Jerry Brown. Newsom will be too Liberal and controversial for the Central Valley and most of Southern California. If Newsom is able to get rid of his baggage and appear as an Obama “for change” Liberal, he should do better than expected. He is trying to win the Westside Los Angeles Liberals. They were not so warm to Villaraigosa during his recent primary. He could wage a battle in the Bay Area and beat Brown there. This is possible and if it does happen, it is unlikely Brown will obtain enough votes to win.

3) Jerry Brown is the Attorney General of California and was the Governor in the 1970’s. He was a popular Governor with progressive policies but since he was Governor a generation ago, I estimate that only 20%-25% of the voters remember Jerry Brown. He has reinvented himself, however by becoming mayor of Oakland and becoming Attorney General in 2006. He won 63%-37% against Rocky Delgadillo who was the Hispanic City Attorney for Los Angeles. This race reunited Brown with California’s voters. This large margin could bode well for Brown in the primary. Still, Brown will face stronger competition in the Gubernatorial primary from Villaraigosa and Newsom. In general, Villaraigosa would do well in Southern California and the Central Valley. For Jerry Brown, the key will be to beat Gavin Newsom in the Bay Area by racking up large margins in the East Bay and winning in San Jose. Villaraigosa may be competitive in San Jose because of its large Hispanic population. Jerry Brown will need to do well, as he did against Delgadillo, in the Sierras, and San Diego County. A swing group for all three main candidates could be Bay Area Hispanics. The prospect of a Hispanic Governor could appeal to them but they may be inclined to vote for someone from the Bay Area. Also, Jerry Brown will have to beat Newsom in the university counties which will be an arduous task. Yet, it really comes down to Jerry Brown getting enough votes against Newsom in the Bay Area to carry enough votes against the Los Angeles based and potential statewide support of Villaraigosa. Brown seems keenly aware of this based on his office’s recent decision to oppose Proposition 8. Still, Jerry Brown won by 18 points in the general election for Attorney General, a sign that he could still be extremely popular around the state.
4) Antonio Villaraigosa, the current mayor of Los Angeles is also the former Speaker of the state legislature and is a national Hispanic leader. He is popular in Los Angeles but the key to win will be a large turnout of Hispanics, his Los Angeles base and key Hispanic Congressional districts through the state. He needs to carry San Joaquin County. It is a swing area with Hispanics and voters from the Bay Area. In the 2008 California Democratic Presidential Primary, Hispanics made up 30% of the primary's voters. That is good news for Villaraigosa and because of that turnout, he should benefit if he can garner that support in a non Presidential primary year. Another strength of Villaraigosa’s is that he is popular with organized labor. Villaraigosa also did very well with African Americans in the Los Angeles mayoral election. He won white liberals in the Westside of Los Angeles so Villaraigosa could prevent Newsom and Brown from making inroads among them. Newsom’s strategy to win them may make that group more competitive. The key is turnout of the Hispanic voter and the basic support of the rest of his base because there may be a large turnout of white Liberals in the Bay Area for Newsom and Brown which might offset any increase in Hispanic turnout. Villaraigosa first has to become more known and appear as a leader to Hispanics. The problem is he may not even be very popular in his own city. On the March 3rd, 2009 mayoral primary, he won with only 55% of the vote. Still, this was a low turnout primary. This margin for Villaraigosa shows how his ratings are poor as a mayor, especially for education. Something else is that Villaraigosa has a general election later this year and he has to raise money for that. In the Gubernatorial election, if Villaraigosa were running against Newsom or Brown only, Villaraigosa would lose. Yet, if Brown and Newsom do split the vote, it could be sure victory for Villaraigosa. Gubernatorial primaries in California usually have low turnout so if Villaraigosa can energize enough Hispanics, this could be the formula he needs to win. Consider the math: If Hispanics are 30% of the primary vote and Villaraigosa wins them 3-1, he already has 23% of the vote. He needs probably 39% to win. He can win the other 16% with organized labor and split the Los Angeles Westside with Newsom and Brown.

