TJ's District Maps Series

[TJ in Oregon]

I've decided to make one of these threads myself for a Cube Root Rule map US House. I'm fine with taking outside submissions to the thread. However, I want to add a new wrinkle to this and require the Michigan Rule: no unnecessary county splits and no unnecessary municipal splits. I'm going to assume the VRA does still apply, but is subordinate to minimizing county splits but more important than minimizing municipal splits.

[TJ in Oregon]

Wisconsin:


Milwaukee Area Close-up:


Essentially, the challenge is to figure out how to split Milwaukee County since the North Shore suburbs are boxed out by the City of Milwaukee, without causing a loop of districts that split counties.

1 (blue-Kenosha): Obama 53.4%-McCain 45.1% Tossup/Lean R
2 (green-Waukesha): McCain 57.0%-Obama 41.9% Safe R
3 (purple-Madison): Obama 73.2%-McCain 25.1% Safe D
4 (red-Wauwatosa): Obama 50.3%-McCain 48.3% Lean R
5 (gold-Milwaukee): Obama 84.0%-McCain 15.1% 44.2% VAP Black Safe D
6 (lime-Sheboygan): McCain 54.6%-Obama 44.1% Safe R
7 (gray-Central Wisconsin): Obama 53.1%-McCain 45.4% Tossup/Lean R
8 (black-Driftless Area): Obama 61.8-McCain 36.6% Safe D
9 (cyan-Eau Claire): Obama 56.8-McCain 41.3% Likely D
10 (maroon-Appleton): Obama 53.8%-McCain 44.5% Lean R
11 (green-Green Bay): Obama 53.7%-McCain 44.9% Lean R
12 (orange-NW Wisconsin): Obama 53.3%-McCain 44.9% Lean R

8-4 GOP

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's my submission.  All districts within 1% of optimum size.

Laurens is split between the 1st and 2nd.
Lexington is split between the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th.
Dillon is split between the 4th and 8th.
Georgetown is split between the 8th and 9th.
Charleston is split between the 9th and 10th.

The chosen split of Laurens lets the town of Fountain Inn, which straddles the Greenville/Laurens border to be in a single district, so the rules essentially force the 2nd district to be as drawn, which forces the 1st to be as drawn as well.

Likely I could have arranged to split Lexington less, but only at the cost of shifting those splits onto other counties and having additional municipality splits. Columbia and Cayce both straddle the Lexington/Richland border and Batesburg-Leesville straddles the Lexington/Saluda border. Also any map with Lexington essentially intact forces the 5th to take in more of the Savannah River counties and makes it essentially impossible to have any minority-majority districts.

As it is, the 7th is just barely a minority-majority district and the 6th is just barely a majority-majority district. The 6th and 7th are both safe D, the 10th is lean R, and the other 7 are safe R.

It likely would be possible to get a more strongly minority-majority district by splitting Richland County and the city of Columbia, but it would leave only one safe D district and given the demographics of the 6th in this map, while it would be white majority, it would likely have a black Democrat winning the primary and thus the seat.

[traininthedistance]

I assume that municipalities which span multiple counties can be split along county lines with no penalty, since your Wisconsin map does just that in several spots.  (And it might make following the Michigan Rule literally impossible in some cases otherwise.)

Is there a maximum deviation you're aiming for here?  IIRC Michigan tries to be exact, but I don't know if that's feasible in DRA, and wonder if a certain set amount of wiggle room helps us eliminate chops.  And I'm also curious about:

Wisconsin:
Essentially, the challenge is to figure out how to split Milwaukee County since the North Shore suburbs are boxed out by the City of Milwaukee, without causing a loop of districts that split counties.

Were you originally trying to aim for an all-Milwaukee district here (keeping in mind that the city itself is too large for just one)?  It seems you mostly lop off the North Shore suburbs, but there's one that stays behind (without helping 6 stay whole-county on the other end).

Also, should the county split rule still hold in New England, where most counties have literally no function?

[traininthedistance]

Anyway, I asked those questions above because I vaguely remembered from the last time we had a Cube Root series that the Milwaukee area is actually super-obliging for whole county districts, and I wanted to see if chops could be eliminated.  And, lo and behold, Milwaukee County itself is actually less than 100 people away from exactly two districts.  So here's a potential alternative that tries to keep chops down.  I also tried to keep distinct regions mostly together, and didn't really pay any attention to partisan impact:



All districts less than 1K off ideal, except for the whole-county 8 the max deviation is in the low 400s.  No municipalities are split except for Milwaukee, or along county lines. 

Milwaukee County closeup:



Partisan affiliation seems a bit funny in WI since the Obama numbers are clearly skewed left and the "Dem Average" is clearly skewed right.  I'll just assume that averaging the two gets you close to the truth.

