US House Redistricting: Indiana

[minionofmidas]

Certainly you could cover your tracks a little better by putting the South Indy precincts in CD6 instead of that green monster?

[minionofmidas]

Terre Haute - by the way did you know Terre Haute had a higher population in 1900 than now?

Yes.
One of the worst declined cities that rarely if ever gets mentioned anywhere is Saint Joseph, Missouri, by the by.

And I suppose I'll have to do it myself to see what the problem with my suggested amendation is.

[minionofmidas]

Or you could just tell me how much rural territory the district would have to take in instead and what that would do to the partisan breakdowns.

[minionofmidas]

Would Pence be happy being drawn into the 9th? He lives in Columbus (Bartholomew County).

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I have not checked the residencies for IN-09 and 06 yet. I have for IN-09 and 04 now, and made sure Young's residence in Bloomington is included in his district. I guess that explains the salient into Columbus through the NE corner in the old map. I guess I will have to shove an IN-06 prong down into Columbus to pick up Pence's home. Beyond despoiling the map, that will just make IN-09 even more uber Republican, as you can see from this map. It just doesn't have much if any Dem territory left, and I can't keep Perry County in the CD without making the map look ridiculous, and it is only worth about 30 basis points anyway. Other than Perry County, there just isn't any Dem territory for IN-09 to pick up anymore that will help out another Pubbie CD.

Nonsense. Your CD9 needs to add a single-precinct-wide connector along the river into half of Evansville ASAP.

[minionofmidas]

As to the 8th, the 8th only flipped before due to a confluence of a Dem trend year, weak incumbent and ideally situated challenger.

Uh, no. That's merely why Hostettler lost by 22 points.
Incidentally, in your map a combination of strong Dem year and geographic polarization might flip the 4th.

[minionofmidas]

Your fourth has partisan Republican suburbs where the (one term) Rep is from, and more rural/smalltown areas that are perhaps not as dependable, including the cities of Terre Haute and Lafayette. Terre Haute's probably the most democratic place in there, without being overwhelmingly Democrat, and has no history of being "represented" by the Indy suburbs.

Mind you. I should have given more consideration to how very well Obama did in Indiana before speaking.

[minionofmidas]

Are you going to be updating this with the actual census count numbers? Your first is about 7000 people short (meaning you can screw Donnelly a little further), didn't check anywhere else.

[minionofmidas]

Certainly not the Southeastern one... area didn't actually swing all that much.

[minionofmidas]

Not one but two "fair" maps of Indiana!

 

1 (Chicago suburbs) 64% White, 20% Black, 14% Hispanic, 63.3% Obama / 65% White, 18% Black, 14% Hispanic, 61.6% Obama. Visclosky
Safe with or without Michigan City. It's a fine decision - Michigan City presumably looks to Chicago rather than South Bend, La Porte probably does not. But the two also belong together, no?

2 (South Bend) 82% White, 49.9% McCain / 80% White, 51.0% Obama. Donnelly
Yeah well, we know which design Joe Donnelly is going to prefer.

3 (Fort Wayne) 85% White, 55.1% McCain / 86% White, 55.2% McCain. Stutzman
Wasn't comfortable with the placement of Marion in the first attempt. Now that I look up the locations of congressmen, I see the first map also just barely draws Stutzman into Donnelly's district while the second does not.

4 (smaller towns northwest of Indy) 89% White, 54.3% McCain / 88% White, 53.6% McCain. open
The placing of Martinsville (just southwest of Indianapolis) in this district is really what triggered the extensive redrawing. This and the 6th (and the 5th, but it doesn't matter there) are the areas where Obama's percentage is most exaggerated, neither seat is remotely in danger for Republicans.

5 (Indianapolis suburbs) 85% White, 58.3% McCain. Rokita? Burton?
Not affected by remap - although you obviously could legitimately draw it very differently, either by doing a simpler two way split of the Indy metro or by drawing two partially suburban seats around the 7th. Purely suburban seats like this one are a preference of mine. Do something about it. *shrug*
I don't know where Rokita and Burton live, exactly, but Carson's district is safe anyhow.

6 (smaller towns east of Indy) 91% White, 52.1% McCain / 92% White, 53.6% McCain. Pence
Pence's hometown of Columbus is removed and added to the 8th in the second map, but it still skirts the city boundary. He probably could run here anyhow.

7 (Indianapolis) 55% White, 30% Black, 10% Hispanic, 68.0% Obama. Carson
Not affected by remap.

8 (Evansville - Terre Haute) / (Bloomington - Terre Haute) 92% White, 50.5% McCain / 91% White, 49.5% McCain. Bucshon (map 1), Young (map 2)
Evidently, you could split the 8th and 9th east-west on the second map too. Going to require some odd compromise around Martinsville or Bedford, but heh. I'd advise against introducing the north-south split into the first map, however.

9 (Louisville suburbs - Bloomington) / (Lousville suburbs - Evansville) 92% White, 52.1% McCain / 91% White, 52.2% McCain. Young (map 1) Bucshon (map 2)
This is not really a safe seat, but obviously it's R barring events or massive waves. Not a true marginal like the 2nd and 8th, under either map.

[minionofmidas]

Not one but two "fair" maps of Indiana!

Didn't the legislature already pass a fair map?

LOL.