Following the election I did some number crunching and saw that Russ bled a lot of votes. Those votes didn’t necessarily go to Martin or any third party candidate… they stayed home.

It was also pretty much concluded that Russ’s district would be the one to get chopped up – there was no way that the Missouri Republicans would be allowed to do away with Clay or Cleaver’s districts, especially considering how the federal congressional apportionment laws are written. And it wouldn’t make sense for Republicans to take away Hartzler’s newly won district.

That said, Hartzler might be in for a fight in ’12 if the population of Columbia is enough to tip the margins in favor of a Democrat opponent. Cleaver might also have a harder time though – he wone well, but not by a tremendous landslide. Lacy Clay however will be solidly in his district unless he dies or some scandal or crime runs him out.

I seem to recall hearing a rumor or theory that Russ would possibly just join Obama’s administration before ’12 instead of taking a defeat at the polls.

The map as proposed above removes the 9th Congressional district which is currently held by Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer. That may have also been part of negotiations, a tit for a tat so to speak (since Cleaver and Clay were no doubt off the table)… If the 3rd is to be redrawn in such a way that it will become Republican, then for the Republican’s numerically it’s a wash while at the same time having a larger representative majority.

Luetkemeyer will probably land on his feet with upward political mobility. Russ on the otherhand might find himself not just out of a Congressional job like Luetkemeyer, but out of a political job altogether… though to be sure there’s a lobbying job waiting for him somewhere – that seems to be where most retired politicians go.

Here I compiled numbers for the state and various districts including MO3 going back 10 years.