2020 census

[politicallefty]

In terms of a neutral map, I found it a lot easier to draw a map where Minneapolis and St. Paul are in different districts. I had an eastern Hennepin district (Minneapolis plus some surrounding suburbs) and a Ramsey-Washington district. That left MN-03 as a Western Hennepin-Anoka district, which would have narrowly supported McCain in 2008. MN-02 would stay pretty much the same, also narrowly supporting McCain in 2008. MN-01 would remain a Southern MN district, but it would add what is now the Southern portion of MN-07.

I'll admit that I wasn't too satisfied with the remaining two districts. MN-08 (which would be renumbered as MN-06) keeps all of the Iron Range and virtually all of its current territory. It might be somewhat controversial, but I also gave it the Northern part of MN-07 that would extend the district to the ND border. The remainder became MN-07. (As you can see, MN-06 would be axed entirely.) Altogether, this map would result it in a 4-3 DFL delegation unless Peterson could survive in a considerably more Republican district.

I'd be happy to share it if anyone's interested.

[politicallefty]

The MN-07 I drew was 53.1-44.5 McCain. I figure, at the least, the district is easily Republican without Peterson (unless Bachmann were to jump there). She'd have nowhere else to realistically run unless she were to steal the nomination in MN-03 and seriously defy gravity there. Obviously, she'd be DOA in that MN-04, which I'm pretty sure is where she lives now.

(I generally try to keep county splits low and deviations no more than 500.)

[politicallefty]

That map wasn't meant to be a gerrymander in any sense. I don't think a DFL Majority would be as merciful as I was in that map. I've played around with creating a DFL gerrymander and the easiest way is to create a Central MN district that functions as a Republican vote sink. A gerrymander would almost certainly be a 5-2 DFL map, not the probable 4-3 DFL map I made. MN-06 is the odd man out when it comes to a 7-seat map. Bachmann would need a Republican gerrymander to stay in the House.

I did play around some more and made some alterations. I kept the two MSP districts and MN-03 the same as before since I think they work quite nicely. Once MN-02 is drawn, there is some excess in the metro that I gave to MN-01 (which is now more of a Southeast MN district). The main reason I split Scott was to avoid a tri-chop of Dakota, though it doesn't really matter where the excess goes. As before, I renumbered MN-08 as MN-06. I found it easier to add St. Cloud to the Iron Range district than with MN-07. (I kept St. Cloud whole, which forced a split of Sherburne County.) MN-07 keeps the entire Red River Valley and extends all the way south to the Iowa border, which has the effect of keeping it more balanced politically than my previous map.

It does seem like the main debate point is where to extend the current MN-08. You can either go down into the Twin Cities metro, the Red River Valley, or St. Cloud. After you decide that, the map should pretty much draw itself. The caveat with all of this is that this is all based on 2010 Census numbers.

[politicallefty]

As you say, MN-8 is problematic.  Duluth and the Iron Range is a very distinct region, but has far from enough population for a district.

MN-1 is a SE Iowa district which just happens to go all the way to SD.   The SW part of Minnesota drains towards the Missouri, and Sioux Falls is the closest city, so it fits better with the Red River.  There is an interstate along the entire border - it doesn't matter that it is in the Dakotas.

So that really limits your choices to St. Cloud or the MSP metro.

By 2020, you will be having to come further into the metro area.   It makes the most sense to shift the counties in this order: 1,2. Isanti and Chisago, already dropped.  3. Sherburne because it is part of St.Cloud.  4. Wright because it is the most remote.   5. Because the population is extremely concentrated in the Chaska area in the notch in Hennepin.

How about splitting Washington between MN-8 (Iron Range-Duluth-St Croix) and MN-2 (Metro South).   Then create (Minneapolis-St. Paul), (Metro West-Hennepin) and a (Metro North-St Cloud) district from Anoka and northern Ramsey up to St. Cloud.

(East Dakota) and (Southeast Minnesota) stay pretty much as they are.

I think this is basically what you're proposing:



It certainly does seem like a plausible map, but I have to say that I'm partial to keeping separate Minneapolis and St. Paul districts. If you extend the current MN-08 down into the Twin Cities metro, I think you're forced to have a combined MSP district. It does preserve something resembling MN-06. Bachmann could run there, though she'd probably have considerable trouble considering McCain only won it by 2%. Republicans also probably wouldn't like MN-03 (which is entirely contained within Hennepin). That voted 55-43 for Obama in 2008. The Outstate districts change only very marginally politically. The only real safe district would be the new MN-04. Overall, it's a reasonable map, though I would prefer the other that leaves MSP separate and combines the Iron Range with St. Cloud.

