Finding NE/MO (redistricting-wise)

SSP Labs, a division of Daily Kos Elections, has been busy cranking away, and today, we bring you an installment of Nebraska and Missouri.

We're also rolling out a new feature that we've been busy working on (and which I may have mentioned to a few of you that we met at Netroots Nation): a Google Maps overlay of new congressional districts. The format in which states provide their new districts is rarely accessible?after all, does anyone really know where Census Block 170310611001014 is? (5 points if you do and can say what's special about it!) So we've decided to parse that data into a much more user-friendly form?zoomable down to street level. (You try doing that with those clunky PDF maps that state legislatures produce!)

So first, Nebraska:

Faced with some slight egg on their collective faces with President Obama's nabbing of the NE-02 electoral vote in 2008, the Republicans in the Nebraska unicam tried to strengthen the second district by diving into western Sarpy County instead of the eastern (and less Republican) areas. However, thanks to population growth, the needle only moves a few hundredths of a percent away from us. The second had been overpopulated, so while the part of Sarpy that it does get is more Republican, there's much less of Sarpy overall in it now; the swing is only 0.02% away from Team Blue.

Otherwise, there's remarkable constancy here, with each district having moved between 0.13% and 0.18% towards the Republicans NE-01 moving a few hundredths of a percent away from us and NE-03 moving about 1.5% in our direction (not that it really matters), and each district having 80% or more retained from its old incarnation. (The GOP did rearrange some outlying counties, removing, for example, ancestrally Dem-leaning counties from the 1st into the 3rd.)

Then, there's Missouri:

Having lost a seat (and thanks to some truly spineless Dems), the Missouri GOP set out on screwing Russ Carnahan ... and they, indeed, succeeded. The old MO-03 is chopped into four bits, with it making up no more than 30% of any new district. Notably, slightly more is put into the new 1st than the new 2nd. The 2nd?which will be open given that current GOP Rep. Todd Akin is busy committing voter fraud running for Senate?wouldn't be a particularly soft landing spot for Carnahan, at 46% Obama.

With Sam Graves' 6th district spanning the northern tier of the state, sophomore GOPer Blaine Luetkemeyer's district also experiences a significant change (leaving him with 61% new constituents). However, with the removal of Columbia and Boone County, the new 3rd is actually a slight improvement for him from the old 9th. Boone County is plunked into freshman GOPer Vicki Hartzler's new 4th, boosting her district from 38% Obama to 42% Obama. I would say this could be ripe for an Ike Skelton comeback ... but let's be realistic.

Not much else has changed, with some help for Sam Graves. Freshman Billy Long's district stays largely constant, and Emanuel Cleaver's district adds three rural counties, which drops his district 2% in Obama performance. � la Dan Lipinski though, this drop may be desired (by Cleaver), since those three rural counties surely adds white Republicans ... who are likely less of a threat to Cleaver than, well, white Democrats in the rest of Jackson/Cass County. This, of course, does NOT absolve the four state House Dems who caved to help override Nixon's veto ...

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/GZQYz4x4apY/-Finding-NE-MO-(redistricting-wise)

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