1 (Racine-Kenosha): 53.9% Obama, 43.3% Dem.  Tilt R.
2 (white parts of Milwaukee Co): 55.3% Obama, 49.5% Dem.  Lean D.
3 (VRA Milwaukee): 82.2% Obama, 79.0% Dem.  46.3% Black VAP/33.2%W/15.0%H.  49.3% Black total population.  Safe D.
4 (Waukesha & Jefferson counties): 38.7% Obama, 29.9% Dem.  Safe R.
5 (Janesville, South Driftless): 61.6% Obama, 51.3% Dem.  Safe D.
6 (Madison): 73.0% Obama, 69.7% Dem.  Safe D.
7 (La Crosse, Eau Claire): 58.0% Obama, 47.2% Dem.  Lean D.
8 (Northwest): 53.8% Obama, 45.1% Dem.  Tossup.
9 (North Milwaukee burbs, Sheboygan): 41.4% Obama, 31.0% Dem.  Safe R.
10 (Fox River Valley): 53.1% Obama, 42.7% Dem.  Lean R.
11 (Green Bay): 53.7% Obama, 42.5% Dem. Lean R.
12 (Wausau, Stevens Point): 55.1% Obama, 43.9% Dem. Tossup.

Seven of the twelve districts are competitive, which is pretty nice IMO.

[muon2]

Also, should the county split rule still hold in New England, where most counties have literally no function?

This is the question I'm trying to fully flesh out in the NECTA thread. Counties don't count for chops, but NECTAs do. No town should be chopped either.

[jimrtex]

I assume that municipalities which span multiple counties can be split along county lines with no penalty, since your Wisconsin map does just that in several spots.  (And it might make following the Michigan Rule literally impossible in some cases otherwise.)

Though the rule is usually stated as don't split counties unless necessary, and then don't split municipalities; the underlying principle is to not split the lowest-level communities.

So I would adjust the county boundaries to match municipality boundaries, placing the municipality in the county with the most population.

[TJ in Oregon]

I assume that municipalities which span multiple counties can be split along county lines with no penalty, since your Wisconsin map does just that in several spots.  (And it might make following the Michigan Rule literally impossible in some cases otherwise.)

Though the rule is usually stated as don't split counties unless necessary, and then don't split municipalities; the underlying principle is to not split the lowest-level communities.

So I would adjust the county boundaries to match municipality boundaries, placing the municipality in the county with the most population.

Interestingly, I would take the opposite interpretation and weight not splitting counties above not splitting municipalities. While not splitting the local communities may be the right principal, we have the county lines we have, and short of coming up with a complicated set of rules for each state, we have to follow the lines as they are. Granted your proposed method of dealing with it would be just as robust in resisting abuse.

[TJ in Oregon]

Also, should the county split rule still hold in New England, where most counties have literally no function?

This is the question I'm trying to fully flesh out in the NECTA thread. Counties don't count for chops, but NECTAs do. No town should be chopped either.

For the purposes of this thread, the county split rule still applies, although it's probably not the best rule specifically for New England. The Pacific Coast also has some issues with counties too.

[Adam Griffin]

I hope I've done this somewhat correctly!

All in all, it wasn't too difficult to keep counties intact, save for the four that are bigger than a CD in this case (Dekalb, Fulton, Gwinnett & Cobb). Besides these, all counties are wholly-contained within a CD.

Unlike up north and as far as municipalities goes, the general rule of thumb around here and outside of heavily-Democratic areas (and not exclusive in this case either) is that municipality boundaries mean jack-crap when deciding precinct lines. In many cases, a precinct may almost match up with a section of a city's borders, but not entirely. There are several cases of this, but it's very hard to avoid in a state like this. In keeping with the spirit of the Michigan Law, however, there were only two adjacent cities that I had to substantially split in order to create this map (Sugar Hill & Buford in Gwinnett County, in order to connect the remainder of District 11 with Forsyth and avoid splitting the county).

This is a pretty GOP-friendly map, but the right circumstances could pull anywhere from 2 to 5 of the districts McCain won into the Democratic column. As it stands, there are only 7 congressional districts in which Obama's margin of victory was larger than two points. There are 4 congressional districts (shaded in purple; Athens, Savannah and Macon are three of them) where the margin of victory for Obama or McCain, or the aggregate between Dem & Rep was within 1 point. In one of these districts, Obama lost by 6 points (15). Obama won another (4) and the other two were close McCain wins.

A total of 9 of these districts are what I'd consider Section 5-friendly in spirit. The blue/red shading below was done using Dem/Rep as opposed to Obama/McCain, sorry. Also, I always forget to position labels, so I had to add them after the fact.



3: Obama 81.1%
2: Obama 73.8%
1: Obama 65.8%
8: Obama 60.9%
17: Obama 56.2%
9: Obama 53.4%
4: Obama 52.8%
21: Obama 50.1%
18: McCain 50.3%
6: McCain 50.4%
16: McCain 51.1%
15: McCain 52.5%
7: McCain 55.7%
5: McCain 62.1%
20: McCain 63.2%
19: McCain 66.3%
14: McCain 67.2%
13: McCain 71.3%
10: McCain 72.6%
11: McCain 74.8%
12: McCain 76.1%

[traininthedistance]

Pennsylvania!  If we're keeping deviations to three digits (and IMO the spirit of the Michigan Rule demands we keep it pretty darn low) then whole-county groups are actually kinda hard here.  It gets a lot easier at around 2.5K tolerances, but that's for wimps.

