So as a numbers guy, I'd be very helpful in redistricting, if, indeed, we ever get a voice in redistricting. Until then, I'll have to satisfy myself with chewing over the results as they are.
A couple of interesting points. Gerrymandering apparently works, although it may have reached the limits of its effectiveness here in Colorado. The Republicans picked up 6 percentage points on the Dems from 2006, going from 55-45 to 52-48 aggregate vote statewide. Yet they picked up only one seat in the voting, going from 39-26 to 38-27. (This will be reported as a two-seat gain, because nominal Republican Debbie Stafford switched parties in the middle of the session, and her safe Republican seat reverted to form on Tuesday.)
Where did the gains come from? Some of it was the increased voter turnout on both sides. A presidential election year is likely to result in more voters, and if the same number of "new" voters shows up on each side, the percentage difference will narrow.
But in this case, the raw difference in votes also narrowed considerably. In 2006, the Democrats won the aggregate vote total 792,600 - 647,355, by 145,245. In 2008, they won 999,377 - 922,627, by 76,750. So the count narrowed by about 70,000 votes, despite unprecedented GOTV efforts on the state Democratic side.
(The newspapers haven't reported the vote totals in the several uncontested districts, so I just guessed based on surrounding districts and assumed a slightly lower turnout. if I'm off, I'm not off by much more than 10,000 votes net, but we'll know in a few weeks as the Secretary of State certifies the results.)
About 41,000 of this can be attributed to the presence of GOP state house candidates in Denver, in districts where none had run in 2006. These were unlikely to result in additional seats, but may have had an effect in GOTV efforts in the statewide totals for other ballot items, such as president, senator, and the various referenda and amendments. All of these numbers are accurate, as by definition, none of the races where Denver Republicans ran in 2008 was uncontested.)
The problem here is that the rising ride only floated a couple of boats. HD-30 and HD-55 changed hands to Republicans, and HD-56 tightened to a point where is might be contested next time, assuming that there's no concerted effort to "educate the idiots" in that district. Let's plan on filing CORA requests on communications between Rep. Scanlan and the Powers that Be on the left early and often.
As for possible pickups next time, there were only 3 seats that were Democrat wins, that also were under 10% difference in vote. All three get better for the Dems, HD-17, HD-27, and HD-38. This was almost certainly strategic on the Democrats' part, and it'll be interesting to see the 527 expenditures in those races. But it means that even if the Republicans manage to close the gap to 50-50 in the vote, they'll still be down 35-30 in the legislature, with some serious changes in at least three other districts. There are five such seats held by Republicans going into the new session.
All of which suggests that while Gerrymandering has worked decisively in the Democrats' favor, its usefulness in extending their gains is probably coming to an end. There just isn't that much more low-hanging fruit to be plucked off by CoDA by shifting voters around.
The bad news is that, barring a major upheaval in the political landscape by 2010, they won't have to.
