TJ's District Maps Series

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[traininthedistance]

Many people would actually like the Carroll-Howard district because of its inherent competitiveness. The general public does not like a plan where all the districts are locked for one party or the other, even though the more politically aware tend to favor districts that will produce a predetermined outcome so they can seek out representatives who think like themselves.

That same split in thinking occurs when people look at places to live and work. Climate, jobs, and schools, along with leisure-time amenities (cultural or recreational) tend to dominate the decision processes for most people. If you poll people who are politically aware they will look at policies in place and those likely to be enacted in a given area, but this is a distinctly minority view.

I personally like competitive districts when the states and regions they're a part of contain a lot of competitive precincts/subdivisions, and don't like them when they're just polarized and throw hard-Republican areas in with hard-Democratic areas.

I see a lot of people saying that they like drawing competitive districts in polarized, inflexible states, but I'm just the opposite: in a state like Maryland, a delegation of all safe seats actually reflects the populace well, whereas I'd rather maximize the number of seats up for grabs in places like Colorado instead.

[traininthedistance]

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.

Just from a quick glance, the Dayton and outer Cuyahoga districts look kinda forced; everything else seems pretty "fair".  Those two districts plus a different split of Columbus seem like the only real low-hanging fruit for a Dem map; you're of course right that the state's geography is quite GOP.

Sure, why not, I'll give it a try (and also see if any county splits can be knocked off of course).

[traininthedistance]

Sorry for the delay on Democratic Ohio... Silverlight is not agreeing with my computer the way it used to.



Anyway... I more or less did my usual thing of going after whole-county groups, no split cities (Cleveland and Columbus the necessary exceptions), 1K max deviations without much regard to partisanship, then snuck it in a little inside the county groups.  I think most of these districts, with the obvious exception of District 8 (which runs from Springfield to downtown Columbus, squeezing out one more competitive seat), could come out of a neutral map. Found a bunch of groups: Cincy (1 through 4); east-central (11 & 12), Lima/NW (14), Toledo/Sandusky (15 & 16), Cleveland-Akron (18 through 22), Canton/Youngstown/far NE (23 through 25); Dayton, Columbus and associated rural areas got thrown together in a large leftovers pile. The weird lines in Lucas have no partisan reason, it's just how I was able to split the districts within tolerance and without splitting towns.  Probably splitting a town might be better there; possibly also with 5/6 where I found the double-prong necessary (those aren't as ugly though).

Cincy/Dayton:


Columbus:


Toledo:


Cleveland:


1 (Cincinnati and near suburbs): Obama 65.9%, Dem 60.9%.  59.9% White/34.0% Black VAP.  Safe D.
2 (East of Cincy burbs, Clermont etc.): Obama 37.7%, Dem 39.8%. Safe R.
3 (West of Cincy burbs, most of Butler): Obama 35.7%, Dem 36.1%.  Safe R.
4 (Middletown/Warren/Xenia): Obama 36.5%, Dem 38.1%.  Safe R.
5 (North of Dayton & Springfield): Obama 35.9%, Dem 39.3%.  Safe R.
6 (all-Montgomery, Dayton etc.): Obama 54.5%, Dem 52.6%. Tilt D.
7 (south OH, Portsmouth/Chillicothe): Obama 41.2%, Dem 52.6%.  Likely R.
8 (Springfield to Columbus): Obama 51.1%, Dem 51.8%.  Tossup.
9 (all-Franklin, Columbus East): Obama 64.2%, Dem 62.1%.  60.4% White/32.3% Black VAP.  Safe D.
10 (North Columbus, little bit of south Delaware Co.): Obama 56.8%, Dem, 54.4%.  Lean D.
11 (SE Ohio, Athens/Steubensville/New Philadelphia): Obama 50.9%, Dem 63.2%.  Tossup.
12 (Newark/Lancaster/Zanesvillle): Obama 41.9%, Dem 46.5%.  Safe R.
13 (Delaware Co, Mansfield): Obama 41.6%, Dem 44.9%.  Safe R.
14 (Lima, NW): Obama 36.0%, Dem 39.7%.  Safe R.
15 (Toledo): Obama 63.9%, Dem 67.2%. Safe D.
16 (Bowling Green/Sandusky): Obama 50.0%, Dem 51.4%.  Tilt R.
17 (Ashland/Medina): Obama 41.8%, Dem 46.4%.  Safe R.
18 (Elyria/Lorain): Obama 55.6%, Dem 60.4%.  Lean D.
19 (west Cleveland/Parma etc.): Obama 61.5%, Dem 66.6%. Safe D.
20 (east Cleveland/Euclid etc.): Obama 80.8%, Dem 81.5%.  37.9% White/57.2% Black VAP.  Safe D.
21 (Portage Co., Solon/Shaker Heights) Obama 60.7%, Dem 64.3%.  Safe D.
22 (Akron): Obama 59.6%, Dem 65.3%. Safe D.
23 (Canton/Massillon): Obama 50.9%, Dem 54.9%.  Tilt D.
24 (Youngstown/Warren): Obama 60.0%, Dem 73.0%.  Safe D.
25 (Lake, Ashtabula, NE): Obama 49.5%, Dem 51.9%.  Tilt R.