Obviously, no municipalities are split within counties except for Philadelphia; furthermore the Philly districts are entirely along ward boundaries.  VRA is easily met with two black-majority districts and one further min-maj; political impact was largely ignored.  In general, for SEPA I settled on an arrangement that gave each county its own district in spirit even if there were slight deviations from county lines (Delco and Berks are the best examples); in SWPA I was mostly just focused on keeping all the deviations under 1K and not splitting towns or double-dipping, since there was a SWPA county group to be had, but one that was a couple thousand overpopulated.  District 16 (the sprawling Northern Tier one) can easily be redrawn to be whole-county, but doing so forces another split elsewhere in Central PA and I like the Harrisburg-York group.



Philly area:


PGH:


District 1 (Lower & Central Bucks): 55.4% Obama, 54.3% Dem.  Lean D.
District 2 (Far Northwest Philly, parts of Montco): 59.7% Obama, 60.6% Dem.  Safe D.
District 3 (North, NW, NE Philly): 88.8% Obama, 87.5% Dem.  56.1% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 4 (Center City, South, Near NE Philly): 84.8% Obama, 84.8% Dem.  44% White/25.2% Black/19.8% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
District 5 (West Philly, Chester and south Delco): 84.5% Obama, 82.7% Dem. 54.9% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 6 (Delco mostly): 57.0% Obama, 53.7% Dem.  Lean D.
District 7 (entirely within Montgomery): 63.3% Obama, 59.8% Dem.  Safe D.
District 8 (entirely within Chester): 54.6% Obama, 49.8% Dem.  Tossup. (Arguably Tilt R given local strength.)
District 9 (northern Montgomery and Bucks, western Lehigh leftovers): 48.9% Obama, 44.9% Dem.  Safe(ish) R.
District 10 (Berks [Reading] mostly): 55.0% Obama, 51.2% Dem.  Tossup. (Closer to Tilt D?)
District 11 (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton): 60.6% Obama, 59.0% Dem. Safe D.
District 12 (entirely within Lancaster): 44.8% Obama, 38.2% Dem.  Safe R.
District 13 (Lebanon, Pottsville, etc.): 41.2% Obama, 39.0% Dem.  Safe R.
District 14 (Lackawanna [Scranton], Monroe, some Northampton): 58.8% Obama, 56.1% Dem.  Safe(ish) D.
District 15 (Luzerne [Wilkes-Barre], Carbon, Columbia): Obama 52.2%, Dem 53.4%.  Tossup.
District 16 (Williamsport, Northern Tier): 40.6% Obama, 38.1% Dem.  Safe R.
District 17 (York): 42.3% Obama, 38.4% Dem.  Safe R.
District 18 (Harrisburg, Carlisle): Obama 49.5% (beat McCain by about 300 votes), Dem 44.7%.  Lean R.
District 19 (Chambersburg, Gettysburg): 35.0% Obama, 33.7% Dem.  Safe R.
District 20 (State College, Clearfield): 46.9% Obama, 47.2% Dem.  Safe(ish) R.
District 21 (Johnstown, Altoona, Indiana): 42.9% Obama, 46.2% Dem.  Safe R.
District 22 (Greensburgh, Somerset- most of Westmoreland and areas to the south and east): 39.8% Obama, 46.0% Dem.  Safe R.
District 23 (Washington, Beaver, Mon Valley): 48.2% Obama, 54.7% Dem.  Err... Lean R at this point.
District 24 (Pittsburgh, West Hills): 67.4% Obama, 69.6% Dem.  Safe D.
District 25 (East Hills, South Hills, Mon Valley): 56.1% Obama, 59.0% Dem.  Lean D.
District 26 (North Hills, north Westmoreland County): 44.1% Obama, 47.2% Dem. Safe(ish) R.
District 27 (New Castle, Butler): 41.8% Obama, 44.0% Dem.  Safe R.
District 28 (Erie): 53.7% Obama, 50.1% Dem.  Tossup. (Tilt D?)

8-3-4-2-11.  Definitely a slight Republican slant, which is to be expected given the state's unfavorable geography.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I had a Minnesota map I was going to just tweak a bit but it looks like my computer is out. I'll get a new one this weekend but no maps till then.

[traininthedistance]

Well, this series certainly seems to have struck my imagination.  Here's Virginia.  As usual, three-digit max deviation.



Independent cities are treated as county-equivalents here, seems the fairest way to do it.  Putting county integrity over the VRA does, in fact, deprive us of VRA opportunities; I'm pretty sure that you can get two black-majority districts out of the Southeast if you had free reign to get ugly, but only one if whole counties take precedence.  Was able to squeeze out two more min-maj districts, though, which should be good enough.

As for what splits we have... I think you need two splits in Hampton Roads; the VA Beach district definitely has to be split and I don't think you can avoid a second one, certainly not without funny business with water connectivity and the Eastern Shore.  Out of a desire to avoid spanning the Chesapeake and get a black-majority 3, I chose to accept the second split without rigorously testing every single possible permutation.  Then you need to split something in the Richmond area, Prince William, and Fairfax of course.  Kept all the independent cities and Arlington together in 18, though.  Worth noting that most of the city lines in Fairfax and Henrico are simply CDPs rather than incorporated places, and often don't line up with voting districts anyway, so those aren't actually split munis.

