Oregon passed a Congressional map today. It's a 5-1 Dem gerrymander with 4 districts containing, or bordering, the pizza'd city of Portland. Thread on all 6 districts below, and check out our full analysis here: rrhelections.com/index.php/2021… (1/9)
OR-1 (D+12-->D+16) is still based in western Portland and suburban Washington County, but drops some rural conservative areas and is now even safer for Suzanne Bonamici.
Because the map double-crosses the Cascades, OR-2 (R+11-->R+13) becomes even more of a vote sink, losing the blue city of Bend and picking up red SW Oregon, which had made OR-4 competitive.
OR-3 (D+24-->D+19) is still based in Portland, but now cracks the red parts of suburban Clackamas.
OR-4 (R+1-->D+3), which had inched its way to swing-district status, loses right-trending inland SW Oregon and retains both college towns, Eugene and Corvallis. Should be enough for Peter DeFazio to avoid 2020-type scares. (5/9)
OR-5 (D+2) is politically unchanged, the one concession R's were able to draw, although it takes in a lot of new territory. Kurt Schrader (D) now faces a tug-of-war seat, with red rurals between blue pockets in Portland/suburbs and Bend across the Cascades. (6/9)
OR-6 (D+4) takes in Salem and R-leaning rural areas, and then snakes up to the edge of Portland. It was very close for governor in 2018, but generally Dem federally. Schrader could potentially run here, which would make OR-5 much more competitive. (7/9)
Overall, this is a reasonably secure 5-1 map given Oregon Dems' record in federal races, but moderate trends in the upper Willamette Valley would put at least 2 seats in play for R's. A clean map would likely have split 4-2. (8/9)
Legislative R's will be questioned for accepting this map instead of punting the process to state court, but they secured incumbent-protection legislative maps in return.
Finally, this map would be redrawn for '24 if OR's independent redistricting ballot measure is successful.
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Most common comment at today's Missouri caucus: "I had no idea this was happening until I heard it on the news yesterday."
Zero campaign presence here at what should be one of the 5 largest caucuses in the state.
One hour in and no votes yet. They're currently explaining Missouri plan judicial appointments. I have spent hours every week thinking and writing about elections for years and I'm bored stiff...
New York state Sen. Kevin Parker (D) has been accused of raping a Brooklyn woman in 2004. His alleged victim is now suing Parker under NY's Adult Survivors Act, a law which Parker voted for last year. gothamist.com/news/ny-state-…
The rape is alleged to have occurred 1 year before Sen. Kevin Parker (D) was arrested for punching a traffic agent in the face as the agent was writing a summons for the senator's double-parked car. nytimes.com/2005/03/13/nyr…
In 2005 a legislative staffer accused Sen. Kevin Parker (D) of threatening her in an Albany restaurant after she accused him of shoving and hitting her when she was working as his office manager. nypost.com/2005/02/21/att…
Happy Election Night! Polls have closed in the eastern half of the beautiful Commonwealth of Kentucky. Follow us all night long for coverage of statewide, legislative, and municipal races as well as ballot measures.
We're still here. With no KY counties fully reporting, we don't have any predicative results yet. Remember that in 2019 (the last #KYGov) year, large-scale mail voting wasn't a thing yet. So these early returns are uncharted territory.
Taylor County, KY is 97% in and is 57% Cameron (R). It was 61% Bevin (R) in 2019, so that's a good early result for Beshear (D).
Looking at this NY #AD27 special election results map it's easy to see why the NY Assembly map was thrown out as an unconstitutional gerrymander. The unpopulated junk yards of Willets Point & Flushing Meadows Corona Park are used to connect two completely distinct neighborhoods🧵
The conservative GOP voting areas of Whitestone & College Point are lumped in with Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens but the pairing is done in a way to ensure block voting Orthodox will always out vote other parts of the district, wasting as many GOP votes as possible.
Of course the new 2024 map will do nothing to fix this as the Independent Redistricting Commission punted on drawing entirely new Assembly maps & instead simply made minor tweaks to the Democrat drawn gerrymander.
This article is worth a read. Of course what the article doesn't mention is that Sam Bankman Fried & FTX was playing both sides in #NY03 in 2022 by funnelling money to both George Santos (R) and to Democrat Josh Lafazan. 🧵 1/5 coindesk.com/consensus-maga…
FTX executives paid off Democrat #NY03 candidate Josh Lafazan's personal student loans & donated to his campaign. Lafazan took in over $710K from FTX. 2/ theleaderonline.com/single-post/pi…
Santos was clearly involved in a legal donor sharing agreement with Michelle Bond, the girlfriend of FTX executive Ryan Salame, who was running in GOP primary in next door #NY01. Maxed out legal donors to Bond donated to Santos in exchange for Santos donors giving to Bond. 3/
From @cinyc9, here's a comparison of the NY Assembly lines proposed by the commission today against the 2022 lines that were struck down on procedural grounds. Changes are modest in most of the state, although the most egregious district is gone: 1/ davesredistricting.org/join/30d4fc15-…
The most significant change is the cleanup of #AD101, a Catskills-to-Utica GOP sink that was a poster child for gerrymandering. The old map wasn't ruled a gerrymander, but this is likely a sign that the commission thinks unchecked gerrymandering won't be allowed. 2/
Elsewhere, changes are very modest, and virtually zero in NYC. Republicans picked up 5 seats on the old map in 2022, which was Dem-leaning, but not as egregious as the congressional Hochulmander or the 2010's Assembly map. 3/