Most contiguous complete counties in a Congressional District

[Angrie]

Here's how this works:

• Post a Congressional District with as many complete contiguous counties as you can.
• The district has to be drawn in such a way that all other districts in the state can be drawn contiguously. For example, this is why I did not include some low population counties along the Rio Grande river in my initial map below.
• Population deviations of up to about 5,000 are acceptable.
• You can either post a district with a greater number of contiguous complete counties than a previous poster, or post a district for a new state that nobody has done yet.
• You can have left over population in a partial county, but the county split doesn't count as a county. In other words, you have to round down your number of counties to the nearest whole number.
• Post some basic demographics about the district.

I started with Texas because it has so many counties, including many sparsely populated ones in West Texas. But it might be possible to do get a greater number of counties in one of the plains states (?). This has 92 counties, but I didn't really optimize it. You could probably improve on it by explicitly counting the populations in each county to make sure you include all the smallest ones.



Stats:

92 counties

Population 700,961 (+2,473 deviation)

53.3% White
42.5% Hispanic

27.6% Obama
72.4% McCain

There is a surprisingly large number of Hispanics, and yet it is so Republican!

[Indy Texas]

I love this - what is the biggest city in that district? San Angelo?

[jimrtex]

I love this - what is the biggest city in that district? San Angelo?

Tom Green is the county with the panhandle.

I think the largest city is Pampa.

[jimrtex]

Here's how this works:

• Post a Congressional District with as many complete contiguous counties as you can.
• The district has to be drawn in such a way that all other districts in the state can be drawn contiguously. For example, this is why I did not include some low population counties along the Rio Grande river in my initial map below.
• Population deviations of up to about 5,000 are acceptable.
• You can either post a district with a greater number of contiguous complete counties than a previous poster, or post a district for a new state that nobody has done yet.
• You can have left over population in a partial county, but the county split doesn't count as a county. In other words, you have to round down your number of counties to the nearest whole number.
• Post some basic demographics about the district.

I started with Texas because it has so many counties, including many sparsely populated ones in West Texas. But it might be possible to do get a greater number of counties in one of the plains states (?). This has 92 counties, but I didn't really optimize it. You could probably improve on it by explicitly counting the populations in each county to make sure you include all the smallest ones.



Stats:

92 counties

Population 700,961 (+2,473 deviation)

53.3% White
42.5% Hispanic

27.6% Obama
72.4% McCain

There is a surprisingly large number of Hispanics, and yet it is so Republican!

Remove Runnels, Callahan, Pecos, Moore, and Hockley

Add Concho, Archer, Coleman, Blanco, Live Oak, Karnes, Goliad, Refugio, and Comanche.

If you could population for two districts from El Paso to Amarillo (going through Culberson, Reeves, Ward) that could be split off from the remainder of the state, this would permit the eastern part of the state to be split off from the western.

You could also remove Hutchinson and Jones, and perhaps add 3 counties elsewhere.

The theoretical limit disregarding contiguity is 111 counties (Zapata 14,018 or smaller)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is the maximum number of counties you can get in a no-county-split congressional district in Colorado (I think). This seat is 42.8% Obama, 55.4% McCain; 40.1% Dem, 59.9% Rep. Deviation is +2,925.
Biggest cities in the district are Grand Junction, 58,566: Durango, 16,887: and Sterling, 14,777.
All population counts are as of the 2010 census.

[ElectionsGuy]

The blue district is 30 counties (out of 72) and voted 54.9/43.5 Obama, would be toss-up/lean R in neutral circumstances. I got a little carried away and did other districts too just ignore it.

[Adam Griffin]

GA, 59 counties:

[muon2]

GA, 59 counties:

You can get 60 with the following changes (staying within 0.5% of the quota):

Out: Appling, McDuffie, Telfair, Upson
In: Cook, Jefferson, Johnson, Long, Tattnall

There's an easy state with 66 contiguous counties: SD.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

21 counties in each.
Green: R+14
Black: R+5

[ElectionsGuy]

Nebraska (81/93 counties)



66-32 McCain (+4000 deviation)

[ElectionsGuy]

Kansas (83/105 counties)



69-29 McCain (+5000 deviation)

[ElectionsGuy]

Idaho (37/44 counties)



65-32 McCain (<1000 deviation)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

17 full counties.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

4 full counties.

[ElectionsGuy]

Oklahoma (47/77 counties)



72-28 McCain (-3000 deviation)

[muon2]

17 full counties.

The complete counties aren't contiguous here. In general the idea is to avoid any chopped counties.

I find that you can do 17 whole counties with nothing extra in one SC CD. Use all of Lancaster, Kershaw and Lee.  Drop Sumter, and from Marion just connect to Williamsburg, Clarendon and Calhoun.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

17 full counties.

The complete counties aren't contiguous here. In general the idea is to avoid any chopped counties.

I find that you can do 17 whole counties with nothing extra in one SC CD. Use all of Lancaster, Kershaw and Lee.  Drop Sumter, and from Marion just connect to Williamsburg, Clarendon and Calhoun.

Is it fine as long as the whole counties are contigous to each other? If, say, you took out all of the non-whole county parts it would still be a contigous district?

[muon2]

17 full counties.

The complete counties aren't contiguous here. In general the idea is to avoid any chopped counties.

I find that you can do 17 whole counties with nothing extra in one SC CD. Use all of Lancaster, Kershaw and Lee.  Drop Sumter, and from Marion just connect to Williamsburg, Clarendon and Calhoun.

Is it fine as long as the whole counties are contigous to each other? If, say, you took out all of the non-whole county parts it would still be a contigous district?

That's the way I read Angrie's rules. Your plan for RI was ok with a fractional county since the rest were contiguous. In general, one wants to make them all whole, but as RI showed that's not always possible.

[Adam Griffin]

39. It's possible that you can squeeze another 1 or 2 out of this; I merely used Atlas population shades to do this.