Also I will note that I was unreasonably thrilled to see the Shenandoah Valley district (12) actually happen to work out.

Hampton Roads and Richmond:


NoVA:


District 1 (VA Beach, Eastern Shore): 48.8% Obama, 45.5% Dem.  Likely R.
District 2 (Chesapeake, most of Norfolk): 55.2% Obama, 51.7% Dem.  28.4% Black VAP, fwiw.  Tilt D.
District 3 (Portsmouth, Southside, Petersburg):  65.1% Obama, 59.9% Dem.  51.2% Black VAP. Safe D.
District 4 (Newport News, Hampton, Williamsburg): 58.7% Obama, 53.1% Dem.  34.1% Black VAP.  Lean D.
District 5 (Chesterfield County etc. south of Richmond): 44.8% Obama, 40.8% Dem.  Safe R.
District 6 (Richmond, most of Henrico): 68.7% Obama, 62.4% Dem.  48.5% White/39.8% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 7 (north of Richmond, the "Necks"): 40.9% Obama, 39.7% Dem.  Safe R.
District 8 (far SW): 36.3% Obama, 41.3% Dem.  Safe R.
District 9 (Roanoke, Blacksburg): 45.6% Obama and Dem.  Likely R.
District 10 (Danville, more Southside): 42.1% Obama, 41.8% Dem.  21.3% Black VAP. Safe R.
District 11 (Charlottesville, Lynchburg): 51.6% Obama, 48.9% Dem.  Tossup.
District 12 (Shenandoah Valley): 39.4% Obama, 36.8% Dem.  Safe R.
District 13 (Fredericksburg, Front Royal): 46.4% Obama, 42.8% Dem.  Safe R.
District 14 (Prince William/Manassass): 57.3% Obama, 50.1% Dem.  52% White/18.3% Black/19.4% Hispanic VAP (also min-maj by total population).  Lean D.
District 15 (Loudon, northern Fairfax): 55.6% Obama, 50.1% Dem.  Tossup.
District 16 (southwestern Fairfax): 57.6% Obama, 52.3% Dem.  20.1% Asian VAP.  Lean D.
District 17 (southeastern Fairfax): 63.2% Obama, 58.3% Dem.  49.7% White/12.6% Black/20.2% Hispanic/15.1% Asian VAP.  Safe D.
District 18 (Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax City): 70.1% Obama, 66.9% Dem.  Only 61.5% White VAP (very even # for other groups).  Safe D.

4-4-2-0-8; a little more robust for the Republicans (even if you pushed the "Likely"s into a mere "Lean R" category) but pretty fairly even overall.

[traininthedistance]

Sometimes, the constraints you set for yourself...backfire.  Welcome to Connecticut.

With eight districts for eight counties (yes, we all know counties don't mean jack here, but the rules are the rules and I'm sticking to them), it's no surprise that there are plenty o' splits.  Hartford County actually divides perfectly in two, but there are no more groups to be had and that's really quite fine.  What is less okay is the utterly fugly serpentine border between 4 and 7, in the pursuit of a) not splitting towns, b) remaining within the 1K tolerance, and c) no double-spanning/keeping 4 all in New Haven.

Also 3 has to take two discontinuous prongs into Fairfield, one of which bridges through New Haven... there's no avoiding that unless you split towns or break tolerance.  Okay maybe I should've split a town, but I'm stubborn and this is New England dangit.



District 1 (Greenwich, Stamford, Danbury): Obama 57.9%.  Lean D.
District 2 (Bridgeport): Obama 60.3%. Safe D.
District 3 (Waterbury, Litchfield Co.): Obama 52.0%.  Tossup.
District 4 (New Haven): Obama 63.7%.  Safe D.
District 5 (New Britain, N & W Hartford Co.): Obama 60.5%.  Safe D.
District 6 (Hartford, East Hartford): Obama 70.0%.  Only 57.9% White VAP.  Safe D.
District 7 (Meriden, Middletown, Norwich): Obama 61.9%.  Safe D.
District 8 (New London, Tolland & Windham Cos.) Obama 58.9%.  Safe(ish) D.

Yeah.  The map favors Dems of course... but any CT map would.  New England's kinda weird that way.

[Хahar 🤔]

Maryland:



There are things that I like here (the Eastern Shore) and things I don't like (almost everything else). Municipalities are not important in Maryland (a massive proportion of the population lives in unincorporated areas), and so I focused on counties. The result still isn't ideal, and I'm sure with more scientific methods it could be greatly improved upon.

Obviously it's fantastic that the Eastern Shore comes out to be roughly the size of a district. The deviation is 5,107, four times that of any other district, but we can live with that. Elsewhere, Frederick County looks a little strange, but I like that I was able to combine Carroll County with the west and keep the town of Mount Airy on the county line in one district.

