U.S. House Redistricting: Illinois

[Linus Van Pelt]

(deleted this preliminary thing: see below)

[Linus Van Pelt]

OK, here's a possible Democratic gerrymander. Comments in the next post.

[Linus Van Pelt]

(moving from the south to Chicagoland)

light blue: Costello (D), pretty much unchanged.

yellow: R, obviously. Shimkus will run here; Johnson has to decide whether to challenge him or whether to try to hold the orange district.

orange: new D-leaning district with Springfield, Bloomington/Normal & Champaign/Urbana. Not completely unwinnable for the Reps, but pretty tough.

the west-central green district: Schock, R.

purple, along the Mississippi: the key here is putting Rockford in this district, which keeps it roughly the same kind of district it is now (basically labor Dem, but not totally safe in a bad year like 2010), while making it less weird-shaped and freeing up Springfield for the other orange seat).

light green, north-Central: Kinzinger and Hultgren forced into a primary.

and, then, in Chicagoland:
dark green: Rush, 54% black

dark blue: Jackson, 54% black

purple, SW Cook: Lipinski

red: new Mexican district; 61% Hispanic

grey, Davis: 54% black

yellow: Gutierrez - 54% Hispanic

forest green: Quigley

pale blue: Schakowsky. Dold could try to hold it, but it's not happening.

purple, NW Cook: I assume this is a D seat. If it isn't, you could exchange some territory with the green one.

beige: I've put all the minorities in the western suburbs I could find here. Biggert could try to hold it, but it's pretty tough at only 57% white.

brown: Roskam.

pink: assuming what's his name has beaten Melissa Bean, he's forced into a primary with Manzullo.

[Linus Van Pelt]

  I've been going through the population estimates and demographic estimates from sampling data released by the Census Bureas.
  I call it:  There will be no second Hispanic district created in Illinois.  The population is too spread out.  I can create one from the south area, but there is no way that I can see that a free standing majority Hispanic District can be created from the northern area--unless the Dems want to run Quigley against Gutierez--and that defeats the purpose of their controlling the remap.
  Get ready for another 10 years of the earmuff district.

Gutierrez lives in the southern half, no? So it would be Quigley alone in the new Hispanic district. Probably not his first choice, but I don't think he'd be in any real danger of a primary challenge.

Also, so long as you need just the southern part to make a Hispanic district, doesn't it make sense,  if there's only one district, to use the northern Hispanics to make the northern suburban districts more D?