With the new state House and Senate district lines in place, MinnPost has mapped the political leaning of each district based on average precinct results from the three most recent Minnesota House elections: 2006, 2008 and 2010. (For more information on our methodology, read, “Calculating the political lean of new legislative districts.”)

We also built a chart, below, of the 41 House and 25 Senate districts most likely to be contested in the 2012 election. These include districts where the partisan lean was 10 percentage points or less, as well as districts with a partisan lean greater than 10 where the incumbent is of the opposite party.

In the House, we found a total of 14 Republican incumbents running in or retiring from districts that favor the DFL or are evenly split, while no DFL incumbents are running in GOP-leaning districts. For the House to change hands, Democrats need a net gain of six seats. In the Senate, 11 Republican incumbents are running in districts that favor the DFL with one incumbent in an evenly split district, and two DFL incumbents are running in districts that favor the GOP. To gain control of the Senate, Democrats need a net gain of four seats.

Finally, while the numbers illuminate part of the picture, it is important to note that this statistical range is not predictive of the many other factors that come into play during an election cycle — personality, finances, gaffes, third party candidates and more.

[raw shortcodes=1]

Vulnerable Districts in 2012

District Incumbent(s) District Leaning*
01A Dan Fabian ƒ EVEN
02A David Hancock ƒ DFL + 3
02B (open) DFL + 6
09A (open) GOP + 7
09B Mike LeMieur ƒ GOP + 3
11B Bill Hilty ɼ
Roger Crawford ƒ
DFL + 3
12A Torrey Westrom ɼ GOP + 7
14A Steve Gottwalt GOP + 8
15A Sondra Erickson GOP + 4
17B Bruce Vogel ƒ DFL + 2
20B (open) DFL + 8
21A Tim Kelly GOP + 10
24A Kory Kath DFL + 9
24B Patti Fritz DFL + 4
25B Kim Norton DFL + 7
26B Mike Benson ƒ EVEN
27A Rich Murray ƒ DFL + 2
28B Greg Davids GOP + 8
32A (open) GOP + 5
32B (open) GOP + 4
36A Denise Dittrich ɼ DFL + 10
36B Melissa Hortman DFL + 7
37B Tim Sanders GOP + 4
38A Linda Runbeck GOP + 10
39B Kathy Lohmer ƒ GOP + 2
42A (open) DFL + 5
43A (open) DFL + 9
44B John Benson DFL + 2
48A Kirk Stensrud ƒ DFL + 4
49A Keith Downey ɼ GOP + 9
49B Pat Mazorol ƒ EVEN
51A Diane Anderson ƒ DFL + 2
51B Doug Wardlow ƒ GOP + 1
53B Andrea Kieffer ƒ GOP + 4
56A Pam Myhra ƒ GOP + 10
56B Mary Liz Holberg GOP + 6
01B Debra Kiel ƒ DFL + 11
05A John Persell
Larry Howes
DFL + 14
05B Carolyn McElfatrick ƒ
Tom Anzelc
DFL + 20
14B King Banaian ƒ DFL + 16
54A John Kriesel ɼ ƒ DFL + 12
* The political leaning measures the percentage point difference between the parties in the selected elections. ɼ Retiring incumbent. ƒ Freshman incumbent.
  • Even
  • R +0.5 – 4
  • R +4 – 10
  • R +10 – 20
  • R +20 – 50
  • R +50 – 100
  • D +0.5 – 4
  • D +4 – 10
  • D +10 – 20
  • D +20 – 50
  • D +50 – 100

Vulnerable Districts in 2012

District Incumbent(s) District Leaning*
01 LeRoy A. Stumpf DFL + 6
02 Rod Skoe DFL + 5
09 (open) GOP + 5
13 Michelle L. Fischbach DFL + 3
14 John Pederson ƒ DFL + 4
17 Joe Gimse
Lyle Koenen ƒ
DFL + 7
20 (open) GOP + 4
24 Mike Parry ɼ ƒ DFL + 7
25 David H. Senjem GOP + 3
26 Carla Nelson ƒ DFL + 6
28 Jeremy R. Miller ƒ DFL + 8
32 Sean Nienow GOP + 4
36 Benjamin Kruse ƒ DFL + 8
37 Pam Wolf ƒ DFL + 5
39 Ray Vandeveer GOP + 10
42 (open) DFL + 10
44 Terri E. Bonoff GOP + 9
48 David W. Hann GOP + 10
49 Geoff Michel ɼ GOP + 5
51 Ted Daley ƒ EVEN
53 Ted Lillie ƒ DFL + 7
54 Katie Sieben GOP + 4
56 Dan Hall ƒ GOP + 8
05 John J. Carlson ƒ
Tom Saxhaug
DFL + 17
10 Paul Gazelka ƒ DFL + 14
* The political leaning measures the percentage point difference between the parties in the selected elections. ɼ Retiring incumbent. ƒ Freshman incumbent.
  • Even
  • R +0.5 – 4
  • R +4 – 10
  • R +10 – 20
  • R +20 – 50
  • R +50 – 100
  • D +0.5 – 4
  • D +4 – 10
  • D +10 – 20
  • D +20 – 40
  • D +50 – 100