[politicallefty]

If St.Louis continues to come out like it did in 2012, it doesn't matter what you add on the south end.  Nolan ran up a 30K lead in St.Louis, and held Cravaack to about 2K in his best counties (Morrison, Isanti, Chisago).  Nolan had a larger margin than that in Itasca.   A curiosity is that Nolan ran 3 to 4% ahead of Obama in the Republican areas, but behind Obama in St.Louis.

In 2010, Oberstar only managed 15K in St.Louis, and Cravaack was getting 3K and 4K out of his counties.  Itasca was almost even.  And Cravaack still barely won.

So you would have 2 solid D districts: MN-4.5 and MN-8, two R districts MN-2 and MN-6, and 3 competitive seats, MN-1, MN-3, and MN-7.

You do have a good point with MN-08. As long as the Iron Range is kept together, MN-08 (and it's successor number) should be safe barring a massive GOP wave year. It doesn't really matter what you add to it, whether it be metro MSP or St. Cloud. Obama circa 2008 wins either incarnation by around 8-10%.

I also think you're mostly right on the partisan stats. I do think all of the districts are potentially winnable for the DFL under the right circumstances (and not necessarily even a wave). Walz should be quite entrenched by next redistricting. I would say the same of Paulsen in MN-03, but 55% Obama could be too much. That MN-06 should be a Republican-leaning district (like MN-02), but not if Bachmann ran there.

Basically, divide the metro districts as Ramsey-Washington, Inner Hennepin, South, and North/West.  As for outstate, I think St. Cloud plus Iron Range makes as least as much sense as any other arrangement of those areas.

I think that if they were to keep Minneapolis and St. Paul separate, and I'm inclined to do so but not totally wedded to it, the right way to carve it up would be to have Minneapolis anchor an all-Hennepin district, and have the exurban areas go north, basically combining MN-3 and MN- 6.

I was drawing more neutral/court-type maps myself (and keeping county splits low, etc), but I could easily see that map passing under a DFL trifecta. It does seem pretty apparent that the three rural Outstate districts are very easily drawn. Your map also supports my theory that only a DFL-drawn map would save Bachmann, by keeping MSP separate and creating a heavily Republican district a la your MN-03. You also do a very good job at attempting to take out Paulsen, whose district would be ripped apart. He'd either have to take on Bachmann in a primary (and lose) or run in a mostly foreign district (MN-02). The DFL would be very smart to obliterate Paulsen's district like you did.

[politicallefty]

If it's a DFL map, it depends on whether Peterson is still in MN-07 and how mean they are willing to get.  If Peterson wants protection, you can actually give him an Obama 2008 district, but this means that there will be 2 exurban >55% McCain seats.  Paulsen gets a 61% Obama 2008 seat and Ellison and McCollum would both fall to about 62% Obama 2008 to make that happen.  MN-08 stays about where it is now.  If they want to get MD about it, they can also draw Walz into part of St. Paul for a >57% Obama 2008 seat. 

If they concede Peterson's seat, they can make the 2 suburban districts and the Walz seat likely D with one rural and one exurban vote sink.

I can't say for sure, but I doubt the political culture in Minnesota would do anything remotely like Maryland (which is horrendously ugly due to where the incumbents live). MN-07 is probably one of those seats where Democrats probably outperform presidential numbers. From what I understand, it's a major taboo to split either of the Twin Cities, so a DFL map would have a Minneapolis district and a St. Paul district with both cities entirely intact. Walz could probably be shored up somewhat, but he may also be quite entrenched anyway.

Ultimately, a DFL map would depend primarily if they want to cede one or two districts to the GOP. If you cede one, it's probably better to create a third metro MSP district in the suburban areas north of Minneapolis and St. Paul (while keeping the cities whole). That would leave MN-04 and MN-05 safe, while bringing a new MN-03 to 57-41 Obama 2008. The Republican vote sink ends up at about 57-58% McCain. MN-01 would be unchanged politically (fine for Walz), MN-07 gets even closer (McCain by 1-2%), and MN-06 (Iron Range+St. Cloud) goes Obama 2008 by 8-9%. I haven't really played around with ceding two seats to really judge that option.

[politicallefty]

I'm fairly sure the only 60%+ McCain seat that can be drawn in New York is in Brooklyn, which Democrats would never draw. They'd almost certainly take every NYC seat. Drawing NYC districts into Upstate may be one thing, but I'd be curious if they decided to get aggressive with districts 1-4 (namely taking Peter King's district).