US House Redistricting: Washington

[CultureKing]

I'll offer up my take:




Close-up of Puget Sound:

[CultureKing]

Though I have heard that incumbent-protection does play a role in the process and honestly I did not even consider that aspect...

[CultureKing]

Taking that into account, here's a new version. I put Island County into the Olympic Peninsula seat because I wanted a separate Olympia seat, and Island County was the only other easily accessible place (via ferry from Port Townsend) that didn't quite feel like I was drawing a seat across the Puget Sound. Still had to split off a bit of western Thurston County, unfortunately.

I think there are too many county splits in that map:
King: 6 CDs
Pierce: 4 CDs
Thurston 3 CDs

Also how is the 3rd CD linked exactly? Does it link across White Pass? I guess I am not sure if there is even a road between Skamania and Eastern Lewis County. I will say that your map is nice in that it provides a 7-3 democratic advantage 

[CultureKing]

I kind of like Verily's second map, it looks pretty clean, neat. Though I feel like Seattlites would throw a fit over being split in two (though it would be nice to divide up the liberal vote to help in other places). In a bit I will try a democratic gerrymander even though nothing of the sort would happen because of the process.

[CultureKing]

I also have trouble believing the Democrats on the bipartisan commission are going to allow every swing district to become significantly more Republican.

Linking just Klickitat County in to a SW WA district makes a lot of sense, which is why they have done it in the past. 

When Washington had 7 Congressional Districts in the 70's, it could evenly put 7 of its 49 legislative districts into each congressional district.  Eastern Washington was two districts short so it took in two SW districts.   Since they were redistricting by legislative district, they did not have the flexibility we have now.  The 3rd, 4th, and 5th were geographical giants back then.  With more districts and more large population centers today, we can be more compact.

I hadn't even mentioned the fact that the 4th included most of Clark in the 70s, but if you want to add to the precedence argument...

Do you have a link about the strategy they used in the 70s? It sounds interesting! Maybe we should just add a 50th LD and do it again.

Agreed. With the 3rd doubtlessly losing Olympia in the north it likely will not be extremely competitive to begin with in the near term. The 8th is the interesting district to me... depending upon how it is drawn it could remain a swing district or become extremely difficult for Reichert (though if Chelan and Kittitas were added then he would probably be considerably safer).

[CultureKing]

To put the cat among the pigeons, a minimum change map (with the second's eastern boundary deemed impassable) suggests an unchanged boundary between the third and fourth, and linking Ellensburg and Wenatchee to Olympia via East Pierce.

Would that mean highway 402 is the connection? Which happens to be closed for several months each year... Once again while I know it doesn't sound as interesting/fun the most likely scenario is that any east/west district will be via the Columbia.

[CultureKing]

I'm kind of confused by something.  I just compiled Seattle precinct registered voter counts, versus 18+ Census population.  Most of it makes sense, but several wealthy neighborhoods have 100%+ registration rates.  One precinct has 426 people over eighteen and 506 registered voters.  Another supposedly had 98.8% of its 18+ voters cast a ballot in 2010, which suggests to me that it's not all people who've moved but not been marked inactive.  What's going on with that?  Is there some reason the Census would the 18+ count would underestimate (not overestimate) eligible voters?

Where/how do eligible overseas voters vote in Washington State?

While abroad I simply changed my address to overseas and received/mailed my ballot from there. Very simple, got to keep the same precinct and such. When it comes to registration rates I think college students likely count for the difference, almost all Washington college students vote from their home precinct/address, not their college one. For example why would I ever want to vote in Spokane over Olympia?

[CultureKing]

Doesn't Dicks live in Mason (Belfair)?

[CultureKing]

Starting to sound like Washington as is shouldn't be a state.

Well duh, it should be a province.

Hmm... I wouldn't be too opposed to Washington joining Canada. Although my personal dream is to see Cascadia become a reality.

[CultureKing]

Ok... I tried to take a stab at two Cascade crossings. Basically Reichart gets to take in Kittitas and Chelan counties, helping to make his district much, much more moderate. Although in this map I do have the 8th gaining a little bit of Redmond which serves to cancel out many of the conservatives on the east side of the mountains.

Looking at the map I think the most important/difficult task for the redistricting group will be deciding where to draw the lines in Central King county between the 8th and the 9th districts.

Anyways, here you go:






...And numbers!

CD1:  55D 45R (73.5% white) Basically solid D.

CD2:  51.3D 48.7R (79.2% white) I think(?) this is about the same, it would mean that Larsen would always be somewhat vulnerable. It would be hard to get this district very reliably democratic. Slight lean D.

CD3:  44.7D 55.3R (81.5% white) And Herrera jumps for joy at seeing her new and improved district, Solid R. Note: yes, the Yakima county portion of the district is ugly, but it seems that the East side of the state will have to somehow be split in a not-so-lovely fashion anyway you look at it.

CD4:  34.8D 65.2R (58.9% white) Stays solidly R, interesting to note that the white percentage bumps down to below 60% though.

CD5:  41.8D 58.2R (85.5% white) Also solidly R, also note that the two Eastern Washington districts are both the most and least white.

