Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Electoral College Update

In my look at congressional districts yesterday, I neglected what was grabbing the attention of the talking heads yesterday, namely the shift in the Electoral College.

Looking ahead to 2012 is mostly pointless as two years is an eternity in politics and much could change, but let's look at the basics of it. Mr. Obama had significant momentum and even if the economy recovers, it seems unlikely to me that he is likely to win any of the states he lost in 2008 to Mr. McCain.

That starts the Republican off with 180 votes (for simplicity, I'm giving the Republican all of Nebraska's 5 votes rather than the 4-1 split in 2008). I think it is not unreasonable to think that Virginia and Indiana will swing back to the Republican column based off more recent elections. That bumps the Republican to 204.
Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina will be tougher and that's where other factors come in to play (like who the Republican nominee is for example). While these have been reddish states in the past, they are more purple and will require more effort to swing back into the red column. Wins in these three states bring the Republican to 266.
This means that to defeat Mr. Obama, the Republican will need to take those three large purple states and one more of the straddlers (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, or New Hampshire). Nevada would probably be the easiest, followed by New Hampshire, but neither of these is automatic.
The census has made things slight more difficult for Mr. Obama, but the path to his reelection still remains mostly the same: hold the traditional blue states, keep most of the bluish-purple little states, and hold one of the big purple states (Florida being the ideal but North Carolina, Virgina, or Ohio would do in a pinch). Obviously much can and will change in the next couple of years, but the path in a broad sense looks fairly straightforward.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

2011 Congressional Districts

The 2010 Census figures are being released today. Many states stay the same but a few will need to redraw the congressional districts. The changes are:

Massachusetts: 9 districts (-1)
New York: 27 districts (-2)
New Jersey: 12 districts (-1)
Pennsylvania: 18 districts (-1)
South Carolina: 7 districts (+1)
Georgia: 14 districts (+1)
Florida: 27 districts (+2)
Ohio: 16 districts (-2)
Michigan: 14 districts (-1)
Illinois: 18 districts (-1)
Missouri: 8 districts (-1)
Louisiana: 6 districts (-1)
Texas: 36 districts (+4)
Iowa: 4 districts (-1)
Arizona: 9 districts (+1)
Nevada: 4 districts (+1)
Utah: 4 districts (+1)
Washington: 10 districts (+1)

Each state has it's own rules and deadlines as to when it redraws the lines, but it would seem that most states will have everything in place by Jan. 1, 2012. Most will probably be before that, but the first maps probably won't be available for nearly a year.

Ohio, specifically, has a commission that will consist of the Governor, Auditor, Secretary of State, and two more selected by the Republican and Democratic Legislative leadership (meaning that they will probably pick a Republican and Democrat from the Legislature). That would mean that the commission will be 4-1 Republican and will have until Oct. 5, 2011 to redraw the districts.

Nothing is certain but many political observers think that OH-10 (Kucinich - D) will be divided among it's neighbors (OH-11, OH-13, and OH-14). Not much else has been said as to who else will be without a district in 2012 but I wouldn't be surprised if an attempt was made to squeeze OH-9, OH-13, and OH-17 into two districts with some bleed off being taken from OH-5 and OH-16.

Incidentally, OH-9, OH-10, OH-11, OH-13, and OH-17 are the 5 districts that stayed Democrat in the 2010 elections. So, I would expect to see some effort made to keep the 12 Republicans entering the House in 2011 and drop the Democrats from 5 to 3. But I don't know if there are any rules that I'm unaware that will hamstring the commission to keep a certain breakdown based on population.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Major Fire in Israel

A huge fire broke out yesterday in the Carmel region, just south of Haifa.



Arson is strongly suspected. High winds and 6 years of drought have fueled the fire and over 60 people have been confirmed as killed by the fire or related activities. More details can be learned here.