// Namespace jQuery (function($) {

// Global variables (because its just a little easier 🙂 redistrMap = { “house”: null, “senate”: null }; redistrInteraction = { “house”: null, “senate”: null }; geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder(); marker = {};

// Plugins for DataTables jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort[‘title-numeric-asc’] = function(a,b) { var x = a.match(/title=”*(-?[0-9\.]+)/)[1]; var y = b.match(/title=”*(-?[0-9\.]+)/)[1]; x = parseFloat( x ); y = parseFloat( y ); return ((x y) ? 1 : 0)); };

jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort[‘title-numeric-desc’] = function(a,b) { var x = a.match(/title=”*(-?[0-9\.]+)/)[1]; var y = b.match(/title=”*(-?[0-9\.]+)/)[1]; x = parseFloat( x ); y = parseFloat( y ); return ((x y) ? -1 : 0)); };

/** * Document ready event. */ $(document).ready(function() { // Map, house legislating district. wax.tilejson(‘https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.minnpost/maps/leg_districts/redistricting_pvi_house.json’, function(tilejson) { redistrMap.house = new L.Map(‘district-map-house’) .addLayer(new wax.leaf.connector(tilejson)) .setView(new L.LatLng(46.3, -94.2), 7);

// Add wax interaction with UTFGrid data. redistrInteraction.house = wax.leaf.interaction() .map(redistrMap.house) .tilejson(tilejson) .on(wax.tooltip().parent(redistrMap.house._container).events());

// Map, senate legislating district. wax.tilejson(‘https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.minnpost/maps/leg_districts/redistricting_pvi_senate.json’, function(tilejson) { redistrMap.senate = new L.Map(‘district-map-senate’) .addLayer(new wax.leaf.connector(tilejson)) .setView(new L.LatLng(46.3, -94.2), 7);

// Add wax interaction with UTFGrid data. redistrInteraction.senate = wax.leaf.interaction() .map(redistrMap.senate) .tilejson(tilejson) .on(wax.tooltip().parent(redistrMap.senate._container).events());

// Tabs here to ensure all is loaded. $(‘#tabs’).tabs();

// House District selecting $.ajax({ type: ‘GET’, dataType: ‘jsonp’, url: ‘https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.minnpost/maps/leg_districts/bbox/L2012-shp-bounding_box.jsonp?callback=boundingBox’, jsonp: ‘callback’, jsonpCallback: function(data) { boundingBox = function(data) { if (typeof data == ‘string’) { data = $.parseJSON(data); } // Add click events $(‘#tabs-house table tbody tr’).live(‘click’, function() { // Get districts var district = $(‘td.district’, this).text();

if (data[district] !== undefined) { district = data[district];

// Mark row $(‘#tabs-house table tbody tr’).removeClass(‘district-choice’); $(this).addClass(‘district-choice’);

// Zoom in var bounds = new L.LatLngBounds(); for (var i in district.geom.coordinates[0]) { bounds.extend(new L.LatLng(district.geom.coordinates[0][i][1], district.geom.coordinates[0][i][0])); } redistrMap.house.fitBounds(bounds); } }); } } });

// Senate District selecting $.ajax({ type: ‘GET’, dataType: ‘jsonp’, url: ‘https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.minnpost/maps/leg_districts/bbox/L2012-S-shp-bounding_box.jsonp?callback=boundingBoxSenate’, jsonp: ‘callback’, jsonpCallback: function(data) { boundingBoxSenate = function(data) { if (typeof data == ‘string’) { data = $.parseJSON(data); } // Add click events $(‘#tabs-senate table tbody tr’).live(‘click’, function() { // Get districts var district = $(‘td.district’, this).text();

if (data[district] !== undefined) { district = data[district];

// Mark row $(‘#tabs-senate table tbody tr’).removeClass(‘district-choice’); $(this).addClass(‘district-choice’);

