The maps have passed the first round and will be open to public scrutiny. I'm sure you'll read how the Democrats are going to pick up 5 seats and it's a big win for them. It could be, but my preliminary analysis says that's unlikely.
I can't go precinct by precinct but I do see four districts flipping to the Democrats, a safe Democratic, a likely Democratic, and 2 lean Democratic. Using a formula of 1 seat for safe, 0.8 for likely, and 0.6 for lean that's only 3 seats. In addition, two Republican seats appear to be toss-ups and two are only lean Republican. So that'd put the pick-up for the Democrats at 4.8 Republican seats.
This is where all the Democrats will finish.
The problem is that the two Democratic held Central Valley seats look lean Republican, three other seats look like toss-ups, one seat is lean Democratic, and one likely Democratic. That'd be 3.3 seats for Republicans to pick-up.
We get a net 1.5 seats for the Democrats. I'll reserve my judgement for when I have more definitive numbers but the Democrats will only pick up 5 seats if the roof falls in and everything goes wrong for the GOP.
But are they fairly drawn?
ReplyDeleteFair isn't the word I'd use. I equate fair with providing both parties with equal opportunity in swingy seats. This map could've been drawn just a little differently to do that. I do think the maps were drawn without partisan bias. The process has been transparent, so it's tough for someone to get away with something.
ReplyDeleteThat said, you can push the South Bay district a little more Democratic by including Santa Monica instead of Mar Vista, Palms, and Culver City. Sometimes, they have to split cities when balancing populations. They could easily include more Democratic districts instead of Republican and it wouldn't be noticed.