OTL Election maps resources thread
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
Abhakhazia
Banned
Probably enough to swing them the way they did, I would expect 6 or 7 seats to fall into the GOP column this election.
I am so, so confused by the 47th result, since that area is extremely Republican normally. All of West Central Illinois is heavily Republican (with the exception of Peoria) and I'm sure the region went at least 60% Romney.
Otherwise, not a lot of surprises with this map. The points I made still stand.
Alex Richards
Donor
Finishing off Lincolnshire, it's South Holland, where again I've had to reconstruct the 2003 map. Labelled ward map for 2007 on here.
South Holland is even flatter and less interesting than Boston, which formerly formed North Holland. The only town of note is Spalding, which is named after an Anglian group here who may have retained their administrative independence from the Five Boroughs when the Vikings conquered the area, and nothing of particular note has happened since. With the draining of the fens, agricultural production increased, and the area has become a centre of bulb production, including Tulips exploiting links with continental Holland. This has been commemorated since 1959 with an annual flower festival, though the popularity of it has been declining in recent decades.
Beyond the town, Crowland is home to the medieval Croyland Abbey, Long Sutton was once one of the richest communities in Lincolnshire and Sutton Bridge is reputed to be rough location where King John lost the Crown Jewels while crossing the Wash. Meanwhile Holbech is so insignificant that it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page
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Politically this is part of the solidly Conservative South Holland and the Deepings Constituency, and likewise the council has been dominated by the party since 2003 at least, though I unfortunately can't find any information on the party control before then. While it may look like the council is quite competitive, this is almost entirely due to Independents, with a vast array of major parties- the Lib Dems, Labour, UKIP, the Greens and even the BNP- standing in only one or two scattered wards. Often only one seat in a multiseat ward is effectively contested.
Suffice to say, if UKIP actually put up contestants in all the wards it'll be quite a revolution in the politics of the council even if they win very few.
South Holland is even flatter and less interesting than Boston, which formerly formed North Holland. The only town of note is Spalding, which is named after an Anglian group here who may have retained their administrative independence from the Five Boroughs when the Vikings conquered the area, and nothing of particular note has happened since. With the draining of the fens, agricultural production increased, and the area has become a centre of bulb production, including Tulips exploiting links with continental Holland. This has been commemorated since 1959 with an annual flower festival, though the popularity of it has been declining in recent decades.
Beyond the town, Crowland is home to the medieval Croyland Abbey, Long Sutton was once one of the richest communities in Lincolnshire and Sutton Bridge is reputed to be rough location where King John lost the Crown Jewels while crossing the Wash. Meanwhile Holbech is so insignificant that it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page
.Politically this is part of the solidly Conservative South Holland and the Deepings Constituency, and likewise the council has been dominated by the party since 2003 at least, though I unfortunately can't find any information on the party control before then. While it may look like the council is quite competitive, this is almost entirely due to Independents, with a vast array of major parties- the Lib Dems, Labour, UKIP, the Greens and even the BNP- standing in only one or two scattered wards. Often only one seat in a multiseat ward is effectively contested.
Suffice to say, if UKIP actually put up contestants in all the wards it'll be quite a revolution in the politics of the council even if they win very few.
There are quite a few unopposed Tories in there. I can see a 3-seat ward in the northwest in 2007 where it looks like only Tories stood there.
I can't imagine that it will be the case next time *cough*UKIP*cough*.
Have you missed a few little men off the 2015 map, from the 2011 map, or are those wards changing to being single seat instead?
I can't imagine that it will be the case next time *cough*UKIP*cough*.
Have you missed a few little men off the 2015 map, from the 2011 map, or are those wards changing to being single seat instead?
Alex Richards
Donor
There are quite a few unopposed Tories in there. I can see a 3-seat ward in the northwest in 2007 where it looks like only Tories stood there.
I can't imagine that it will be the case next time *cough*UKIP*cough*.
Have you missed a few little men off the 2015 map, from the 2011 map, or are those wards changing to being single seat instead?
Damn, they're missed off. Fixed
Continuing in a similar vein, it's Britain's smallest county, Rutland. Labelled ward map here.