8-4-2-2-9.  The two things I'd regard as obviously gerrymandered here are everything about 8 (would be a Safe R district otherwise) and 25's arm down the eastern side of Trumbull (without which it'd be Lean/Likely R).  Possibly also the split between 11 and 12, though I'd also argue that a river district and a Columbus west exurbs district makes sense, as well.

But yeah.  If you make a good faith effort to keep to the rules in OH, all the Dem nudges you can find really just push you back to parity.  Whee.

[traininthedistance]

Quadruple feature!  All the small Northeastern states.  NECTAs were mostly ignored in Maine and New Hampshire on the grounds that minimizing their splits was mutually exclusive with minimizing county splits, and the rules here care about counties.  I guess New Hampshire would be drawn a bit differently despite not having any whole-county groups; the Merrimack Valley NECTA divisions cross Hillsborough and Rockingham in such a way that you'd possibly want to double-span those counties; possibly also around Concord as well.

Maine:




1 (Portland, Saco, Biddeford): Obama 62.2%.  Safe D.
2: (Augusta, Auburn, Brunswick): Obama 56.7%.  Lean D.
3: (Bangor, Aroostook, Downeast): Obama 54.0%.  Tilt D.

3 is whole-county, sending two prongs into Cumberland between 1 and 2 makes for far neater lines than anything else I could find with suitably small deviations.  Not much else to say.


New Hampshire:



1 (Rochester, Portsmouth, Dover): Obama 53.2%.  Tossup.
2 (Concord, north and west): Obama 59.0%.  Safe D.
3 (Manchester, Nashua): Obama 50.8%.  Tilt R.

No whole county districts, but 2 is one town in Belknap away from it.  Also, note how the two largest cities in the state are both in the most Republican district (likely in all of New England, no less!).  Anyway, one safe D and two swingy districts seems about right for NH.

Rhode Island:



1 (Providence, Pawtucket): Safe D.
2 (Warwick, Cranston, Newport): Safe D.

Deviations 466 and 467, no partisan numbers given but let's be real; 1 is higher minority but still two-thirds white.  Would rather have one district entirely in Providence, but sticking Bristol in 1 makes for neater lines and smaller deviations.  Not that it matters.

Delaware:



1 (Wilmington, Newark): Obama 70.6%, 64.7 White / 21.5 Black VAP.  Safe D.
2 (Dover, Slower Lower): Obama 52.5%, Tossup.

I guess this is pretty good for Republicans, given the state's overall results.

[traininthedistance]

Massachusetts.  This one is relatively slapdash by my standards, and something prettier might be possible (I actually initially had a prettier Western MA in fact, but scotched it to accommodate a couple slightly underpopulated Middlesex districts).





What is not possible, however, is any whole-county groups: with 14 districts for 14 counties, and with the state-spanning size of Worcester as well as Norfolk's multiple exclaves, even a cursory attempt has convinced me it's impossible.  So, all that was left to do was the usual stuff.  Boston is the only split city, of course, and the "Dem Average" is well and truly useless in all but the most Martha Chokely of situations- race ratings are mostly just based on Obama's numbers, knocking a few points off of course.

