Draw the Congressional Districts of the Alternate States!

[Antonio the Sixth]

This thread is based on my Alternate US States project. I'm doing my best to create a scenario as complete as possible on the political situation of each State, but I don't have enough time and will to try and draw all the Congressional maps.

Basically, anyone here who's interested in redistricting can submit maps based on each State in this scenario - taking into account that State's territory, its number of representatives under the 2010 apportionment, and the political situation affecting redistricting choice, ie control of the governorship and legislature (you'll find all this data on the main thread).

Anyone interested (besides Jerry)?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can do NC. They lose a district, no?

Nah, NC (as most of the South) is left untouched under my map.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just to make it simpler, here's what you need to know about each State for redistricting:

State	# CDs (2010)	Governor	Legislature	Gerrymander
New England	5	Dem	Dem	Unlikely
Massachusetts	11	Dem	Dem	Likely
New York	18 or 19	Dem	Dem	Possible
Adirondack	9	Rep	Rep	Likely
Pennsylvania	11	Dem	Rep or Split	Unlikely
Allegheny	7	Rep	Rep	Very likely
Maryland	10	Dem	Dem	Very likely
North Florida	11	Rep	Rep	Very likely
South Florida	16	Dem	Rep	Unlikely
Texas	12	Rep	Rep	Likely
Rio Grande	11	Rep	Dem	Unlikely
Jefferson	12 or 13	Rep	Rep	Likely

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fantastic job, Politicallefty! This is exactly the kind of analysis I so badly wanted to see.

Also, glad that I wasn't too far off the mark when I expected Democrats to have 6/11 seats.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Added South Florida to the list. C'mon people, we need more maps!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Added the three Texas splitoffs. Come on guys, let's get this started!

[Antonio the Sixth]

How exactly do the VRA requirements work? I assume a state like RG would need at least 3 Hispanic-majority districts, but I'm not sure how that number is supposed to be calculated.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That seems like an excellent redistricting plan, Cranberry. The borders look very nice, so if it's also VRA-compliant there's no need to look any further!

Muon, it might seem surprising in light of statewide results but yes, local Democrats tend to have the upper hand in this area of Texas. Just look at the House results: Democrats hold 7 of 11 seats even despite living in a nominally R-gerrymandered map. The same is true in the State Legislature. According to my calculations, Democrats hold almost 3/4 of the Texas House of Representatives seats in the area corresponding to RG.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fantastic job, Muon! I can't wait to see the results of this process.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's an excellent analysis, thank you very much!

Considering that local democrats tend to significantly outperform their respective Presidential candidate, it's very likely that Democrats would actually control around 95 seats and would rarely if ever be at risk of losing their majority.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's an excellent analysis, thank you very much!

Considering that local democrats tend to significantly outperform their respective Presidential candidate, it's very likely that Democrats would actually control around 95 seats and would rarely if ever be at risk of losing their majority.

Actually I have some of that data, too, and it doesn't support your conclusion. In heavily Latino areas, there can be a large fall off on downballot voting, just as there is in midterm voting. The result is that the GOP can carry local races while the top of the ticket loses. Also many swing districts in urban areas overperformed for Obama, and won't duplicate that result elsewhere on the ticket.

What data do you have, exactly? I compared Obama's rests in CDs with House elections, and it seemed that House candidates generally did better.

[Antonio the Sixth]

For the record, my assumption was that the new States would have been created around the early 1960s (first coming into effect with the 1962 elections).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Election shades:

But wouldn't the Dems gerrymander Erie so that there was just one safe R seat, and all others lean or safe D?

Perhaps in this alternate reality, the districts are drawn by a bi-partisan panel instead of by the legislature.     

Actually, my goal for this project was to assume that everything was exactly like real life except for the States. So yes, a Dem gerrymander is probably more likely.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sorry 'bout that Fuzzy, but I'm sure you don't actually mind working on DRA a little more, do you?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Now that's a gerrymander! Great job to both!

Is anyone interested in making a Republican gerrymander in Adirondack? I'm really curious to see how many seats they could grab (my guess was 6 out of 9).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Would Adirondack really have a GOP leg? I could see the state senate, but I doubt they'd have the trifecta.

It would have been a bit close, but I'm pretty sure that, in a landslide year like 2010, republicans would be favored to win the State Assembly as well. IRL, this happened in States with a more Democratic PVI...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Would Adirondack really have a GOP leg? I could see the state senate, but I doubt they'd have the trifecta.

It would have been a bit close, but I'm pretty sure that, in a landslide year like 2010, republicans would be favored to win the State Assembly as well. IRL, this happened in States with a more Democratic PVI...

What about the governorship? I doubt Paladino would have won...

I've been making conjectures and discussing about AD local politics in the main thread on the What If board. To be honest, I have very little idea what the State's politics would look like and there are very few politicians I can name who could credibly occupy the State's major offices. That said, I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that a Republican would be swept in office in the 2010 GOP wave.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Very nice!

Are you interested in drawing the R-gerrymandered 2010 map as well?

[Antonio the Sixth]

A few of these districts are only marginally Republican though, and in a good Democratic year (or with good candidates) you could see 5 or 6 seats fall in Dem hands. Does splitting municipalities allow Republicans to solidify their hold on CDs 2 to 5?

[Antonio the Sixth]

A few of these districts are only marginally Republican though, and in a good Democratic year (or with good candidates) you could see 5 or 6 seats fall in Dem hands. Does splitting municipalities allow Republicans to solidify their hold on CDs 2 to 5?

By swapping about 10 precincts each way between AD 5 and 6, I can move AD 5 up to R+3. With about half an hour work carving up towns I can get AD 5 such that McCain wins the district, and so on.

Sounds good!

One more State I seem to have mostly gotten right, then.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh wow, that's a nasty one. I'm actually surprised the GOP can actually manage to crack the Columbus district, I thought they would have done so IRL if they could.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's really interesting (in a sickening sort of way )! Excellent work indeed.

Do you think the GOP could manage to do the same with Pittsburgh in Allegheny?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, if the only misplaced counties are York, Lyncoming and Tioga, you can't say my division is so bad. I just think it's nice to draw a pretty "clean" vertical line and if only a few communities are slightly misplaced it's not that big of a problem.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, if the only misplaced counties are York, Lyncoming and Tioga, you can't say my division is so bad. I just think it's nice to draw a pretty "clean" vertical line and if only a few communities are slightly misplaced it's not that big of a problem.

I'm just saying that geography and demographics would drive any split over an arbitrary line. For example the current proposal to divide CA into six states ignores the straight line dividing SoCal and puts Kern with the rest of the Central Valley. That makes geographic sense.

York and Harrisburg are significant areas in PA and an arbitrary split wouldn't come about. jimrtex's recent thread had a healthy debate about splitting states, including PA. The debate was about a four-way split and you can see that all three alternatives had the entire lower Susquehanna together west to Franklin and keeping Dauphin and Cumberland together. That goes to a mountain-based split.

Yeah, I guess you are right. I did my best to learn about each State's political and cultural regions when I drew the States, but there are so many of them that it's easy to make a few mistakes. Thanks for pointing that one out, I'll keep it in mind next time I tweak around with PA.

On the other hand, it would take me too much time to re-calculate all the numbers I had to fix the mistake, so I'll still keep these boundaries for the sake of our scenario. Sorry.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That's a very interesting map, Train, even though I guess Muon's gerrymander was a bit more aggressive. Anyway, I can only make guesses as to what the legislatures would actually do, so feel free to experine with other hyptheses if you think they make more sense.