CD6:  53.3D 46.7R (73% white) Moderate D, should be pretty easy for Dicks to hold, also he gets to keep hold of all his precious military bases (McChord, Lewis and even gets to add Bangor to the mix)

CD7:  81.4D 18.6R (63.7% white) Extremely partisan D. If only we could share the Seattle love.

CD8:  50.4D 49.6R (70.8% white) The district that sees the most change. While I added two Eastern Counties to the CD via Snoqualmie Pass the CD remains a tossup. Should the parts of Renton that are in the district get cut out it would probably become a lean R district.

CD9:  52.5D 47.5R (60.4% white) Becomes much more compact and logical. Also remains a lean D district, I think Smith would be fairly happy with this result.

CD10: 51.2D 48.8R (78.7% white) The new district takes in the Olympic Penninsula (except for Mason which stays in the 6th thanks to Dicks living there), Olympia and parts of rural Pierce county. This would be a dynamic district that could move either way in the next few elections although at the moment it would enter into the scene as a slight D leaning district.

Honestly after looking this over I think I still prefer a district that crosses over via the Columbia (basically the 3rd taking in Yakima), it would mean there are only three CDs in the East rather than 4. And personally I refuse to connect Yakima to the 8th, for some reason Chelan and Wenatchee make more sense to me than Yakima.

Thoughts?

[CultureKing]

@jimrtex: Actually I originally had Eastern Wenatchee as part of the 8th but decided to change it because it made the 3rd have to jump into Thurston county a little bit (making the new 10th look even more odd). Though if Mason was added to the 10th then a good chunk of Pierce could be taken out of the 10th and it would look considerably better.
Here's an update that makes the above shifts:



And the partisan data (which I imagine is very close to what will be the final result of the redistricting process)
WA-03: 44.6D 55.4R
WA-06: 53.7D 46.3R
WA-08: 50.1D 49.9R
WA-09: 52.1D 47.9R
WA-10: 51.3D 48.7R

[CultureKing]

You're giving Dicks way too much of Pierce. He doesn't have Lakewood or Fort Lewis/McChord right now and isn't going to be picking them up.

But wouldn't that entail him keeping his hold on Clallam and Jefferson counties?

[CultureKing]

You're giving Dicks way too much of Pierce.

Ouch.

Well at least I left his home in-district. Really his district should be completely changed, it doesn't make alot of sense as is currently (Tacoma and Aberdeen in the same district via Port Angeles?)

[CultureKing]

Dang, still stuck in with Lewis county. And Bgwah, what's so bad about Heck? He actually seems to be pretty on top of things to me (and ran a pretty good race last year considering the wave).

[CultureKing]

Including Yakima proper in the 3rd is fine so long as it includes a significant part of the rest of the county along with Klickitat. Having Yakima proper being the only part of the area in a western Washington CD isn't going to fly. And relying on US 12 as the only connector won't fly either.

It seems more like historical bias, but OK. My intent was to make keeping Yakima city intact a priority over having Klickitat go to CD 3 with a split of Yakima. I'll take your view under advisement.

Are there thoughts about the other areas of my map?

I can't tell from the zoomed-out map but do you happen to have Mercer Island with Seattle? If so I believe that would be a big no-no. It identifies more with the Eastside of King County than Seattle proper. Also Island county (Whidbey Island) needs to stay in the 2nd, a Sound crossing is pretty unlikely.

[CultureKing]

Bgwah: are the Tri-Cities area and Central Washington connected via a public road on your map? Or is the connection through Hanford.

[CultureKing]

Can someone give me the link to where I can find these maps? (I am too lazy to simply google it)

Also Huff is a Republican appointee right? Or are we as dems getting royally screwed in a state that we should have more than an equal say in.


By the Way if Huff's plan is enacted I would probably be protesting in the streets, that thing is an abomination. How many Republican seats would result from that? 5 at a minimum (the 1st, 3, 4, 5, 8, and the 6th as a slight dem lean)? Clever to add in the minority district to try and appear to not be such a partisan hack (once again this is a republican right?)

[CultureKing]

Is TVW's website down? I was going to try and watch the proceedings from there but I cant even load the page..


Oh and any way we could get numbers from the maps proposed today or do we basically just have to infer based on what we see?

[CultureKing]

@#$!@#$@!

Every last one of them includes a trans-cascade I-90 district. I wonder what Reichert bribed them with to get this result. Though I will say that Herrera-Beutler is getting a bit shafted (although she loses Olympia from all of the plans as well which means that she should be safe save for wave elections)

I think almost the maps are pointing to a 6-4 D advantage, which instead really should be 6-3-1 (D, R, tossup).

So here comes the question:
Which of these horrible monstrosities would you choose if a gun was pointed at your head?

[CultureKing]

Did Huff draw a 6-4 Republican map?! That is ballsy, especially with his bizarre 1st district which somehow avoids touching the Puget Sound.

Edit: Whoops that is definitely a 5-5 map, not a 6-4 map. My bad. Although it's still hideous.

[CultureKing]

Here is Gorton's plan:

Lol.

If the US would build a border fence, there would be a road along the fence, and this would be just like Imperial County to Chula Vista.

