early look at gerrymanders in 2020

[Nyvin]

Thank you. I'm kinda new to this and i really dont understand the state by state laws of how the VRA has to be applied exactly

The Trumpification of the courts is going to have a big impact. Wouldn't be surprising to see Neil Gorsuch toss this silly Voting Rights Act into history's dustbin.

Should be simple. Equal protection under the law means everyone should be treated the same. No special treatment for certain groups. we should have 435 American districts, not a set number of white, black, asian, hispanic seats. Just American

The VRA attempts to get everyone treated equal....without it white legislatures draw minorities out of representation, or uses voter suppression to achieve that.   See Pre-VRA days.

[Gass3268]

Also should note that Michigan and Utah could both get commissions by 2021. Would probably result in an additional Democratic seat in both.

[Nyvin]

We really don't have any idea what the state legislatures will look like either at this point.

[Nyvin]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

[krazen1211]

Another possibility that hasn't been discussed yet: If VRA influence on redistricting is weakened further, could big partisan states like CA, NY, IL, TX et. al just make all of their congressional elections at large?

At large districts were banned in 1967 and nobody seems to be challenging that.

[muon2]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

They have to be careful there. In 2011 they thought they drew IL-12 and IL-13 as Dem leaning seats, but that didn't work out as the decade unfolded. They relied too heavily on the 2008 race repeating in 2012 and incumbents holding those seats thereafter. If Trump runs in 2020, they will have to avoid putting too much weight on anti-Trump votes in 2021, otherwise they may repeat the error of counting too many pro-Obama votes that didn't carry down ballot.

[Gass3268]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

They have to be careful there. In 2011 they thought they drew IL-12 and IL-13 as Dem leaning seats, but that didn't work out as the decade unfolded. They relied too heavily on the 2008 race repeating in 2012 and incumbents holding those seats thereafter. If Trump runs in 2020, they will have to avoid putting too much weight on anti-Trump votes in 2021, otherwise they may repeat the error of counting too many pro-Obama votes that didn't carry down ballot.

True, but Duckworth did beat Kirk in DuPage.

My hope is that in 2020 is that they learn from there mistake and combine the best Democratic parts in the 12th with the best Democratic parts of the 13th and then shed the rest. Have a line that goes from East St. Louis to Springfield to Decatur with then two arms to Bloomington and Champaign. If they want to get really dirty, go ahead and add Carbondale and Alexander County and use the Mississippi as the connector.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

They have to be careful there. In 2011 they thought they drew IL-12 and IL-13 as Dem leaning seats, but that didn't work out as the decade unfolded. They relied too heavily on the 2008 race repeating in 2012 and incumbents holding those seats thereafter. If Trump runs in 2020, they will have to avoid putting too much weight on anti-Trump votes in 2021, otherwise they may repeat the error of counting too many pro-Obama votes that didn't carry down ballot.

Is this a good map? i.e. especially the form of IL-06 I have.

[Nyvin]

Illinois will have 17 districts in 2022.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Illinois will have 17 districts in 2022.

I know. I'm asking in particular if they might produce a similar IL-06 post-2022.

[muon2]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

They have to be careful there. In 2011 they thought they drew IL-12 and IL-13 as Dem leaning seats, but that didn't work out as the decade unfolded. They relied too heavily on the 2008 race repeating in 2012 and incumbents holding those seats thereafter. If Trump runs in 2020, they will have to avoid putting too much weight on anti-Trump votes in 2021, otherwise they may repeat the error of counting too many pro-Obama votes that didn't carry down ballot.

Is this a good map? i.e. especially the form of IL-06 I have.

The Dems had other political goals in 2011 than just maximizing seats. They wanted to give Duckworth a seat without pairing her against any other Dem or against Roskam. Schakowsky did not want a CD that was primarily in Lake county. Also Gutierrez lives in the northern Hispanic CD (5 on your map), and that had to stay over 59% HVAP, which preserved the wraparound IL-4. See what happens when you impose those constraints.