// Zoom in var bounds = new L.LatLngBounds(); for (var i in district.geom.coordinates[0]) { bounds.extend(new L.LatLng(district.geom.coordinates[0][i][1], district.geom.coordinates[0][i][0])); } redistrMap.senate.fitBounds(bounds); } }); } } }); } ); } );

// Handle looking up address form. $(“#redist-search-house”).submit(function() { geocode($(‘#redist-query-house’).val(), ‘house’); return false; }); $(“#redist-search-senate”).submit(function() { geocode($(‘#redist-query-senate’).val(), ‘senate’); return false; });

// DataTable $(‘table’).dataTable({ ‘aaSorting’: [[ 0, ‘asc’ ]], “aoColumns”: [ null, null, { “sType”: “title-numeric” } ], ‘aLengthMenu’: [[10, 15, 25, -1], [10, 15, 25, ‘All’]], ‘iDisplayLength’: 15, ‘bFilter’: false });

// Add help text here var $help = $(‘

Click any row to view district on map.

‘); $(‘.dataTables_wrapper’).prepend($help); });

/** * Geocode address from form. */ function geocode(query, type) { // Check for minnesota or MN, and if not, add it. var gr = { ‘location’: query }; if (typeof(query) == ‘string’) { var pattr = /\smn\s|\sminnesota\s/gi; var match = query.match(pattr); if (!match) { query = query + ‘ MN’; } gr = { ‘address’: query }; }

// Geocode and fire callback. geocoder.geocode(gr, function(results, status) { var lat = results[0].geometry.location.lat(); var lng = results[0].geometry.location.lng(); var normalized_address = results[0].formatted_address;

// Update form value with nice address. $(‘#redist-query-‘ + type).val(normalized_address)

// Add marker and center var point = new L.LatLng(lat, lng); marker = new L.Marker(point); redistrMap[type].addLayer(marker); redistrMap[type].setView(point, 12); }); }

// Convert data function convertData(dataLocation) { // Table making (remove for production) $.getJSON(dataLocation, function(data) { var table = $(‘

‘); var rows = ”;

for (var i in data) { // A little bit of massage var freshmanYears = [‘2010’, ‘2012’]; if (typeof (data[i][“House District”]) != ‘undefined’) { data[i][“District”] = data[i][“House District”]; } if (data[i][“District”].length ‘;

// District row += ‘\n

‘ + data[i][‘District’] + ‘

‘;

// Incumbents if (data[i][“Incumbent 1”]) { // Classes var incumbentClass = (data[i][“retiring 1″]) ? ‘retiring’ : ”; var partyClass = (data[i][“Incumbent 1 Party”] == ‘DFL’) ? ‘inc-dfl’ : ‘inc-r’;

// Create incumbant table data row += ‘\n

‘; row += ‘‘; row += ‘‘ + data[i][“Incumbent 1”] + ‘‘; row += (data[i][“retiring 1”]) ? ‘ ɼ ‘ : ”; row += ($.inArray(data[i][“Incumbent 1 First Elected”], freshmanYears) >= 0) ? ‘ ƒ ‘ : ”; // Create incumbant table data if (data[i][“Incumbent 2”]) { var incumbentClass = (data[i][“retiring 2″]) ? ‘retiring’ : ”; var partyClass = (data[i][“Incumbent 2 Party”] == ‘DFL’) ? ‘inc-dfl’ : ‘inc-r’; row += ‘
‘; row += ‘‘; row += ‘‘ + data[i][“Incumbent 2”] + ‘‘; row += (data[i][“retiring 2”]) ? ‘ ɼ ‘ : ”; row += ($.inArray(data[i][“Incumbent 2 First Elected”], freshmanYears) >= 0) ? ‘ ƒ ‘ : ”; row += ‘‘; } row += ‘

‘ } else { row += ‘\n

(open)

‘; }

// PVI var p = parseFloat(data[i][“Raw PVI”]); var pviClass = ”; if (p > -0.5 && p 0.5 && p = 4.5 && p = 10.5) pviClass = ‘leaning-r leaning-r-large’;

if (p -4.5 ) pviClass = ‘leaning-dfl leaning-dfl-small’; if (p -10.5) pviClass = ‘leaning-dfl leaning-dfl-medium’; if (p ‘ + data[i][“Readable PVI”] + ‘

‘; row += ‘\n

‘;

rows += row; } } $(‘body’).append($(‘

‘ + rows + ‘

‘)); }); }

//convertData(‘data/in-play-senate.json’); //convertData(‘data/in-play-house.json’);

})(jQuery);

}(jQuery));


[/raw]

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