...except without the (sketchy, sorta-kinda-y) community of interest.

Also the Northern Border in that area is part of a National Park (North Cascades National Park) which means you would not be able to build a road up there (also it would be closed in Fall/Winter/Spring anyways, just like the North Cascades Highway). Trying to build a road in the National Park would definitely spur protests from the environmental community in the Pacific NW and I probably don't have to mention how influential they are here.

[CultureKing]

What are the odds that the Commission will fail to agree on a plan, and let the Washington Supreme Court do it?  Do the Washington gurus have any opinion on that?

Won't happen. The Republicans would much rather take whatever deal the Democrats offer them than risk a court drawn map that would endanger Reichert.

If the Democrats actually believe that, it will end up in the Courts. The Republicans aren't going to be that stupid. Already, three of the commissioner have chosen to cross the Cascades in the same way. Seems like we have an agreement on the first element of the final map. Given how much his district shifts East, Reichert would really have to be screwed not to have a better district.

The issue is the new seat. Democrats have been spouting the meme that the final map will be a trade of given Reichert a better seat for giving the Democrats the new seat. The reality is that the bulk of the growth has been in the four districts represented by Republicans. Drawing a fifth Republican seat is as easy of a task as drawing a sixth Democratic district. The natural compromise would be keeping the five Democrats, strengthening Reichert, and drawing a "fair fight" district.

Wrong. Democratic commissioners also have an incentive to keep incumbent members happy and keep them in their existing districts. That wouldn't happen under a court drawn plan. The leaves us in a situation where both sides have strong incentive not to go to court but one side (the D's) have slightly more leverage.

Yep. Although personally I would prefer the courts to draw the maps; I feel like using common sense and keeping communities of interest together would benefit the dems (although maybe not all of the incumbents).

I am not sure how a 5-4-1 map is 'fair' in a state that leans so heavily to one side. Honestly I feel that a 6-3-1 map would be the most 'fair', one that would ensure that the Eastside district remains the competitive district while conceding the Vancouver district to the R's.

Oh and a question for others: Not a single map has Herrera adding in Yakima. Does anyone else see this as a big risk for the next ten years? The district while still a bit more republican after losing Thurston county wouldn't be nearly as conservative as one that includes more areas to the east. Should Vancouver shift even a bit to the left I feel like it could spell trouble for Herrera..

[CultureKing]

The four Republican-held districts are overpopulated by about 398,000 people,

How much of that overpopulation is in two districts, WA-8 and WA-3, one of which was held by a Democrat for the past decade?

Probably the majority. Also I think I should add that at least in WA-3 the most growth was in the Vancouver and Olympia Metro areas which are respectively moderate (perhaps lean GOP) and rabidly liberal.

[CultureKing]

How much of that overpopulation is in two districts, WA-8 and WA-3, one of which was held by a Democrat for the past decade?

If Linda Smith never vacated the seat to run for Senate, it probably wouldn't have been in Democrat hands going all the way back to 1994 (except maybe a take over in 2008).  Bush carried the 3rd in 2004.  It is a swing district that leans slightly right.  Take away Olympia and it gets much more right.   Olympia is split into the 9th and the 3rd.  The 9th section grew a lot faster, but the 3rd part of town is considerably heavier Democrat.

I disagree. Linda Smith got elected in that district riding the 94' wave, we need to remember that she won by less than 200 votes in 1996 and that she would have fallen sometime (she wasn't an untouchable political genius).

[CultureKing]

ok... I tried to make a compromise map between the various plan. Somewhere along the line I think I got lost but I think it could be a good indication of what may come out of redistricting:





It includes a majority-minority district (even though personally I don't see the point) and the 8th crossing over into the East side of the state via I-90. My goal was to try and tamper down some of the partisan differences (and create an Olympia district simply because I am biased for my home town). I made sure the 10th linked Olympia and areas south of Tacoma since so many of the plans seemed to take that route.

Partisan and Demographic data:

WA1: 52.5D-47.5R (74.7% white)
WA2: 51.3D-48.3R (77.8% white)
WA3: 44.3D-55.7R (83.4% white)
WA4: 35.1D-64.9R (57.3% white)
WA5: 41.7D-58.3R (85.6% white)
WA6: 52.6D-47.4R (79.5% white)
WA7: 78.0D-28.0R (73.1% white)
WA8: 45.2R-54.8R (75.2% white)
WA9: 61.0D-39.0R (49.7% white)
WA10: 53.4D-46.6R (69.0% white)

Honestly looking at the maps I feel like the dems gave up way too much with their versions while the Republicans went for the moon. I am not sure if that hurts the dems negotiating positions going forward.

So in the end:
2 Super-Solid D districts (the 7th and 9th)
1 Likely D district (the new Olympia-based 10th)
3 Lean D districts (the 1st, 2nd, and 6th)
2 Likely R districts (the 3rd and 8th)
2 Solid R districts (the 4th and 5th)

On thing I find interesting is that if population trends continue along the same lines then we could easily see the possibility for a majority-minority district east of the cascades (although it would quite possibly be the most conservative majority-minority district in the nation).

Thoughts? Is this a plausible scenario?