[krazen1211]

Another possibility that hasn't been discussed yet: If VRA influence on redistricting is weakened further, could big partisan states like CA, NY, IL, TX et. al just make all of their congressional elections at large?

At large districts were banned in 1967 and nobody seems to be challenging that.

Interesting.  It would seem to be heavily advantageous for Dems to start lobbying for at-large districts given that they win a bunch of large states with 60%+ while the only safe place for the GOP to retaliate would be Texas and Ohio (and they may even regret TX-At-Large come 2028 or a 2030 GOP midterm.  It's also constitutionally ambiguous whether the President and the Senate would even have to approve something that only impacts the manner of US House elections if a House majority voted for the changes.

Well, yes, but the problem comes from the fact that white liberals would swoop in and take the districts and kick all the nonwhite liberals out.

And then there's the second problem of getting mediocrities like Maxine Waters to support something that is guaranteed to end their career.

The GOP would retaliate with selective multi member districting.

[Nyvin]

Even if they do put odd hooks and extensions into Jefferson and move KY-3 eastward...the eastern part of Jefferson is trending D pretty fast (one of the extreme few places in Kentucky doing so...).   

I don't believe the state constitution would allow the county to be divided between 2 or more districts without having a district entirely within it's borders.

[NOVA Green]

Actually drawing another Democratic district in Oregon is pretty easy. Oregon voted for Hillary by almost 11 points. OR-2 is a huge R vote sink. OR-4 is a very margin seat that Hillary won by like 0.1% (I think it might be the closest seat in the country) but has a strong incumbent and the Democrats could just boost it a bit by adding places like Ashland and Bend from OR-2 and shedding the Republican territory, and you have a seat that would be very hard to win for the Republicans even if DeFazio retires but would be about D+4 or so. That means in the remainder of Oregon Hillary would've won it by about 16-17 points, and thus could easily be chopped up so all the districts are at least in the teens margin of victory.

I'm not actually that convinced it would be easy to create another relatively Democratic district in Oregon given laws and precedents regarding how districts are created.

So let's start with the current population and then let's assume that population growth % by county/ cities within counties remains constant at 7/15-7/16 levels, and then let's annualize that growth rate out to 7/20.

The population of the State would be about 4,350,000 or roughly 725k per US-CD, assuming Oregon gains another House Seat.

The estimated population by County would look something like this:



Generally the rule in Oregon is that whenever possible, one needs to keep cities within one CD, try to observe county boundaries, especially for heavily rural counties, where the County seat is the center of government, and generally try to observe the whole concept "communities of interest". Additionally, you aren't supposed to be deliberately going and creating blatant partisan Gerrymandered districts.

So let's start with CD-02 as the "Republican Vote Sink"....

Basically the district is going to have to lose some real estate, that will have to end up elsewhere....

1.) You aren't going to be able to chop up Central Oregon (Crook/Deschuttes/Jefferson) without fundamentally separating well defined and understood communities of interest.... Trying to run a skinny district all the way out just to gobble up Bend likely wouldn't meet the Oregon criteria, unless you're also taking in large chunks of heavily Republican territory at the same time.

2.) So, this leaves us with 3 Counties and part of a 4th that are currently in CD-02, where we need to look to grab the extra 200k voters for the district. Hood River and Wasco in the far North could potentially be added into a district in Western Oregon, since there are some linkages between the bulk of the population along the Columbia River Gorge in Hood River and The Dalles and East Multnomah and Clackamas Counties.... The former is overwhelmingly Democratic, and the latter is an ancestral Democratic County with recent Republican leanings.  Then you have Jackson County in the South that has both some heavily Republican Areas, as well as some heavily Democratic communities. Either way the remainder of Josephine County (Grants Pass) will end up in CD-04 adding more Republican Votes.

3.) Jackson County will have to be split regardless, and if we need to give some back to CD-04, we may as well run a clean stretch over from Southern Josephine and grab Ashland, Phoenix, and Jacksonville, plus some Republican Rural areas along the Way....