Charles, St. Mary's, Calvert, and Anne Arundel Counties together make just less than two districts, as does Prince George's County. To get the remaining population for each I reached into Howard County, which as a result is divided into four separate counties; I would feel worse about this if Howard County had any identity of its own. As it is, it seems ideal to serve as a repository for other counties' districts.

The end result of all this is a rather effective Republican map, with three Republican seats and two more competitive seats out of thirteen.



District 1 (western Maryland, Carroll): 36.5% O, 36.8% D. Safe R.
District 2 (Frederick, western Montgomery): 58.4% O, 56.5% D. Safe D.
District 3 (Harford, outer Baltimore County): 40.2% O, 44.9% D. Likely R.
District 4 (Eastern Shore): 43.0% O, 45.3% D. Likely R.
District 5 (white Baltimore, inner Baltimore County): 59.2% O, 63.9% D. Safe D.
District 6 (black Baltimore): 93.2% O, 90.7% D, 77.2% black VAP. Safe D.
District 7 (western Baltimore County, eastern Howard): 64.9% O, 64.9% D, 32.0% black VAP. Safe D.
District 8 (western Howard, northern Montgomery): 67.2% O, 66.7% D. Safe D.
District 9 (inner Montgomery): 75.8% O, 76.5% D. Safe D.
District 10 (northern Anne Arundel): 47.5% O, 50.5% D. Tossup.
District 11 (outer PG): 80.7% O, 80.9% D, 42.9%/27.7%/20.6% black/white/Hispanic VAP. Safe D.
District 12 (inner PG): 94.4% O, 92.4% D, 81.0% black VAP. Safe D.
District 13 (southern Maryland): 52.7% O, 57.5% D. Lean D.

[Adam Griffin]

Davidson (Nashville) and Shelby (Memphis) had to be split due to both being larger than a district. A silver of Blount had to be added to Knoxville's district, while Dickson County also had to be split due to the Nashville metro.

This is a 9 R, 5 D map in a presidential election year; most likely 10 R, 4 D in a mid-term.

CD-4: 70.6% McCain, 27.9% Obama (Morristown)
CD-3: 69.2% McCain, 29.3% Obama (Johnson City)
CD-6: 68.3% McCain, 30.2% Obama (Oak Ridge)
CD-8: 65.7% McCain, 33.0% Obama (Columbia)
CD-7: 62.1% McCain, 36.5% Obama (Murfreesboro)
CD-2: 61.9% McCain, 36.2% Obama (Cookeville)
CD-5: 60.8% McCain, 37.7% Obama (Knoxville)
CD-1: 59.5% McCain, 39.4% Obama (Chattanooga)
CD-9: 59.3% McCain, 39.2% Obama (Clarksville)
CD-12: 50.8% Obama, 48.1% McCain (Nashville-Ashland City)
CD-11: 52.6% Obama, 46.1% McCain (Nashville-Hendersonville)
CD-14: 53.9% Obama, 45.4% McCain (Memphis-Germantown)
CD-10: 54.7% Obama, 44.6% McCain (Memphis-Jackson)
CD-13: 58.9% Obama, 40.3% McCain (Memphis-Millington)

[traininthedistance]

The goal for Mississippi should be simple enough: no split counties, two black-majority districts (you can't realistically get more than that unless you start splitting things).  It was actually a little harder than it seemed, since so many things I tried had a couple districts just too far away from equality.  But I finally got something that works- pretty sure District 7 is forced (1 might be too, given that you need to keep a Delta district), and I've hunted enough on the others. 



District 1 (Southaven, northern edge): 32.3% Obama.  Safe R.
District 2 (Oxford, Clarksdale, Greenville, the Delta): 58.6% Obama, 52.8% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 3 (Starkville, Columbus, Tupelo, Madison County): 44.1% Obama, 35.7% Black VAP.  Likely R.
District 4 (Jackson, Vicksburg): 63.1% Obama, 59.1% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 5 (Rankin County, Central MS): 34.5% Obama, 28.4% Black VAP.  Safe R.
District 6 (Meridian, Hattiesburg): 33.3% Obama, 28.7% Black VAP.   Safe R.
District 7 (Gulfport-Biloxi-Passacougla): 31.7% Obama.  Safe R.

Pretty straightforward. 

[traininthedistance]

One more for today: New Mexico.  NM is a state that actually works better with the current number of districts (three) than the Cube Root number, but oh well.  Obviously Bernalillo has to be split, and I'm pretty confident that a second split somewhere is necessary to get the deviations under 1K.  Turns out the best place for the second split is... also Bernalillo.  District 1 is drawn so as to stay just about entirely within the city of Albuquerque.  As for the VRA, that's a funny story.  New Mexico is actually plurality-Hispanic, but especially when you optimize for whole-county districts you find that the most heavily Hispanic districts are actually the most Republican.  Hello, Little Texas!  Anyway, only one of these districts is white-majority, and there is one Hispanic-majority district (plus a second by total population), so I'll call that good enough.