If all four of these candidates run, this gubernatorial primary will be very competitive and draw clear lines among voter groups. If it goes the way I predict, it will come down to Brown and Villaraigosa with Villaraigosa winning by a slight margin because of his expected turnout and Brown’s inability to gather enough votes in the Bay Area. If Newsom is competitive, he will hamper Brown’s chances. If Brown plays his cards completely wrong and Newsom gets past his scandals, Newsom will be Villaraigosa’s main rival. This may change because Garamendi may be stronger than I expect after years of courting party leadership. Still, that is unlikely. Feinstein may decide to run. Brown may have done enough for the liberal Bay Area voter on his revised stand on Prop. 8. Villaraigosa may not have the turnout among his base to win. Still, this is a primary not to be underestimated. Leads will keep changing and the primary could generate rising stars for the Democratic Party. This is a battle between three groups of Democrats: Obama Democrats who are part of the facebook generation led by Newsom, the baby boomer Liberals led by Jerry Brown and the Hispanics lead by Villaraigosa. If the race did not shift from where it is now, Villaraigosa will be the winner.

Why the Republicans are not the dominant party

In 2004, all the pundits said that the Democrats were toast. They said that the Democrats might not be able to have a presidential candidate who could win if that candidate could not bridge the urban and rural divide. Well actually, Bush won because voters viewed family values as more important than the economy. Well now, someone could say the only reason Obama won is that voters viewed the economy as more important than values. Unfortunately, that is WRONG! Obama did not only win in the rust belt, he won in states in the West and in the Upper South. Also, Democrats did well at a Congressional level, kicking the last Republican Congressman out of New England and reducing the amount of Congressman in New York State down to three. Is all this sucess happening because of an unpopular Republican president? Mostly but there is another reason.
The Republicans have been tied to the religious Conservatives. McCain did worse than Bush everywhere except places in the South where the population was almost completely poor whites. In places up north, Obama improved a bit among that group except in Pennsylvania, he lost ground but only a few points. In Arkansas, McCain improved on Bush's percentage in almost every county. This is good for Republicans in the South but the problem is that it is only in the South. Most of the Republican Senators and leadership is in the South. As the Republicans continue to attach themselves to the South, they lose the West which used to be heavily Republican. Obama came within three points of winning Montana which in 2004, voted for Bush by 20 points. To see how this started, we should go back and look at the 80's.
In the 1980's, it was the decade of Reagan's not so silent anymore majority. Not only was he a popular president, he won everywhere against Mondale except for big northern central cities, a few rural counties in the south, some heavily Hispanic counties in the west, San Francisco and that was mainly it. In 1988, George H. W. Bush was able to win big states such as Illinois and Pennsylvania not because he carried about every rural county. He won with the economic conservatives in the suburbs. In Pennsylvania, Dukakis actually won the western part of the state but lost the eastern part because he could not win the suburbs. In the 1990's, Clinton won in the South partly because he was from there and the Democrats were not quite viewed as the party of the North. In 2000, Gore lost because of the Supreme Court's decision and he did well in some rural parts of the South, he could not win any states there. The Republicans were not yet tied to the Christian Conservatives so they were able to win Ohio and other states with large suburbs because the Gore did not do well enough in the urban areas. The reason of this trend in urban areas toward the Democrats is that voters there are usually not strong belief Christians and disagree with them on social issues. In 2004, Kerry did well in the urban areas but not ones in the South. Being unable to carry almost anything outside of a northern city or suburb cost him the election along with the values as I explained earlier.
Republicans truly are the party of the South. The only places they picked up house seats except for Kansas was in the South. When the Democrats were the party of the South in the 1920's, the only states they won were in the South. It was because the South is so different from the rest of the country. The Republicans became the party of the South because they became the party of religion. It seemed that they believed the only way to get rid of the Democrats was to win in their stronghold. The Republicans lost because they were the party of religion. As they get more conservative, they will win less votes and eventually start losing Montana and maybe even the Dakotas. The West has some religion but it is more of a libertarian place based on small government, not on religion. Even in Utah, Obama did much better than Kerry did. The only way for Republicans to win is if the Democrats do a horrible job or they start becoming more moderate. They could field moderate candidates but they have to shake off the Christian Conservatives. John McCain could not because he was forced to pick Palin. That resulted in him losing Florida because undecided voters in Palm Beach and Broward Counties did not want to vote for a Christian Conservative with no experience.
There is a hole Republicans could attack. We understand why Obama picked Rick Warren to speak at his inaugaration. He wanted to please everyone but there is this old saying that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Not only did it get gays angry, the Rick Warren pick may alienate some northern economic Conservatives who voted for Barack Obama because of social issues.
Even though the Republicans tried to reach out to Hispanic evangelicals, it did not work because Republicans are too Conservative on immigration. Although Obama is a Liberal, he does not alienate voters but the Conservative Republicans do. Yes, the Republicans have a long road ahead of them. They are no longer the party of just low taxes and small government. They are the party of the South and the evangelicals.
Please feel free to comment on this post.