4.) So now we can leave Wasco in CD-02 taking us up to 553k, meaning we need another 170k from Jackson, which conveniently happens to neatly take in the heavily Republican rural areas in the Eastern and Northern parts of the County as well as Medford.

5.) That should give us Hood River County to play with as part of district in the Portland Area, unless we want to keep it in reserve in case someone gets antsy about that being the only place East of the Cascades not in CD-02.

6.) CD-04--- So now we have a big problem, we've added some pretty solidly Dem turf from Ashland area, but we've also added some heavily Republican territory in Grants Pass, and out population is exceeding its limits. Fine--- let's get rid of the rest of Linn County and move that into another district, since part of it already is, and Mid-Valley areas are used to getting shifted around a little bit...

7.) So what to do with the rest of the State? Ok--- if you look at the population of the three core counties of Metro Portland, their combined population should account for about 1.9 Million by 2020 or 45% of the State Vote, not to mention some spare change from Exurbs around Newburg in Yamhill County. It's only fair that Metro Portland gets 3 CDs predominately located within the Metro area, and another CD that is predominately located in the Mid-Valley.

8.) How to "stretch" the Metro Portland vote in a way the dilutes the strong Democratic Votes, while simultaneously respecting precedent?

9.) It makes sense to split Multnomah into two halves--- West of the Willamette and East of the Willamette. This has been done before, and plus you have a County that will have somewhere around 850k people that will need to be split regardless.

10.) CD-03 would retain all of MultCo East of the River, which would give it a base of about 676k Population. To take the other 45k you would probably need to take in the existing Exurban parts of Clackamas already in the district (Happy Valley, Sandy, Estacada), but you're running out of population, and would need to move some heavily Republican rural areas into CD-05, in what is already a marginal district. I guess you might be able to offset by moving some of the Republican leaning exurbs above into CD-05 instead, but either way....

11.) CD-01 would have West Multnomah (170k), Columbia, Clatsop (92k), Tillamook (27k) for a base of 289k, leaving us with another 436k population.... Well this is pretty much all going to come out of Washington County, so we may as well take all of the rural areas, places like Forest Grove and such, throw in fast-growing Hillsboro (110k), a bunch of unincorporated areas West of Portland, etc

12.) CD-06--- Thinking Tigard and Beaverton would be the base (160k) along with another 42k in the SW portion of the County for 202k in Washington.... Add in Yamhill, Polk, Benton, and Lincoln and you have another 342k for 544k to date.... we still need another 200k Pop. I guess you could throw Linn County into the Mix and some rural parts of Marion.

13.) CD-05--- Would keep existing Democratic suburbs of Milwaukee, Lake Oswego, Gladstone, West Linn, and Uninc Areas around there, throw in Salem-Keizer, Woodborn, and all of the rural areas in Marion along the I-5 corridor, and you're still maintaining much of the district.

Here's a crude map of what that would look like--- haven't run the '16 GE Pres precinct numbers against this, but it looks like you would end up with a potential 5-1 Dem Congressional Delegation, albeit with 2 reachable Republican flip seats (CD-05 and CD-06), assuming that letting go of Linn combined with Ashland overpowering Grants Pass strengthens CD-04.

@ BRTD / Compassion Fills the Void

Sir, you have yet to explain your argument as to why the Democrats should be able to craft a safe Democratic seat in OR CD-06.

NcLib posited that the new OR-CD would be at best for a Dems a Swing CD.

You have suggested that dumping a ton of Republican Votes into Eastern Oregon (CD-02) and shoring up CD-04 will create four solid districts where the Democrats should win the Teens.

SingleTexGuyforFun said he thought that the 'Pubs would gain the new CD no matter what.

Gass indicated that would probably be the case.

I have proposed what I think might be the best general template for the Democrats, that should withstand a legal challenge, which would be something like (2) Safe Dem Districts, (2) Lean Dem Districts, (1) Tossup, and (1) Republican District.