District 1 (Albuquerque City): 60.7% Obama, 54.9% Dem.  49.9% White/39.2% Hispanic VAP. Likely D.
District 2 (Las Cruces, Little Texas/SE): 46.8% Obama, 44.9% Dem.  45.0% White/49.3% Hispanic VAP (Hisp. maj. by total population).  Likely R.
District 3 (Farmington, Taos, Gallup, Clovis, the north): 57.8% Obama, 55.6% Dem.  35.6% White/34.7% Hispanic/26.7% Native VAP. (Hisp. plurality by total population)  Likely D.
District 4 (Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, Los Alamos, NE Bernalillo): 61.9% Obama, 56.2% Dem.  54.8% White/35.6% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
District 5 (Roswell, Silver City, south Bernalillo): 53.7% Obama, 50.5% Dem.  40.5% White/53.2% Hispanic VAP.  Tossup.

3-1-1.  Pretty representative, I'd say.

[traininthedistance]

You know what state really, really, *really* sucks for Cube Root Michigan?

New Jersey.  I spent way too long on this and it still blows goats.

First off, obviously nineteen districts for twenty-one counties is not exactly the sort of ratio that allows for whole-county groups.  I eventually found two (mutually-exclusive) possibilities, and went with the one that split North Jersey off from the rest of the state.  Second off, the shape of Burlington County, right in the middle of everything, and large town sizes in Ocean make things difficult in South Jersey, and force some difficult choices.  No matter what, you have to have a district that sends two prongs into Ocean, whether it be from Burlco or Monmouth- and Monmouth would be prettier but I couldn't find a way to make that work with this whole-county group and 1K deviations elsewhere.  I also had to do the two-prong thing in one other place as well, between Somerset/Middlesex- I took it to be a lesser failure than splitting towns or exceeding deviations.

Third, and worst, is that the VRA is gonna demand a Hispanic district, but that district really really wants to jump county lines and split towns.  It would be easy to make work if we just had one or two extra county splits, but the prohibition on double-spanning (which I took as sacrosanct here) makes it real hard.  Ultimately I found something that worked with minimum county splits, and only splitting two towns (Newark and Kearny), but it unavoidably uses a county fragment as a "bridge", and also led to other wackiness, namely a Paterson-Sussex County cage fight district that is great for competitiveness and horrible for the wishes of literally every single resident found therein.  In addition to the requisite black-majority and Hispanic-majority districts, several other districts are minority-majority.

Anyway, this is not the Cube Root map I would like to make, but I think it's the one I have to make, given the constraints.  I might try and throw up an alternative that eases up on deviations a bit and allows for one VRA-enabling double-span, just because this was so frustrating.



South:


Central:


NE:


District 1 (Atlantic, Cape May, etc.): Obama 55.9%, Dem 54.2%.  Lean D.
District 2 (Cumberland, Salem, most of Gloucester): Obama 56.2%  Dem 54.7%.  Lean D.
District 3 (Camden): Obama 68.1%, Dem 64.9%.  Safe D.
District 4 (mostly Burlington, south and west Ocean County): Obama 54.8%, Dem 51.2%.  Tossup.
District 5 (Toms River, most of Ocean County): Obama 41.5%,  Dem 42.2%.  Safe R.
District 6 (Trenton; most of Mercer and north Burlington): Obama 65.6%, Dem 60.6%.  Safe D.
District 7 (mostly Monmouth- Long Branch, Freehold):  Obama 48.5%, Dem 47.1%.  Lean R.
District 8 (north Monmouth, SE Middlesex- New Brunswick, Middletown):  Obama 52.4%, Dem 51.5%.  Tossup.
District 9 (Edison, Woodbridge, Piscataway): Obama 61.5%, Dem 60.2%.  49.1% White / 18.3% Hispanic / 21.0% Asian VAP.  Safe D.
District 10 (Somerset, SW Middlesex): Obama 54.8%, Dem 49.1%.  Tossup.
District 11 (most of Union County- Elizabeth, Plainfield): Obama 64.5%, Dem 61.2%.  43.5% White / 21.8% Black / 28.3% Hispanic.  Safe D.
District 12 (Jersey City, most of Hudson County): Obama 74.2%, Dem 73.7%.  36.1% White / 13.8% Black / 31.0% Hispanic / 16.7% Asian (plurality-Hisp by total population).  Safe D.
District 13  (southern Essex County- most of Newark etc.):  Obama 86.9%, Dem 84.1%.  22.1% White / 56.5% Black / 15.4% Hispanic.  Safe D.
District 14 (north Hudson through North Newark to Clifton/Passaic): Obama 65.4%, Dem 65.9%.  34.8% White / 51.4% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
District 15 (southern Bergen Co.): Obama 61.4%, Dem 62.5%.  51.8% White / 20.8% Hispanic / 17.5% Asian (min-maj by total population).  Safe D.
District 16 (northern Bergen Co., Hawthorne): Obama 48.3%, Dem 47.6%.  Lean R.
District 17 (Paterson, Sussex County): Obama 52.6%, Dem 50.6%.  62.4% White / 22.9% Hispanic.  Tossup.
District 18 (suburban Essex, eastern Morris): Obama 52.8%, Dem 50.0%.  Tossup.
District 19 (western Morris, Warren, Hunterdon): Obama 43.4%, Dem 38.8%.  Safe R.