1 (Berkshires, Greenfield, Northampton): Obama 68.1%, Dem 60.6%.  Safe D.
2 (Springfield): Obama 61.6%, Dem 49.0%.  Safe D.
3 (Worcester): Obama 57.3%, Dem 44.0%.  Likely D.
4 (Fitchburg, Leominster, Lowell): Obama 56.0%, Dem 41.9%.  Lean D.
5 (all within Essex- Salem, Lawrence): Obama 60.8%, Dem 46.9%.  Safe D.
6 (Lynn, Malden, Melrose): Obama 58.2%, Dem 44.8%.   Likely D.
7 (Camberville and north): Obama 69.3%, Dem 61.5%.  Safe D.
8 (MetroWest, Framingham, Waltham): Obama 61.9%, Dem 50.4%.  Safe D.
9 (Newton, Brookline, western Boston): Obama 74.5%, Dem 65.9%.  Safe D.
10 (Revere, eastern Boston): Obama 78.5%, Dem 72.1%.  41.5% White / 25.7% Black / 21.9% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
11 (all within Norfolk- Quincy, Foxboro): Obama 56.0%, Dem 44.1%.   Lean D.
12 (Brockton, South Shore): Obama 54.3%, Dem 41.6%.  Tossup.
13 (New Bedford, Fall River, Attleboro): Obama 61.3%, Dem 48.5%.   Safe D.
14 (Plymouth, Cape, Islands): Obama 56.2%, Dem 44.4%.  Lean D.

I was surprised, actually, that I didn't end up with a mostly-Plymouth County district that could give Generic R better than 50/50 odds, but nope, all the districts were more Obama than his national average.  I think if I ignored county lines then such a thing would be pretty easy and fair to make (don't know if it can be done in a map that keeps to NECTAs instead of counties).

Also, only five of these districts have a Dem average, and yet...  

[traininthedistance]

Kansas and Nebraska.  Throughout both of those states, there are three counties that are larger than a Cube Root district (Douglas, Sedgwick, and Johnson)- those three counties each have one whole district and part of another, with no split towns or cities (with the caveat that I can't tell if Nebraska has townships like Kansas does) and everything else is whole county.  Not too hard to keep deviations tiny when you have lots of little squares to work with.

Kansas:



KC/Johnson County:



1 (Western KS): Obama 28.3%.  Safe R.
2 (Wichita): Obama 43.2%.  Likely R.
3 (Southeast KS): Obama 35.5%.  Safe R.
4(Topeka, Manhattan, Northeast KS): Obama 40.8%.  Safe R.
5 (Kansas City, Lawrence): Obama 56.2%.  Likely D.
6 (JoCo): Obama 44.7%.  Likely R.

District 6 is the furthest from equality at +153; 1, 2, 3, and 5 are all within two digits.  Presumably a 5-1 map most of the time.

Nebraska:



Omaha:



1 (Western NE, Kearny/Grand Island/Hastings): Obama 29.2%, Dem 32.5%.  Safe R.
2 (Lincoln, Southeast): Obama 46.2%, Dem 41.8%.Likely R.
3 (Columbus, Sarpy Co., Northeast): Obama 38.0%, Dem 35.3%.  Safe R.
4 (Omaha): Obama 53.4%, Dem 47.4%.  Tilt D.

Max deviation 269, probably could be goosed a little bit more at the expense of looking uglier. 

[traininthedistance]

Colorado is one of those states where elevating county splits above other considerations leads to some... unfortunate shapes.  In particular I am thinking of that District 9, which is Adams County and 15K worth of random Eastern Plains counties.  But hey, it doesn't have a split!  (Other groups include the whole-county 1 and 2, as well as the two-district group in the north.)  You could probably get a Hispanic-majority district if you had it straddle Adams and Denver, but the exclaves plus that whole-county district means that Denver has to pair with Arapahoe instead, in a fairly large Front Range grouping; best we can do is an all-Denver district that is min-maj by total population, as well as getting the Pueblo district up into the 30s.



Colorado Springs



Denver etc.