Rutland is a county with a long history of conflicting claims to administrative control. While probably a separate county since the 12th Century, the seat of the Duke of Rutland is in Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, and various administrative links have grouped it with Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and even Nottinghamshire as well as Leicestershire. With the reforms of 1974 it was grouped with the latter as a rural district, but was restored as a separate county in 1996 after a strong public petition. Ironically as its status remained a district council but was granted the ability to use the county council name, the full name is Rutland County Council District Council.
The only towns are the county seat, Oakham, who's castle features a wall of horseshoes given by various members of Royalty and the Peerage on visits, and Uppingham, while at the heart of the county is Rutland Water, the largest reservoir in England by surface area.
A long time ago I described Daventry as depressingly like the Unreformed House of Commons. Rutland clearly took this as a challenge and went even further. The council was non-partisan until 2003 when the Conservatives took control and have been securing dominance since. Not only is the main opposition from independents, with a minor showing from the Lib Dems, not only are there vast numbers of uncontested elections- including a couple where an independent joined the party and thus no longer faced opposition, but this is quite possibly the only part of the country where Duverger's Law actually holds. Labour and the Greens dropped out after the 2003 election, followed by UKIP in 2007- probably due to coming second in the popular vote but winning no seats. By 2011 the Lib Dems formed the only party other than the Conservatives standing in any seats here.
Since 2011 however, 3 independents have joined UKIP and one Lib Dem has defected to the Green Party, which may be a promise of the county finally entering the 21st Century.
Thande
Donor
Nice work, Alex. I've been to Rutland and frankly I'm not surprised it feels like the Unreformed House of Commons. While I was there, in a bookshop I bought a book about the history of the Whig Party that had been put at the back of the shelf because it was dangerously radical (well not really, but that was the joke). Rutland also has a nice motto, Multum in parvo ("Much from little", reflecting the fact that it is England's smallest county), and one advantage of being stuck in 1723 is that the council hasn't heard of these newfangled 'expensive horrible logos' so it still uses the coat of arms.
Back to America: after NY and IL's gerrymandered horror, Ares mentioned above that America needs nonpartisan boundary commissions. Well, one state is famous for having one: Iowa.
As Ballotpedia puts it:
Iowa also requires this ILSA to draw boundaries based on not splitting counties unless absolutely necessary. Hence these rather blocky districts aside from those covering the cities and towns, which are twisty, but because of the strangely fractal way American municipalities define their area (as Ares noted above) rather than because they are gerrymandered.
Below is the House of Representatives; I will do the Senate in a bit. Like Illinois, Iowa has a setup where they draw the Senate districts and then cut them in half to make House districts. This system might be more common than I realised.
Anyway, you can see from the number of unopposed districts that gerrymandering is not the sole reason why America tends to have a lot of unopposed lower-level elections. However, these districts are generally pretty competitive and many of the results were very close. There was also a decent showing for independents in a few districts.
Overall, though Iowa's system is not perfect, it is certainly better than most American states'. It's sometimes criticised that the American presidential primary system somewhat arbitrarily always lets Iowa go first, but let's face it--if you held a competition with all the states for going first in the primaries, based on who has the best commitment to democratic ideals, Iowa would probably win anyway.
(well not really, but that was the joke). Rutland also has a nice motto, Multum in parvo ("Much from little", reflecting the fact that it is England's smallest county), and one advantage of being stuck in 1723 is that the council hasn't heard of these newfangled 'expensive horrible logos' so it still uses the coat of arms.Back to America: after NY and IL's gerrymandered horror, Ares mentioned above that America needs nonpartisan boundary commissions. Well, one state is famous for having one: Iowa.
As Ballotpedia puts it:
Iowa also requires this ILSA to draw boundaries based on not splitting counties unless absolutely necessary. Hence these rather blocky districts aside from those covering the cities and towns, which are twisty, but because of the strangely fractal way American municipalities define their area (as Ares noted above) rather than because they are gerrymandered.
Below is the House of Representatives; I will do the Senate in a bit. Like Illinois, Iowa has a setup where they draw the Senate districts and then cut them in half to make House districts. This system might be more common than I realised.
Anyway, you can see from the number of unopposed districts that gerrymandering is not the sole reason why America tends to have a lot of unopposed lower-level elections. However, these districts are generally pretty competitive and many of the results were very close. There was also a decent showing for independents in a few districts.
