100 Senate Seats by population

[jimrtex]

Ohio



1 (blue): 59.5% Obama, 39.0% McCain
2016 Rating: Safe D

2 (green):  52.1% McCain, 46.4% Obama
2016 Rating: Safe R

2 (purple):  50.0% McCain, 48.2% Obama
2016 Rating: Likely R

NEOH makes a really clean district within 2,500 of ideal population and is a natural Democratic sink. The main question becomes where to put Toledo, though it doesn't change the partisan dynamics much either way. Ohio is pretty awkward with 3 districts; 4 works much better.

I would put the Ohio River with Cincinnati which places Toledo with Columbus.

[jimrtex]

Except that the VRA does not apply to plurality districts, and Illinois does not have a Florida type law, so you are making a political-policy choice here.

Well, you split Los Angeles into 3 districts for no apparent reason, too.  

I dissent from the party line that counties need to be kept whole but cities do not - especially where city boundaries cross county lines.  I think incorporated cities should be kept whole first, to avoid the largest cities from having undue influence over the rest of the state. People have more allegiance to their city than their county, anyway.  

The part of Chicago in DuPage County has little to no population, anyway, so putting O'Hare in a Chicago-only district would be a microchop of a county at best- and utterly meaningless if the few people who used to live near the airport in DuPage Chicago have been moved due to the runway reconfiguration project, anyway.  Who cares if boundaries cross county lines to keep a city intact if nobody lives there?

It's impossible to keep LA City whole due to its shape going down to the harbor, and trapping the coastal cities. Even without the trapping issue, the city in 2010 has about 200,000 too many people to be all in one district anyway. In addition, the VRA drives the Hispanic San Gabriel Valley district, and it needs to take in some of LA City to get to a high enough Hispanic percentage, and that is certainly the case if one wants to avoid an erose mess. Otherwise I would not have done that chop, because I am sensitive to tri-chopping anything, including a city. Counties rule over cities in the metric that Muon2 and I set up, and in addition, putting aside the VRA, there should be but one muni chop between districts. Your mileage varies, which is fine. Different strokes for different folks.

I might add that the Kern-Santa Barbara-Ventura district has about 27% of its population in LA city, so the city is hardly dominating. The Hispanic San Gabriel Valley based district has about 19% of its population in the city.

I think you should put Compton and Carson in the OC district, then you could move the LA boundary east and the San Gabriel district south.

Also, I would swap Contra Costa and San Mateo.