Ok so, looking at it, I guess that the only CDs that would vote for the GOP candidate are:
This seems like a reasonable list, though I have a few thoughts. One, I assume you mean NE-03 rather then NE-02, as the Republican district in Nebraska. And what leads you to surmise that IL-06 and IL-14 would go Republican? Every county in the state of Illinois is carried by Rutherford. I used a map of what the state would have looked like if all of the Perot + Clinton votes had been combined in 1992. Bush didn't receive a majority in any Illinois congressional district that he carried that year, if I am not mistaken.
I meant the very rural seat covering most of NE.
What kinds of demographics were you thinking of? Is it possible that those two districts go for Leach, even though the counties in which they are in (the collar counties next to Chicago) all go Democratic? Rutherford wins McHenry, Kendall, and DuPage Counties by single-digit margins.
I think there is a urban-suburban vs exurban divide in the election - and Rutherford's vote is sufficiently concentrated in the OTL Democratic gerrymander that Leach eeks out wins in the those two seats. Leach does well enough in exurbs to narrowly win those two CDs.
I see. That makes sense. There were a few other districts on your list that I wanted to make sure of as well. You listed AZ-07, which is the central Phoenix district represented by Democrat Ruben Gallego. Hillary Clinton won that district, and Maricopa County is about as close here (~4 points) as it was in 2016. So that district would definitely be Democratic here. I think you meant to list AZ-06 (David Scheweikert's district), which is a Republican district and was carried by Trump. That district would go for Leach. In Florida, you listed FL-18 (Brian Mast's district). Trump won it in OTL, but here, Rutherford wins St. Lucie County by four points. Palm Beach County (which the district spills over into) is won by Rutherford by about the same margin that H. Clinton won it, while Martin County gives Leach ~58%, about four points less then Trump won it by. Do you think these numbers would be sufficient for a Democratic victory in this district?
Yep, oversight on my part.
I think the parts of Palm Beach County within FL-18 would lean towards Leach but not by enough to give him the seat. It would presumably be a very close result.
Yeah. It's still possible if Tulsa is 51-49 Leach, and the rest of the seat votes against him by a strong enough margin, but that's not really likely, is it?
Most of the counties in LA-03 voted for Leach, including Lafayette, home to the biggest city in the seat. I doubt Leach's loss margin in Lake Charles is big enough to account for that.
If you completely duplicated the results of the 2015 gubernatorial election in LA-03, then yes it votes for Rutherford.
Alright then. I agree with all of your other district options, which are very much in line with what I projected. Indiana, in particular, fascinates me. IN-05 includes Hamilton County, which gives over 60% of the vote to Leach. Hamilton casts the majority of votes in that district, and the rural counties wouldn't be enough to outweigh it, so it seems obvious to me that it would go to Leach. Todd Rokita (who I have as Leach's running mate in this scenario) represents IN-04, and I reckoned that it would go narrowly Democratic, given that Rutherford carries Tippecanoe County and Montgomery County, which contains Lafayette and Crawfordsville, enough to outweigh the areas in the western Indianapolis suburbs. And there would be no doubts about the states of the Northeast, or the others in the Midwest and West.
The bigger factor isn't the margin actually...it's the distribution of votes. Case in point - Florida.
You're right. I made some minor edits to the post, realizing that Leach actually won five districts each in Alabama and in Florida. Florida goes Democratic here by a margin of 56-43%, which is about the same margin as in Louisiana, Indiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming, on this map. And yet, Rutherford wins all but one district in Louisiana, Indiana, and North Carolina, all but two in Virginia, and sweeps both Wyoming (obviously) and Arkansas. Yet there are five Leach districts in Florida. And you made a good case as to why Leach would win those two districts in Illinois. So distribution of votes definitely does matter.
Nothing jumps out at me as wrong here...I am trying to find something to nitpick but I can't.
I see. I made an exhaustive effort to calculate the numbers among each demographic group, and these are the figures I came up with. Based upon the county and district results, I find it plausible that Rutherford does best among lower-income voters, and Leach among middle and upper-income ones. That corresponds to how the electorate voted in earlier decades. I also think the spread among white voters is reasonable. One thing that I've been trying to determine though, is how the white vote goes in each state, based upon these results and upon demographics. Leach definitely wins whites in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. But what about South Carolina? Georgia? North Carolina? Virginia? Or the Outer South? What about Arizona or Idaho, both of which are relatively narrow Democratic victories?
