Washington Will Gain a 10th District!

Well, the data for state populations has been released by the US Census Bureau for 2010, and Washington will gain a 10th district. Originally it looked like Oregon was going to, but continued population growth in Washington changed that. Washington gained 830,419 people, or a growth of 14.1%, to reach a total population of 6,274,540. Along with Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, South Carolina, and Georgia will gain one seat, while Florida gains two and Texas gains an impressive four. Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania all lost one seat, while New York and Ohio both lost two.

I will state off the bat, I HATE gerrymandering! It looks wrong on a map and really unfairly creates districts that either do not represent what the state thinks as a whole, or what individual communities think. Luckily, here in Washington (along with six other states), redistricting is done by a independent commission - two Democrats and two Republicans, presided over by a non-partisan, non-voting member. A 2/3 vote is required for any redistricting to pass. This has prevented ridiculous gerrymandering seen in Washington during 50's and 60's and in states like Illinois, Florida, Maryland, and New York (to name only a few).

Instead, this commission, which has redistricted the state after the 1990 census, tends to protect incumbents, which in general aligns with what the districts' inhabitants think. This does create some odd looking districts, but that is also due to the fact that Washington's geography is very complicated west of the Cascades. Since seven of the nine districts are currently based in Western Washington, it creates crowding. For example WA - 6 encompasses all of the Olympic Peninsula, half of the Kitsap Peninsula, and the city of Tacoma. Tacoma is technically connected to the district via the Puget Sound and it is the basis, along with Bremerton on the Kitsap Peninsula for Rep. Norm Dicks support.

Two things are sure for the redistricting - the new 10th district will be in Western Washington, as that is where the most growth has been. While the Tri-cities area of Eastern Washington had seen explosive growth, it will only make its district (the fourth) become smaller. The for sure thing is that with a new district in Washington, one of the Western based districts will have to spill over into Eastern Washington (this is also due to the fact that the sixth districts population has not grown at the same rate as others, so it will need to grow larger). I personally think it will be the third district that just elected freshman Republican, Jamie Herrera. This will likely make the third district quite Republican as it expands into Yakima and Klickitat counties. As I said earlier, the commission loves to support incumbents.

A Kirkland (?) based computer programmer/engineer named Dave Bradlee has developed his own program for redistricting, which is superb and can be found here: http://www.gardow.com/davebradlee/redistricting/launchapp.html

Here is one possible interpretation of where the new district will be - however one should note that this is not too likely because I have gerrymandered the 8th district to make it Democrat and I also made the third district at least competitive, since it includes most of the Democrat leaning Olympia area.

I think what will most likely happen is for the 5-4 Democrat majority to increase to a 6-4 Democrat majority. However, the third district, currently (according to the Cook Index) a equally split between Democrats and Republicans, will become very Republican and the eight district will be elongated south into more rural areas, giving up the liberal leaning Eastside suburbs of Seattle.

-Nicholas

Post Analysis of the 2010 Washington Election

This last election was incredibly brutal for Democrats - one only has to look at the incredible gain of 63 seats by Republicans in the House of Representatives and a moderate gain of 6 seats in the Senate. However, the wave's effect on Washington and the West Coast were largely muted. Of all the House seats in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Nevada, only three were picked up by Republicans - One in Washington, Nevada, and Idaho. No West Coast state saw a senatorial position change hands (despite two very close races) and on the gubernatorial side, there was actually a net gain of one Democrat (California).

Moving back to Washington..... Three-term senator Patty Murray (D) managed to pull off a victory for her fourth term in a tough election cycle - one that easily could have gone Republican. Her opponent was Republican Dino Rossi, a well liked moderate who served in the state senate and also ran two extremely close campaigns for the governors position. Arguably, there really isn't a better candidate for Republicans to run and win in Washington, since no conservative Republican would be able to appeal to the fair sized number of independents in Western Washington and the increasing number of centrist Republicans in the Spokane area.

Rossi's only problem is that people have seen him come close, but still fail to win an election, twice. The effect that this creates is that instead of the voters seeing "the new comer" vs. "the institution", they see perennial loser vs. perennial winner. In addition, the much more conservative Eastern Washington, where a majority of the Tea Party activism existed did not get their candidate, Clint Didier. When he lost in the primaries, Rossi did not win Tea Party support, so even though it was an incredibly Republican year, as I said earlier, that wave that hit Washington was in a much more muted form. Finally, Murray was not with inexperience or a large base of support. Together with big name politicians - President Obama came by twice, Vice President Biden once, and First Lady Michelle once. She effectively managed to energize the deeply Democratic King county. Originally, turnout there was expected to be around 66-67%, however it turned out to be over 71%, higher than the state average. By the end of election day, it became pretty clear that Murray had secured a fourth term - infact it is a general rule that for a state election, a Republican most win 40% in King county and Snohomish, Kitsap, and Pierce counties by meaningful margins. Rossi ended up winning only aroung 35% in King, and barely winning Pierce county. Murray barely won Kitsap, but had a more meaningful lead of 52% in Snohomish county. This is not to say that if things had gone differently, Murray would still have won the election.

Tomorrow I'll be going over Washington re-districting. In addition, President Obama will be releasing the new 2010 Census numbers, so we will see what states gain/lose districts. Washington may gain one, Oregon has a chance too, especially if Washington does not, but that is less likely. Anyway, it shall be interesting too see what happends. : )

-Nicholas

Political Northwest: A New Blog About Politics in the Northwest

Hi all! For awhile now, I have been meaning to make a blog about politics in the Northwest. Politics intrigues me, especially how people can slowly, or quickly (like this last election has shown) change from party to party. I am a resident of the beautiful city of Seattle, Washington, so in general I'll probably focus a majority of my topics on Washington State versus, Oregon, Idaho, or the Mountain West. However, if I start to get bored with my home state or the region, I'd more than enjoy discussing national politics as well.

First off, I will try to write my analysis of events, politicians, etc. as unbiased as I can. I promise not to be opinionated or show my support for certain candidates. I also promise not to turn my blog into a liberal spewing or conservative preaching forum. What I write will be my ideas, but they will be centered on the politics - what politicians do, what their re-election chances are, etc.

Anyway, either today or in the next few days, I'll be going over the changes that Washington saw during this last election cycle - one that was brutal to Democrats, but its effects were considerably more muted here in Washington and neighboring Oregon.

Thanks for reading and I hope to be able to start insightful dialogue about upcoming elections, etc. as time goes by.

-Nicholas.