Yesterday, I covered the downstate part of my plan to gerrymander Illinois to elect more Democrats (see it here).

Today, I cover the Chicagoland part, with the 12 remaining districts. The principle is still the same: try to elect as many Democrats as possible, while trying to keep townships and Community Areas (within the City of Chicago itself) and NOT violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act to protect Majority-Minority districts.

Maps and more, after the flip.

I was reading bschak's great diary series on cartograms of Congressional Districts (check it out, here), and a discussion ensured on how to change Illinois' district boundaries' around to elect more Democrats.

Given Illinois' heavily Democratic nature, it seems beyond common sense that one could draw more districts that voted for Kerry (even though his performance downstate was ABYSMAL, losing normally Democratic counties like Macoupin and Montgomery). So I decided to take a look, crunch some population numbers, do some good ol' packing and cracking (and placing multiple incumbents into the same district).

So the results? I got 11 districts that voted for Kerry, with 2 more Bush-voting districts that plausibly electing Democrats (one being Melissa Bean). This includes 4 majority-minority districts, represented by Bobby Rush, Danny Davis, Luis Gutierrez, and Jesse Jackson Jr.

Maps and more, after the flip.

Nevada 3 is one of those districts you expect to be competitive. Composed of only sections of Clark County outside central Las Vegas, it was designed to be such - Gore won this district in 2000, but went 50-49 for Bush in '04.

Yesterday, I parsed down a similar RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics from FL-22 - I will do this with the Hafen-Porter matchup, which the poll pegs at 51-43 Porter, which is outside the MoE. Porter's strong-lean breakdown is 42-9; Hafen's 37-7.

Btw, you can watch Hafen's new ad here, although you would have to forgive the mis-syncing of the audio and video. (It looks really strange.)

Breakdown of the poll after the flip.

A Battle's heating up in South Florida, in the 22nd Congressional District. State Senate Minority Leader Ron Klein (D) is taking on 13-term Republican Clay Shaw.

This Being South Florida, you would naturally expect this to be competitive, especially in a district that voted 53% for Kerry, and with Shaw voting with Bush 90% of the time! (or so Klein says in his ad, here. Shaw, incidentally, won by 522 votes over Elaine Bloom (D) in 2000, but this was before redistricting.

Many people were dismayed when when RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics released a poll showing Klein losing to Shaw 52-44, putting Shaw above the "50% safe line", and worse, outside the MOE: (52-3.1=48.9, 44+3.1=47.1)

Deconstruction of this poll occurs, after the flip.

I was reading this morning's Chicago Tribune, when I found this cute little nugget about our favorite President and his favorite Senator from the Nutmeg State:

Apparently, the polling firm, both had hired - DataUSA - made up quite a bunch of data, and now the shit's hitting the fan for them.

More on the flip, and what this means...

If you didn't know there were primary elections tonight, well...I'm not sure what to say to you, other than this diary is not for you.

Lots of contested primaries, fun races to watch (if you're anything like me). As usual, the results link list:

Alabama
New Jersey, Republican
New Jersey, Democratic
CA-50, Runoff
Iowa
New Mexico
California, Other
Mississippi, courtesy of jorndorff
Montana, also courtesy of jorndorff
South Dakota

Polls close at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific in Alabama, New Jersey, and Mississippi.
9pm/6pm: New Mexico and South Dakota
10pm/7pm: Iowa and Montana
11pm/8pm: California.

More good stuff on the flip:

Yes, it's primary night in West Virginia and Nebraska.

West Virginia Results are available here.
Nebraska Results are here.

Exciting stuff on the flip.

I attempted to analyze the generic Congressional Ballot poll from Pew and what it means.

I detailed my methods and covered the Midwest here. The Northeast is here

I focused on the rest of the country today, as in not the Midwest and not the Northeast.

As I said yesterday: I assume the distrct-by-district swings will be the same. This is a perhaps flawed assumption, but it is reliable enough to give us a baseline. If you feel this assumption is flawed to the point that my diary is pointless, feel free NOT to read on.

Again, of course, my methods aren't perfect. The swing will not be the same in each district, the candidates will be different, GOTV ops, and fundraising, as well as the political climate and other district-specific conditions. But it's a start. I haven't figured out to quantatively include those yet.

Results on the flip.

I attempted to analyze the generic Congressional Ballot poll from Pew and what it means.

I detailed my methods and covered the Midwest here.

I focused on the Northeast today: Maryland, Delaware, West Virgnia(wasn't sure if this belonged here), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine.

As I said yesterday: I assume the distrct-by-district swings will be the same. This is a perhaps flawed assumption, but it is reliable enough to give us a baseline. If you feel this assumption is flawed to the point that my diary is pointless, feel free NOT to read on.

Again, of course, my methods aren't perfect. The swing will not be the same in each district, the candidates will be different, GOTV ops, and fundraising, as well as the political climate and other district-specific conditions. But it's a start. I haven't figured out to quantatively include those yet.

Results on the flip.

Reading all this stuff about the our "leads" in the generic congressional ballot got me wondering, how would this work on a district-by-district basis. Using the Pew Poll and its regional data, I projected a swing in each district.

My methods on more after the flip.

This is a case I'm presenting to my AP Gov class tommorow; sure, it's not totally related, but I did throw in some stuff thats sure to draw flak from the conservatives in my class.

While American politics on the surface often appears to be trending toward egalitarianism and democracy, it is actually neither as democratic nor equal as often portrayed. This brand of political thinking is nothing new or radical, and was exemplified in the elitist views of C Wright Mills and foretold by Alexis de Tocqueville. Furthermore, no degree of constitutional mandate will ever erase self-imposed de facto separation - the American sense of equality is unattainable......

Bob Matsui's widow, Doris Matsui, is running for his vacated seat, which she apparently announced today.

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Doris Matsui announced Wednesday she will seek the congressional seat held for 26 years by her late husband. She immediately received the endorsement of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi."

more on the flipside

People have been doing this for the 2006 Senate Elections, so I'll try and do this for the House. I don't claim to know too much about most of these areas, so if you guys could help me out if I say anything really stupid/nonsensical.

Races Decided by <5% Margin:

Rep Wash-08:
Dave Reichert new won it by 51-47, but it was an open seat, so it probably won't be competitive next cycle.

so, as we're all coping, we should look forward to the future. we have opportunities to take our country back from the godnazi's and unfortnately some of our own becoming vulnerable.

here the governor and senate races in the 2005-2006 cycle, if we want to get our country back, why not get started on them now(sigh, this is more fun than my retarded schoolwork, which has been impossible to get through these days.....)

but bottom line for now is: NO COMPROMISING OF DEMOCRATIC/PROGRESSIVE VALUES.
we're democrats. we're good at being progressive.
no matter how hard we try, we cant beat republicans at being republicans. we stick to our values of equality, fairness, and tolerance. we can do this.