1 (Grand Junction, Western Slope): Obama 44.0%, Dem 41.3%.  Safe R.
2 (Pueblo, San Luis Valley, Avon): Obama 52.3%, Dem 49.2%.  68.3% White / 27.6% Hispanic VAP.  Tossup.
3 (Colorado Springs): Obama 42.3%, Dem 36.3%.  Safe R.
4 (Douglas Co., outer El Paso): Obama 37.2%, Dem 31.5%.  Safe R.
5 (Columbine, Centennial, Parker): Obama 48.2%, Dem 42.0%.  Likely R.
6 (Aurora, Englewood, SE Denver): Obama 65.2%, Dem 59.6%.  64.1% White / 11.0% Black / 17.6% Hispanic VAP.   Only 44% White by total population.  Safe D.
7 (Lakewood, Arvada, Broomfield): Obama 55.8%, Dem 50.2%.  Lean D.
8 (Denver north and west): Obama 78.4%, Dem 75.5%.  51.4% White / 10.6% Black / 32.3% Hispanic VAP.  Safe D.
9 (Adams County etc.): Obama 56.7%, Dem 49.2%.  59.4% White / 32.3% Hispanic VAP.  Tilt D.
10 (Greeley, Longmont, Sterling): Obama 49.6%, Dem 44.0%.  Lean R.
11 (Fort Collins, Boulder): Obama 63.1%, Dem 57.7%.  Safe D.

3-2-1-1-4.  Kinda like Virginia, which is fitting.

[traininthedistance]

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

Yeah, not so much.

Oklahoma!

Obviously we are splitting Oklahoma and Tulsa Counties, and that's it.  The Tulsa split is almost along town lines; OKC being larger and containing a couple surrounded towns (and having large areas outside of the county as well) is split more thoroughly.

Also the Dem numbers are as useless as Massachusetts, in the opposite direction.  Whee.



Closeup:



District 1 (Lawton, west): Obama 27.4%, Dem 44.8%.  Safe R.
District 2 (Norman, Shawnee, Ada): Obama 34.3%, Dem 47.4%.  Safe R.
District 3 (Edmond, north OKC hinterlands): Obama 29.0%, Dem 39.1%.  Safe R.
District 4 (Oklahoma City): Obama 48.4%, Dem 54.4%.  56.8% White / 17.9% Black / 15.8% Hispanic VAP.  Tilt R.
District 5 (Enid, Stillwater, Broken Arrow): Obama 30.0%, Dem 42.6%.  Safe R.
District 6 (Tulsa): Obama 41.2%, Dem 48.7%.  Safe R.
District 7 (Bartlesville, northeast): Obama 32.7%, Dem 48.1%.  Safe R.
District 8 (Ardmore, Muskogee, southeast): Obama 33.2%, Dem 53.3% (lawl).  Safe R.

FTR, the highest Native percentage is in District 7, at 15.8%.  They're too integrated into the state to really be a factor when drawing districts.

Whee.

[traininthedistance]

Colorado is one of those states where elevating county splits above other considerations leads to some... unfortunate shapes.  In particular I am thinking of that District 9, which is Adams County and 15K worth of random Eastern Plains counties.  But hey, it doesn't have a split!  (Other groups include the whole-county 1 and 2, as well as the two-district group in the north.)  You could probably get a Hispanic-majority district if you had it straddle Adams and Denver, but the exclaves plus that whole-county district means that Denver has to pair with Arapahoe instead, in a fairly large Front Range grouping; best we can do is an all-Denver district that is min-maj by total population, as well as getting the Pueblo district up into the 30s.

This is why I've come to appreciate the UCCs as a constraint on whole county plans. The 4-county, 2-city Denver UCC has about 203K more than 5 CDs with the 11 CD apportionment. In principle there shouldn't be more than 6 CDs to cover that area. You can add Weld, or the excess from El Paso plus some of the Front Range counties to get there.

I've confirmed that a 50% HVAP CD is possible in Denver+ Adams+a bit of Aurora in Arapahoe.

Yeah, there are plenty of states I've done so far that I'd rather draw differently, with smarter and slightly looser constraints.  Colorado, NJ, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts could all be improved significantly IMO.