8-2-5-2-2.  Great for competitiveness at least!  And pretty great for Dems if the wind is blowing their way... but that's quite the if.  At least some of those tossups probably have an R tilt at the local level, which makes the map a good deal less favorable.

[muon2]

A county fragment can be a bridge as long as it doesn't link two whole counties that cant be otherwise linked in the district. Bridges between county fragments are OK though they tend to increase erosity and become disfavored. I agree that the double-chop of the same two districts splitting two different counties is the thing to avoid.

[TJ in Oregon]

Wyoming 1 R
Vermont 1 D
South Carolina 8-2 R
Wisconsin 6-6
Georgia 12-9 R
Pennsylvania 16-12 R
Virginia 9-9
Connecticut 7-1 D
Mississippi 5-2 R
New Mexico 4-1 D
New Jersey 13-6 D

I’m using Traininthedistance’s Wisconsin rather than mine due to my extra unnecessary split of Milwaukee County.

I’m not counting the MD and TN maps since I think they probably violate the VRA by chopping Memphis (and in the case of MD an 81% black seat).

Any seat listed as tossup, I'm going to estimate which direction it would tilt for the purposes of this count.

65 Republicans, 65 Democrats so far

[traininthedistance]

I’m not counting the MD and TN maps since I think they probably violate the VRA by chopping Memphis (and in the case of MD an 81% black seat).

Well in that case here's a different Maryland that should fix the VRA issue, with four black-majoirty districts all under 60 percent and a fifth plurality, and additionally finds two whole-county groupings, pretty neatly divided between DC-area and Baltimore-area.

The Eastern Shore is basically the same; I decided to chop one precinct out of Cecil (yes, there's a bridge in the right place) to keep deviations down.  I think this is a district I'd have a hard time splitting even if the rules told me to, luckily I found the other grouping and I didn't find a Shore-splitting map that got three groups out of the state.

As Xahar noted, most of these town lines are just CDPs and local government below the county level means vanishingly little in MD.  Tried to mostly keep to them in spirit anyway.





District 1 (Eastern Shore): Obama 43.1%, Dem 45.4%.  Safe R.
District 2 (Harford County & NE Baltco): Obama 39.7%, Dem 43.1%.  Safe R.
District 3 (Inner Baltimore County- Towson, Essex/Dundalk, Owings Mills): Obama 58.7%, Dem 63.7%.  66.3% White/23.6% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 4 (Most of Baltimore City): Obama 84.8%, Dem 84.5%.  37.3% White/53.1% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 5 (Baltimore City south and west, Catonsville and associated suburbs mostly in Baltco): Obama 75.2%, Dem 74.8%. 38.8% White/51.9% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 6 (almost all of Anne Arundel): Obama 47.9%, Dem 50.5%.  Tilt R.
District 7 (Carroll, almost all of Howard): Obama 50.4%, Dem 50.8%.  Tossup.
District 8 (Charles, St. Marys, inner south PG- Suitland, Ft. Washington): Obama 72.6%, Dem 73.2%.  38.7% White/51.5% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 9 (Calvert, outer PG- Bowie etc.): 79.7% Obama, 79.1% Dem.  31.2% White/58.5% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 10 (spanning PG and Montgomery- Greenbelt, College Park, Silver Spring): Obama 85.7%, Dem 85.3%.  26.3% White/40.1% Black/24.6% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
District 11 (all Montco- Wheaton, Rockville, Gaithersburg): Obama 70.8%, Dem 71.5%.  47.4% White/16.8% Black/18.7% Hispanic/14.7% Asian VAP.  Safe D.
District 12 (mostly Montco with some Frederick- Bethesda, Germantown): Obama 66.3%, Dem 66.1%.  Safe D.
District 13 (Western MD- Frederick, Hagerstown, Cumberland): Obama 44.4%, Dem 43.4%.  Safe R.

8-0-1-1-3... which is actually kind of a bonanza for Republicans given how Democratic the state leans.  But the geography is unkind, and as much consternation as that horrible Carroll-Howard district gives me, it's basically forced.  Oh well.

[TJ in Oregon]

As I'm sure everyone knew was coming, Ohio:



SW Ohio:


1 (blue-Cincinnati): Obama 57.9%-McCain 41.1% Lean D
2 (green-Cincinnati Suburbs): McCain 55.2-Obama 43.7 Safe R
3 (purple-Dayton): Obama 50.4%-McCain 48.2% Lean R
4 (red-Athens): McCain 53.1%-Obama 44.9% Lean R
5 (gray-Portsmouth): McCain 58.2%-Obama 39.7% Safe R
6 (lime-Hamilton): McCain 61.6%-Obama 37.1% Safe R
7 (orange-Beavercreek): McCain 59.2%-Obama 39.3% Safe R
8 (purple-Columbus East): Obama 76.0%-McCain 22.8% Safe D
9 (yellow-Columbus West): McCain 49.4%-Obama 49.2% Likely R
10 (maroon-Delaware): McCain 53.2%-Obama 45.6% Safe R
11 (chartruse-Mansfield): McCain 55.2%-Obama 42.4% Safe R
12 (sky blue-Wapakoneta): McCain 59.2%-Obama 39.0% Safe R
13 (peach-Lima): McCain 60.1%-Obama 38.0% Safe R
14 (olive-Newark): McCain 54.5%-Obama 43.4% Safe R
15 (slate-Marietta): McCain 51.8%-Obama 45.9% Lean R