Overall, though Iowa's system is not perfect, it is certainly better than most American states'. It's sometimes criticised that the American presidential primary system somewhat arbitrarily always lets Iowa go first, but let's face it--if you held a competition with all the states for going first in the primaries, based on who has the best commitment to democratic ideals, Iowa would probably win anyway.
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Thande
Donor
I would say the US state legislature that most reminds me of one of our councils is Maryland (House, Senate) which I will have to map in my own style at some point, though the Wiki map isn't bad itself. The House has multi-member districts like our all-up councils with quite a few split districts. Oddly enough, considering Maryland's congressional districts have terrible gerrymandering and the legislature openly declared their intention to try to remove a Republican district for 2012 (successfully), the legislature districts aren't that bad except around Baltimore.
Thande
Donor
Good point, and I wonder how big I would have to make a New Hampshire map to fit all the districts in
I might try that one next, maybe.Arguably New Hampshire's crazy representative to voter ratio also gives it a commitment to democracy qualification like Iowa to be so early and decisive in the primary process...
All those unopposed Republicans in the west and north really make me sad, but then again, those are some really heavily conservative areas (that's where Steve King is from and they strongly supported Santorum in 2012), so I suppose that would be unavoidable. And states creating State Senate districts and them splitting them in half isn't all that uncommon. In fact, I think it's fairly common since the Supreme Court abolished geographic boundaries for state upper houses.
Thande
Donor
Thanks for the info, that's interesting.
Iowa strikes me as a state that, if you just gave a description of its geography and character to a European, they would probably stereotypically assume it was hardcore conservative Republican, but the reality's a much more interesting and complex mix that works out to quite a fine balance.
Iowa is rather interesting. The west is very rural, very white and very Christian (particularly in the northwest, where it's home to various strands of Dutch Reformed Protestants). The major exception is Sioux City in the north which is home to a large Hispanic population. The east along the Mississippi River (Dubuque down to the Iowa half of the Quad Cities and then south to Muscatine) are industrial, blue collar with lots of unions. Similar areas in Illinois are also Democratic. Des Moines is a standard American big city, large minority populations with social liberal whites. And then there's the 380 corridor from Cedar Falls/Waterloo down to Cedar Rapids and finally Iowa City. Historical industrial cities with unions, but have shifted to more modern post-industrial, tech-based economies. And then there's Iowa City, which Mac used to refer to as the People's Republic of Johnson County, and for good reason--it's a major college town, home to the University of Iowa na dis very liberal, similar to Boulder, CO, in that regard. The areas outside of those cities are like western Iowa--rural, white and Christian (though usually Lutheran or non-denominational megachurch Protestant) that vote heavily Republican. So Iowa's really kind of fascinating, with large rural areas that vote Republican dotted with pockets of Democrats.
Thande
Donor
Interesting. And then, because Iowa has now fallen to only 4 congressional districts, an awful lot of that complexity is lost on the congressional level and it just looks like an east/west split.
The point you make about the Dutch Reformed is interesting--I recall somebody on the Dave Leip forum creating a map of Dutch ancestry by county in the US and pointing out how closely it correlates with some of the most hardcore Republican counties. Meanwhile back home in the Netherlands, the same group has its own party that in some ways would fit right in with some factions of the Republicans.
Unfortunately, but they're nicely even splits, though they are representative of the geographic/physical extremes of the state.
The Dutch Reformed churches lend themselves fairly well to the type of social conservatism supported by people like Steve King, Rick Santorum (both of whom are Catholics) and Bob Vander Plaats (Dutch Reformed). Several towns in northwest Iowa have some sort of tulip festival and more Reformed churches than I've seen anywhere else.
Thande
Donor
To accompany the previous map, here is the Iowa State Senate election of 2012.
Only half the 50 Senate seats are up for election each cycle. Despite redistricting, there was no all-up in 2012, with every incumbent being redistricted to a new district except one, hence the special election in district 49.
Encouragingly, there were only 4 unopposed races in the 26 seats up for election, and many of the contested ones were close. However, thereby hangs a tale.
Currently in Iowa there is a (US) Senate election in which the Republican candidate is the controversial Joni Ernst. This is a good illustration of something I find to be a very worrying trend in American politics. Ernst is currently an Iowa State Senator. She was elected to the old-boundaries district 18 in a special election in 2011 caused by the resignation of the sitting state senator who had become elected Lieutenant-Governor. As with by-elections in other countries, special elections in the US tend to have very low turnout, and less than 7,500 votes were cast. An Iowa state senator represents about 60,000 people, and though not all of those are voting eligible and state legislatures have low turnout anyway, a more usual turnout in an election year is something along the lines of 25,000-30,000.
