State Senate Releases Redistricting Plan

The Oklahoma State Senate released their proposed redistricting plan this evening. Bloggers Peter Rudy of Oklahoma Watchdog and Paul Monies of the Oklahoman's Politics and DataWatch blogs both posted maps (I borrowed Monies' map for this post). The official Senate press release is here. Michael Bates of BatesLine has also posted on the topic.

I would expect this plan to be challenged in court, as portions appear to be gerrymandered (perhaps the by-product of using one of the state's top political consultants to run their redistricting program).

For more details on the urban areas, click here for Rudy's post, and here for Monies' post. Rudy's maps have more detail of the urban areas, while Monies' maps have outlines of the current districts, in addition to the new proposals.

NewsOK Data Watch: Maximum Donors

NewsOK Data Watch writers Paul Monies and John Estus have done some fabulous work compiling data on maximum donors (individuals or PACs who gave the maximum allowable contribution of $5000 to a candidate) for this primary election.

The most interesting information came in the Governor's race, where several million dollars have been raised by the candidates

On the Democrat side of the gubernatorial race, Jari Askins had 90 maximum donations (79 from individuals, 6 from PACs, and 5 from tribes) while Drew Edmondson had 129 maximum donors (123 from individuals, 3 from PACs and 3 from tribes). That means Askins raised $450,000 just from these elite donors, and Edmondson raised $645,000.

That pales in comparison to the Republican side of the equation

Roger Jackson received two maximum in-kind contributions from individuals, and Randy Brogdon got 11 max donations ($55,000).  

Mary Fallin blew away the field, with 206 maximum donations from individuals, and 17 from PACs. That makes for a total of $1,115,000 just from these donors! To put that in perspective, Fallin has raised a grand total of $2,446,503.47 through the entire campaign, meaning just over 47% of her campaign contributions came from maximum donors.

Read Monies' and Estus' work here.

*All of the figures in this post did not include contributions after July 12th, which are considered "last minute".