TJ's District Maps Series

[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.

[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]
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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.

[Хahar 🤔]

The shape of independent cities in Colorado is really not conducive to whole-county groups.