We are eagerly awaiting your response, unless this is yet another BRTD "Seagull" dive bomb attempt utilizing the latest Stuka technology, (or should we call them Junkers)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87





 

[Nyvin]

Some other interesting seats might be KS-3, NE-2, and OK-5.

[Gass3268]

Some other interesting seats might be KS-3, NE-2, and OK-5.

Nebraska requires whole counties and I could see the moderate Republicans in Kansas siding with the Democrats to draw a fair map again just to stick it to the righties.

[muon2]

Here's a version of OR I drew from neutral principles. It's an anti-gerrymander, but I'm curious to get an opinion from NOVA Green.



I projected the counties to 2020 from the 2016 estimates. As drawn here are the percent population deviations for the Beaverton and Salem CDs are less than 0.5% and wouldn't need any adjustment. The other CDs are all within 2.3% of the quota, and need minimal shifts to bring them to practicably equal. For example shifting all of the Warm Springs IR into the Gresham-Pendleton CD and the area north of Sexton Mtn Pass into the Eugene CD would be enough to probably meet standards for population equality.

[This is Eharding, guys]

The idea the California map is a "soft Dem" map is bizarre. Only two districts (Hunter's and McCarthy's) went for Romney with over 60% of the vote, and none went for Trump with over 60% of the vote. There was no packing of California GOP seats the way North Carolina Democrats were packed in 2016. Sure, the commission could have stretched the GOP more thinly, but that would just mean more Clinton-GOP seats would have been Clinton-Dem seats in 2016, and the vast majority of current GOP-held seats, even if won by Romney, would be Dem seats in 2018. California is just a very urban, very expensive, very Hispanic, very Democratic state.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

OH: likely loses a GOP leaning district because rural districts are less populated.

That is incredibly terrible reasoning. Rural districts are just as populated as urban districts. Since Ohio went for Trump by eight points, it would be easy for the GOP to eliminate Tim Ryan's district if the GOP gerrymander stays. But that gerrymander probably won't stay due to the likely victory of an independent redistricting commission extension initiative in 2018.

RealClear Politics says it would be difficult to eliminate GOP seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan; maybe because rural populations are declining more quickly. Tim Ryan's seat includes urban areas like Akron and Youngstown.

Due to their states swinging hard to Trump, it would be incredibly easy for the GOP machines in MI, OH, and PA to eliminate Dan Kildee's, Tim Ryan's, and Matthew Cartwright's districts in 2021. Sadly, a lot of those Obama-Trump voters aren't flipping back, ever. It would have been impossible for the GOP to have done this in 2011, though, as all of these states went for Obama easily.

Youngstown, Flint, Wilkes-Barre are sadly all fast-declining urban areas. That makes the positions of the Dems there even more precarious (except in Ohio, where it is likely nonpartisan redistricting will pass in 2018).

Trump voter=/=House R voter
It would be outrageously foolhardy to draw gerrymanders on that basis, generally. Also, it just screams 'dummymander' to me - Trump won many economically left-wing people in the Rust Belt and to assume they won't ever be won back on presidential level AND they would be reliable House Republican voters is just deeply unwise.

Tim, since when has a dummymander resulted from assuming the congressional vote will resemble the presidential vote, rather than from ignoring the presidential vote and assuming past congressional vote results will always remain? North Carolina has only three Dem districts, and it went for Trump by only four points. Ohio went for Trump by eight points. Surely Ohio can easily afford to lose OH-13 under a GOP gerrymander without it degenerating into a dummymander, and probably OH-09, as well. The majority of Obama-Trump voters were state legislative R voters if a seat was contested, and almost all Obama-Trump voters in GOP-held districts were House R voters.