The old district 18 was split up by the new boundaries implemented in 2011. For the 2012 election, however, Ernst did not run in any of the successor districts--they all had a decent Democratic voteshare, as the 18th had under general election conditions rather than special election ones. Still, a Republican candidate willing to run a decent campaign would have found it fairly easy to win in most of the successor districts. Ernst, however, chicken-ran across the state to run in one of the rural super-Republican districts Archie mentioned, specifically district 12, where she had no primary opponents and no Democrats filed, so she was re-elected unopposed.
Now, on the back of one special election in which almost nobody voted and one unopposed "contest", she is now running to the august body that is the US Senate and could potentially win. I've seen people talking about her as VP material--this is probably just the usual "hey, look, a politician is in the news" speculation, but still. Somebody could be a heartbeat away from the presidency who has never had to seriously run a campaign or crucially, engage with and compete with the opposition party on a personal level as opposed to leaping straight into a statewide race. If you want to know where the current stark levels of personalised partisanship and deadlock in the American federal government come from (Senators and Representatives from the two parties no longer sharing the same dinner bar, etc.), I would propose that one reason is the fact that there is a path to entering that government that lets you avoid ever having to engage with anybody from the other party, so you can just treat them like the 'evil other' right up to the top of government.
Oh, and in other news, a Republican candidate for district 34 withdrew halfway through because of the most Bioshock-sounding conspiracy theory ever, which somehow manages to combine the talking points of both the far left and far right into one:
And before anyone asks, no, Congressmen have never appointed Senators...
Only half the 50 Senate seats are up for election each cycle. Despite redistricting, there was no all-up in 2012, with every incumbent being redistricted to a new district except one, hence the special election in district 49.
Encouragingly, there were only 4 unopposed races in the 26 seats up for election, and many of the contested ones were close. However, thereby hangs a tale.
Currently in Iowa there is a (US) Senate election in which the Republican candidate is the controversial Joni Ernst. This is a good illustration of something I find to be a very worrying trend in American politics. Ernst is currently an Iowa State Senator. She was elected to the old-boundaries district 18 in a special election in 2011 caused by the resignation of the sitting state senator who had become elected Lieutenant-Governor. As with by-elections in other countries, special elections in the US tend to have very low turnout, and less than 7,500 votes were cast. An Iowa state senator represents about 60,000 people, and though not all of those are voting eligible and state legislatures have low turnout anyway, a more usual turnout in an election year is something along the lines of 25,000-30,000.
The old district 18 was split up by the new boundaries implemented in 2011. For the 2012 election, however, Ernst did not run in any of the successor districts--they all had a decent Democratic voteshare, as the 18th had under general election conditions rather than special election ones. Still, a Republican candidate willing to run a decent campaign would have found it fairly easy to win in most of the successor districts. Ernst, however, chicken-ran across the state to run in one of the rural super-Republican districts Archie mentioned, specifically district 12, where she had no primary opponents and no Democrats filed, so she was re-elected unopposed.
Now, on the back of one special election in which almost nobody voted and one unopposed "contest", she is now running to the august body that is the US Senate and could potentially win. I've seen people talking about her as VP material--this is probably just the usual "hey, look, a politician is in the news" speculation, but still. Somebody could be a heartbeat away from the presidency who has never had to seriously run a campaign or crucially, engage with and compete with the opposition party on a personal level as opposed to leaping straight into a statewide race. If you want to know where the current stark levels of personalised partisanship and deadlock in the American federal government come from (Senators and Representatives from the two parties no longer sharing the same dinner bar, etc.), I would propose that one reason is the fact that there is a path to entering that government that lets you avoid ever having to engage with anybody from the other party, so you can just treat them like the 'evil other' right up to the top of government.
Oh, and in other news, a Republican candidate for district 34 withdrew halfway through because of the most Bioshock-sounding conspiracy theory ever, which somehow manages to combine the talking points of both the far left and far right into one:
And before anyone asks, no, Congressmen have never appointed Senators...
Alex Richards
Donor
That... is just about the craziest thing I've come across since that North Dakotan governor who tried to declare independence.
