Politics

2023 Representation in NY

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2023 Representation in NY

I had never seen this before, contrasting the different layers of government and which party the elected officials are in, so I thought I would make this map up.

California may require homeowners to replace broken A/C units with heat pumps starting in 2026

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California may require homeowners to replace broken A/C units with heat pumps starting in 2026

California may require homeowners to replace their broken air conditioning units with heat pumps or more efficient HVAC systems beginning in 2026, draft rules released last month by state energy regulators show. Encouraging the adoption of heat pumps, which both cool and heat homes using electricity, is key to the state’s carbon neutrality goals. The California Energy Commission aims to quadruple the number of homes with heat pumps to 6 million by 2030. If the 600-page draft code is approved next year, California would be the first state to require broken A/C units be replaced with heat pumps or more efficient systems. Environmental groups are encouraged, saying the regulation would cut emissions and save homeowners money.

Percent of Bernie Sanders Vote, 2022 Assembly Districts

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Percent of Bernie Sanders Vote, 2022 Assembly Districts

I have been experimenting with using R to calculate ADP and socialist votes for various political districts. After doing some reading up, it turns out the fastest and easier way to calculate such things is to use VTD centroids and spatially join them against the new districts.

With R, it turns out that can be done with like 10 lines of code to make some pretty nice maps and data, although I did the final map layout in QGIS. Overall, with the enacted Assembly districts, 1/3rd of them voted for Bernie Sanders, mostly upstate. This code took less then 10 seconds to run on my old laptop.

library(tidyverse)
library(tigris)
library(sf)

vt20 <- read_csv('2020vote_vtd.csv')
vt20$GEOID <- as.character(vt20$GEOID)

vtd <- voting_districts('ny', cb=T) %>%
inner_join(vt20, by=c('GEOID20'='GEOID')) %>%
st_transform('epsg:3857')

a22 <- read_sf('/home/andy/Documents/GIS.Data/2022 Districts/NY Assembly 2022.gpkg') %>% st_transform('epsg:3857')

join <- vtd %>% st_centroid() %>%
st_join(a22)

join %>% st_drop_geometry() %>%
group_by(DISTRICT) %>%
summarise(socialist = (sum(SANDERS)/sum(SANDERS,CLINTON))*100) %>%
inner_join(a22, by=c('DISTRICT')) %>%
write_sf('/tmp/socialassm.gpkg')

2022 AD Sanders Vote
1 42.8
2 47.1
3 50.4
4 47.5
5 53.1
6 37.6
7 50.2
8 46.2
9 48.6
10 37.5
11 39.2
12 44.7
13 37.6
14 42.1
15 38.4
16 32.0
17 45.7
18 28.6
19 44.9
20 39.0
21 38.3
22 35.4
23 41.9
24 35.2
25 41.8
26 40.6
27 41.0
28 43.5
29 25.9
30 47.1
31 27.6
32 25.7
33 28.7
34 47.1
35 32.3
36 49.5
37 50.1
38 45.3
39 41.3
40 38.6
41 37.3
42 35.6
43 35.6
44 45.9
45 47.6
46 48.0
47 51.9
48 40.7
49 51.9
50 57.1
51 48.5
52 37.7
53 50.3
54 37.3
55 30.4
56 42.4
57 44.5
58 22.3
59 32.9
60 27.0
61 39.2
62 53.6
63 46.0
64 52.4
65 40.9
66 35.7
67 27.1
68 35.9
69 33.6
70 38.4
71 39.4
72 35.7
73 23.4
74 37.6
75 31.9
76 28.8
77 26.7
78 32.3
79 28.6
80 35.4
81 37.0
82 34.0
83 23.0
84 30.5
85 27.8
86 26.8
87 31.3
88 28.9
89 30.0
90 36.5
91 31.0
92 33.2
93 32.2
94 45.7
95 40.6
96 40.7
97 36.0
98 47.1
99 49.6
100 49.3
101 56.0
102 60.2
103 62.3
104 47.9
105 50.3
106 52.8
107 55.5
108 55.9
109 52.6
110 49.1
111 55.2
112 54.0
113 57.9
114 64.0
115 71.4
116 54.2
117 58.4
118 58.1
119 51.9
120 55.7
121 58.2
122 56.9
123 57.3
124 53.8
125 61.8
126 48.9
127 46.6
128 42.5
129 50.8
130 52.9
131 52.5
132 57.2
133 57.4
134 50.1
135 46.0
136 47.9
137 40.2
138 53.8
139 55.2
140 53.6
141 33.6
142 54.7
143 50.4
144 55.1
145 51.3
146 46.5
147 58.3
148 58.2
149 54.2
150 53.5

Control of State Government – By Percentage of US Population

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Control of State Government - By Percentage of US Population

It's not your imagination that politics has gotten much more ideological then years ago, as most Americans now live in a state run by single political party.
 
But it wasn't always that way. There was a time 30 years ago when most Americans lived in a state that was governed by a governor and state legislature of different parties.
 
60% of Americans lived under divided state government in 1992, by the year 2023, that percentage dropped 19%.
 
For a long time, more Americans lived in states governed by solely Republicans then Democrats. But that changed in 2023, Democrats alone govern slightly more Americans in states then Republicans 41.5% to 39.2% but that's almost just a rounding error.
 
Will single party-states remain the norm in American politics? My guess is probably not because single-party run states are inherently unstable in a democracy. Single-party states tend enact unpopular policies which result in incumbents getting voted out of office. Even very blue states often elect Republicans to the governorship, such as Maryland. Likewise, very red states often elect Democrats to the governorship, such as Kentucky's governor. And houses can flip back forth, like happened in Alaska not that long ago.