I fear for the demographics shift in the decline. The steepest decline is in families with children, a natural conservative vote.

I think it’s very likely CA could end up losing a seat next year. Its outmigration rate over the last decade has been staggering.

I don’t know how they are going to do it.

Oregon and Washington, however, are gaining population relative to the rest of the US. Oregon is set to receive it’s 6th seat either in this census or the next one, and Washington is probably going to get a 10th soon as well.

Stop counting the illegals however, and the Democrats will lose about 6 seats in California.

The State Auditor is currently Mary Taylor, a Republican first elected in 2006 with 50.6% of the vote, and the only Republican (other than Supreme Court judges) currently holding statewide office. Despite three years in office, Taylor is unknown to most state voters – one recent poll showed 78% had no opinion of her. Her likely opponent is David Pepper, a Hamilton (Cincinnati) County Commissioner. Taylor would be slight favorite at this point.

The Governor’s race will be a knock-down, drag out affair between incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland and former Congressman John Kasich. Recent polls from Quinnipiac, the University of Cincinnati, and Rasmussen all show a dead heat.

The incumbent Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, is running for U.S. Senate, but she is not favored in the Democratic primary and may yet decide to seek re-election. If Brunner doesn’t run, the Democrats have State Representative Jennifer Garrison and Franklin County (that’s Columbus) Commissioner Marilyn Brown to choose from. Brown has long been a potent political name in Ohio. John Husted, former Speaker of the State House and now a State Senator, is the presumptive Republican nominee. This will also be a knock down, drag out affair, especially if it appears likely to decide control of the reapportionment commission. But Husted’s fund raising has gone well and he will be the early, if narrow, favorite unless Brunner runs for re-election.

Those three races, and not the state legislative races, will decide the reapportionment board in Ohio. The Republicans, however, do have an excellent chance to retake control of the State House next year.

If there was such a rule, there would already be 2 such districts in SC, as the bulk of our black folks live between Coulmbia and the coast, and it wouldn’t be that hard the draw the lines so as to make for 2 such districts.

I have already spoken with a GOP member of the state assembly who is on the committee responsible for re-districting, and he assures me that they can accomplish what I am suggesting, as long as they don’t squander the gubenatorial race next year. As a matter of fact, he said they would have liked to have gotten rid of Spratt in the 2001 redrawing, but were limited by the fact that they had a Democrat governor whom they had to negotiate with on the final bill.

Remember also, any challenge to the lines under the VRA, be it from the Justice Department or anyone else, will be reviewed by a SCOTUS that no longer contains Sandra Day O’Conner, who was usually the 5th liberal vote on racial issues. Kennedy usually sides with us on those issues.

2. Blacks in South Carolina (and honestly, everywhere in the South outside of huge urban cities), and generally very spread out. This makes it very difficult to draw heavily-black Districts (the most African-American district in the south is in the low 60s). There is no way that we could draw an 65% black district in South Carolina, let alone an 80% one.

Combining those two though, means we’ll probably see Spratt’s district pick up some Black Voters to make it about 40% black, thus making the other districts safer.

And that’s not even counting the illegals that have gone home because of the bad economy here.

Make no mistake, if the GOP takes the Indiana House next year, it will be good for the GOP.

I would add, the Indiana Secretary of State is currently pushing hard for redistricting reform that would take the politics (gerrymandering) out of redistricting. The GOP controlled Senate plans on passing a similar reform measure during next year’s session.

Even looking at the districts now, Spratt’s is at least R+10, and there are PLENTY of conservatives to spare in the upstate districts without endangering them.

Also, I don’t think the Democrats will draw Bachman out of her seat, mostly because they can flip the 2nd and 3rd instead by drawing in parts of St Paul and Minneapolis, which would make MN a 6-1 state. She’s also in the most Conservative area of the state, so it’s significantly easier to just make her seat safe and sweep all the others.

We’ll probably pick up a seat and draw spratt into the new majority black one, as that’ll help make the 1st and 2nd safer.

Assuming we don’t talk ourselves into losing the gubenatorial election next year, we will have complete control this time.

In addition to ensuring that the new seat we get is a center-right district, this will probably allow us to draw John Spratt out of his district, which should be electing a conservative already anyway. So, we would see a gain of 2 seats for the GOP, even though we only gain 1 from re-apportionment.

The truth is, there should not be ANY white Democrats elected in the South if the lines are drawn fairly.

You just know MN Dems would love to write Bachman’s seat out

Ohio: -2
Illinois: -1
Iowa: -1
Louisiana: -1
Massachusetts: -1
Michigan: -1
Minnesota: -1
New Jersey: -1
New York: -1
Pennsylvania: -1
Missouri: -1

MA, CT, NJ all slated to lose 1
NY 2

While states like GA, FL, UT, TX and NC slated to gain

really is important we hold Gov mansion in FL, GA, and TX and hold state house in Texas