I understand Romney vote is more strongly predictive of 2017 special election results than Trump vote. That's because presidential election results take time to fully percolate down to the local level. The Arkansas Democratic Party had plenty of fun during the 2000s winning Clinton 96/Bush 2000 voters. Then the 2010s came, and Bush 2000 results all of the sudden became far more predictive of congressional and state legislative vote than in 2006. Matt Cartwright, etc. will survive 2018 easily. But in the 2020s, the current PA-17 will very likely end up R on the House and state legislative level.

I'm saying Rust Belt Rs would be better off treating them as swing voters rather than solid R voters. I think Obama-Trump people are fickle and ultimately not only is there no guarantee they'll be solid Rs forever, but they could actually become Lean D sometime in the future. The fact they aren't solid R votes necessarily means the GOP would be wise not to count them as solid conservative voters. They could crack the Columbus seat and leave dems with just 3 seats, I agree; but such a map would be wise to split up the suburbs of Columbus to ensure multiple solid GOP seats, not assume the Obama-Trump people will vote them in thick and thin. There's no evidence the GOP has a hold on them; if the GOP manages to hold them through 3 elections, then yes I would agree. But it'll take a while to see how things will shake out.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's actually possible to crack MO-05 into many GOP seats and create an absolutely solid 8R-1D, but I bet GOP congresscritters wouldn't like the dilution of their seats and the running of seats from downtown KC to the Arkansas border. Outside of a vote-sinked MO-01 and an MO-02 with all of St. Charles, the rest of the state went McCain by somewhat around double digits.

[Mr.Phips]

Another possibility that hasn't been discussed yet: If VRA influence on redistricting is weakened further, could big partisan states like CA, NY, IL, TX et. al just make all of their congressional elections at large?

At large districts were banned in 1967 and nobody seems to be challenging that.

Wasn't the VRA the reason why they were banned? If the VRA is gutted further, doesn't this ban become a moot point?

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

Thank you. I'm kinda new to this and i really dont understand the state by state laws of how the VRA has to be applied exactly

The Trumpification of the courts is going to have a big impact. Wouldn't be surprising to see Neil Gorsuch toss this silly Voting Rights Act into history's dustbin.

Should be simple. Equal protection under the law means everyone should be treated the same. No special treatment for certain groups. we should have 435 American districts, not a set number of white, black, asian, hispanic seats. Just American

That's not even remotely close to how the VRA works, This ignorance is astounding.

[krazen1211]

Another possibility that hasn't been discussed yet: If VRA influence on redistricting is weakened further, could big partisan states like CA, NY, IL, TX et. al just make all of their congressional elections at large?

At large districts were banned in 1967 and nobody seems to be challenging that.

Wasn't the VRA the reason why they were banned? If the VRA is gutted further, doesn't this ban become a moot point?

Well, yes and no. After the VRA was passed in 1965, some folks figured that the Democrats would switch to at large elections to keep electing white liberals instead of blacks. So the 1967 law came to be.

But the concept of requiring single member districts dates back to 1842 and long predates any VRA thing or even the 15th amendment. So there is no reason to link one to the other.

[jimrtex]

Here's a version of OR I drew from neutral principles. It's an anti-gerrymander, but I'm curious to get an opinion from NOVA Green.



I projected the counties to 2020 from the 2016 estimates. As drawn here are the percent population deviations for the Beaverton and Salem CDs are less than 0.5% and wouldn't need any adjustment. The other CDs are all within 2.3% of the quota, and need minimal shifts to bring them to practicably equal. For example shifting all of the Warm Springs IR into the Gresham-Pendleton CD and the area north of Sexton Mtn Pass into the Eugene CD would be enough to probably meet standards for population equality.

It meets reasonable standards already. They are as equal as practicable using counties.

It is bozo logic that representatives elected from such districts would not be "chosen (...) by the people of [Oregon]"

[nclib]

I'm not familiar with the PA Supreme Court, but it appears that if Wolf is re-elected (likely), PA will have a fair map. PA-5 and PA-9 will go back to Repub Central PA, and PA-6, PA-7, and others will become more Democratic.