So I was mucking around in dave's redistricting app and thought it would be funny to try to make an Obama district in Oklahoma, a state he lost 34-66% (his worst in the whole country). Rather than focus on improving the district of the lone Democrat (Dan Boren), whose rural but ancestrally Democratic district Obama utterly crashed in, I instead tried to make a nasty Oklahoma City to Tulsa bacon strip. Despite his abysmal performance in the state, Obama actually improved noticeably in the cities and even bested Al Gore in them (Gore only lost the state as a whole 38-60%). Here we are:
Closeup on Oklahoma City:
Closeup on Tulsa:
Results:
OK-01 (Purple): John Sullivan (R). The heart of his Tulsa district is carved out and he is left with just Tulsa suburbs and a big chunk of rural northern Oklahoma territory as compensation. Still, the bulk of his constituents will know him and assuming no primary challenge is successful, he easily has this seat as long as he wants it. Stats: Obama 27.5%, McCain 72.5% (old Obama 36%, McCain 64%). The district loses about half its African-Americans.
OK-02 (Green): OPEN - currently Dan Boren (D). No significant changes to this district, it still remains heavily centered on ancestrally Democratic eastern Oklahoma counties. I figure there's not much we can do to really improve our chances here except to just keep this district together and hope that they remember they once voted 47% for Gore, and in landslides for Bill Clinton. A politician in Boren's or Dan Carson's mold will have a good chance at retaining this seat. Stats: Obama 34%, McCain 66% (same as before). The largest racial minority here is Native Americans with 18% (close to the same as before).
OK-03 (Red): Frank Lucas (R). The same basic idea, expanding out from the most rural of counties in the west but going south instead of north. He should be safe from a primary challenger and will have a solid GOP district as before. Stats: Obama 27%, McCain 73% (same as before). The number of racial minorities increases slightly as he takes in the politically-competitive city of Lawton (which I would have loved to shoehorn into the OK City/Tulsa district but it would look even more ridiculous).
OK-04 (Yellow): Tom Cole and James Lankford (R). Here comes the fun part. Both of their districts are entirely dismantled and slammed together in a beast of a district that eats up all the red suburbs of OK City as well as some in the Tulsa area, then combines them across a big rural patch in between the cities. I would say Cole would have the advantage due to seniority and his role in leadership, but his district gets axed even worse, as by area nearly all of his district is absorbed by Frank Lucas. Only the Oklahoma City suburbs where he lives are familiar to him, so he would probably run here in this absurd scenario. Lanford would just have to hope the parts of his district he retains like him more. Stats: Obama 31%, McCain 69% (old Obama 34%, McCain 64%). Racial stats not significantly changed.
OK-05 (Blue): OPEN. So this is what all of it is for. The former greater OK City area district is changed to one where the urban cores of OK City and Tulsa are connected by a winding path of lightly populated territory. Additional tendrils drop south from both cities to take in additional friendly (or at least not quite as hostile as the rest of the state) territory. This would lead to an interesting primary between OK City and Tulsa Democrats, but in the end, this is as safe as a seat can get for Oklahoma Democrats. Stats: Obama 50.1%, McCain 49.9% (old Obama 41%, McCain 59%). African-Americans increase from 14 to 16%, Hispanics from 8 to 16%.
As I mentioned earlier, it might be possible to get this district even better if Lawton is also dragged into the mix, but I tried to limit myself to just an OK City/Tulsa district.