Cleveland Area:


16 (midnight-Youngstown): Obama 61.1%-McCain 36.7% Safe D
17 (cyan-Toledo): Obama 64.7%-McCain 33.8% Safe D
18 (blue-Sandusky): Obama 57.5%-McCain 40.7% Likely D
19 (orange-Medina): McCain 52.0%-Obama 46.4% Likely R
20 (sea green-Canton): Obama 49.2%-McCain 48.8% Lean R
21 (black-Akron): Obama 62.5%-McCain 36.0% Safe D
22 (olive-Lake County): McCain 49.6%-Obama 48.7% Likely R
23 (lime-Cleveland South): McCain 49.6%-Obama 49.3% Likely R
24 (maroon-Cleveland West): Obama 67.5%-McCain 35.0% Safe D
25 (yellow-Cleveland East): Obama 86.0%-McCain 13.3%, 59.6% VAP Black Safe D


It turns out even with cube root seats the only VRA seat that can be drawn is one on the east side of Cleveland. The Columbus East seat is also likely to elect an African American, although it is only 34.8% Black, the Democratic Primary is probably majority black.

Also, it would be interesting to see a Democratic Michigan rule Ohio drawn; (not that I was trying to help them) but Ohio's geography definitely favors the GOP.

Most likely 17-8 and really not that many seats are competitive.

[TJ in Oregon]

Maryland 8-5 D
Ohio 17-8 R

87 Republicans, 81 Democrats so far

[Хahar 🤔]

I’m not counting the MD and TN maps since I think they probably violate the VRA by chopping Memphis (and in the case of MD an 81% black seat).

Well in that case here's a different Maryland that should fix the VRA issue, with four black-majoirty districts all under 60 percent and a fifth plurality, and additionally finds two whole-county groupings, pretty neatly divided between DC-area and Baltimore-area.

The Eastern Shore is basically the same; I decided to chop one precinct out of Cecil (yes, there's a bridge in the right place) to keep deviations down.  I think this is a district I'd have a hard time splitting even if the rules told me to, luckily I found the other grouping and I didn't find a Shore-splitting map that got three groups out of the state.

As Xahar noted, most of these town lines are just CDPs and local government below the county level means vanishingly little in MD.  Tried to mostly keep to them in spirit anyway.

[map]
[map]

District 1 (Eastern Shore): Obama 43.1%, Dem 45.4%.  Safe R.
District 2 (Harford County & NE Baltco): Obama 39.7%, Dem 43.1%.  Safe R.
District 3 (Inner Baltimore County- Towson, Essex/Dundalk, Owings Mills): Obama 58.7%, Dem 63.7%.  66.3% White/23.6% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 4 (Most of Baltimore City): Obama 84.8%, Dem 84.5%.  37.3% White/53.1% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 5 (Baltimore City south and west, Catonsville and associated suburbs mostly in Baltco): Obama 75.2%, Dem 74.8%. 38.8% White/51.9% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 6 (almost all of Anne Arundel): Obama 47.9%, Dem 50.5%.  Tilt R.
District 7 (Carroll, almost all of Howard): Obama 50.4%, Dem 50.8%.  Tossup.
District 8 (Charles, St. Marys, inner south PG- Suitland, Ft. Washington): Obama 72.6%, Dem 73.2%.  38.7% White/51.5% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 9 (Calvert, outer PG- Bowie etc.): 79.7% Obama, 79.1% Dem.  31.2% White/58.5% Black VAP.  Safe D.
District 10 (spanning PG and Montgomery- Greenbelt, College Park, Silver Spring): Obama 85.7%, Dem 85.3%.  26.3% White/40.1% Black/24.6% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
District 11 (all Montco- Wheaton, Rockville, Gaithersburg): Obama 70.8%, Dem 71.5%.  47.4% White/16.8% Black/18.7% Hispanic/14.7% Asian VAP.  Safe D.
District 12 (mostly Montco with some Frederick- Bethesda, Germantown): Obama 66.3%, Dem 66.1%.  Safe D.
District 13 (Western MD- Frederick, Hagerstown, Cumberland): Obama 44.4%, Dem 43.4%.  Safe R.

8-0-1-1-3... which is actually kind of a bonanza for Republicans given how Democratic the state leans.  But the geography is unkind, and as much consternation as that horrible Carroll-Howard district gives me, it's basically forced.  Oh well.

Obviously drawing a Carroll-Howard district in real life would be insane, and I don't like the Calvert-PG district much at all, but it looks good otherwise. It goes to show how hard it is to draw Maryland with these rules.