U.S. House Redistricting: Illinois

[JohnnyLongtorso]

It's supposedly fixed; I haven't tried it yet.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Extreeeeeme Democratic gerrymandering!

State



Chicagoland



IL-01 (blue) - Blah blah black district #1. 79.8 Obama, 19.5 McCain, 50.6% black VAP.
IL-02 (green) - Blah blah black district #2. 79.2 Obama, 20.1 McCain, 51.0% black VAP.
IL-03 (purple) - Had to expand a bit, but pretty similar to the old district; 62.6 Obama, 36.1 McCain. 34.7% Hispanic VAP.
IL-04 (red) - Earmuffs again. 79.2 Obama, 19.5 McCain, 59.8% Hispanic VAP.
IL-05 (yellow) - Had to go north. 72.9 Obama, 25.7 McCain.
IL-06 (teal) - Dumps a bunch of DuPage, adds more of Cook and part of Kane. Was 56-43 Obama, now 61.4 Obama, 37.2 McCain. Should be a swing district at the very least.
IL-07 (grey) - Blah blah black district #3. 88.7 Obama, 10.7 McCain, 50.9% black VAP.
IL-08 (light purple) - Stretches across the border with Wisconsin, and is now safe Republican. 49.6 Obama, 48.8 McCain.
IL-09 (sky blue) - Expands north into Lake County to take in some Republican territory, but is still safe Dem. 65.9 Obama, 33.0 McCain.
IL-10 (magenta) - Maybe this can finally dislodge Republican hold of this seat. Was 61-38 Obama, now 63.6 Obama, 35.3 McCain.
IL-11 (red downstate) - The former IL-19, a very Republican district at 55.9 McCain, 42.3 Obama.
IL-12 (light purple downstate) - Shores up Costello a bit; was 54-44 Obama, now 57.5 Obama, 40.9 McCain.
IL-13 (pink Chicago suburbs) - Dumps all the most Republican parts of DuPage, Kane, and Will Counties into one district. I believe Roskam and Hultgren end up here along with Biggert. Was 54-45 Obama, now 49.4 Obama, 49.3 McCain.
IL-14 (brown) - Jolet-Bolingbrook-Aurora-DeKalb, if you want to get Canadian about it. Was 55-44 Obama, now 64.6 Obama, 34.1 McCain. Should be Dem-leaning at the very least.
IL-15 (orange) - An interesting way to build a new Dem-friendly district; this contains Peoria, Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, Decatur, and Springfield, connected in kind of a triskelion shape. Kinzinger and Johnson are put together. 57.8 Obama, 40.4 McCain.
IL-16 (light green) - Manzullo's district is almost entirely new, but he'd be safe here. 51.4 McCain, 47.1 Obama.
IL-17 (pink western district) - Doubly hurt Schilling by a. making a more Democratic district and b. giving him almost entirely new territory. Takes in west Rockford, and parts of LaSalle. 59.4 Obama, 39.0 McCain.
IL-18 (yellow) - Schock safe. 55.5 McCain, 42.9 Obama.

So, best-case scenario? 13-5 Dem delegation.

[Dgov]

So, best-case scenario? 13-5 Dem delegation.

Best case for Republicans?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So, best-case scenario? 13-5 Dem delegation.

Best case for Republicans?

10-8 Republican, but that's assuming they can hold all the seats that are made more Democratic (IL-06, 10, 14, 15, and 17).

[Dgov]

So, best-case scenario? 13-5 Dem delegation.

Best case for Republicans?

10-8 Republican, but that's assuming they can hold all the seats that are made more Democratic (IL-06, 10, 14, 15, and 17).

Oh, sorry, I was asking if that previous figure was the best case for Republicans, because 13-5 seems kind of low for a Democrat-Tendril gerrymander

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Any more spread out than 13-5 and you get into extreme dummymander territory. There's also not much more Dem unpacking that can be done; Quigley's district is about the only district you could draw Democratic voters out of, and it's pretty well protected from being diluted, since the Hispanic district is to the south and heavily-Dem territory is to the north.

And due to Obama's overperformance in Illinois, I wouldn't drop any district percentages in the currently-safe districts below 63-64% Obama.

[BigSkyBob]

So, best-case scenario? 13-5 Dem delegation.

Best case for Republicans?

A series of felony indictments are unleashed on Chicago Democratic members of the House creating a wave of public outcry that forces downstate and suburban Democrats to reject the current systematic overrepresentation of Chicago in the legislature.

Beyond that, the best case scenario is that the GOP wins the Presidency in 2012 and offers the defeated members executive jobs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's my gerrymander, with (sort of) two Hispanic seats:





IL-01 (blue): 52.2% black, 51.1% black VAP, 78.9% Obama, really nothing to see.

IL-02 (dark green): 51.4% black, 50.1% black VAP, 78.2% Obama, nothing else to see beyond how amusing it'd be to have Jesse Jackson Jr. representing those exurbs (though he's not comparable to his father)

IL-03 (purple): 60.6% Obama. Now goes pretty far into DuPage easy to make this a suburban seat for Biggert and I don't care about Lipinski, but the Democrats won't sacrifice him, so I gave him a large chunk of black precincts and some liberal white neighborhoods to keep it Democratic enough. Actually this seat is likely to vote for a Democrat but primary Lipinski, his voters are carved up and I bet the new white Democrats are more likely to be hipster types and the Democrats in DuPage aren't likely to like Lipinski either.

IL-04 (red): The earmuffs are gone. 62.4% Hispanic, 56.9% Hispanic VAP, 76% Obama.

IL-05 (yellow): 64.3% Obama. This is the prime example of screwing over DuPage county. The seat is still Dem enough for Quigley to be fine as long as he doesn't act like Dan Rostenkowski.

IL-06 (teal): A completely new seat basically. Voted for McCain with 49.4% and is naturally pretty safe Republican, Manuzllo will probably want to run here even though he lives just outside of it (that green strip just north of it), it has most of his territory. Though it looks like it has a lot of territory from the old IL-14 that's just superficial as that long tail in the west isn't very populated and IL-14 is really just another suburban district.

IL-07 (gray): This seat still has a black plurality barely (41.4%), but a strong white VAP plurality (45.5%). Still I doubt Danny Davis would mind, he's not going anywhere and a black Democrat is still his most likely successor. At 86.7% Obama this is now the strongest Dem seat in the state, with that differentiation in VAP and those numbers the whites must really be hipsters. Is Chicago's Williamsburg here?

IL-08 (purplish blue): A bunch of Dem leaning suburbs, the black part of Rockford and Dem town of Freeport make this a 59% Obama seat and likely to elect another Democrat.

IL-09 (cyan): 69.1% Obama. Still safe for Schakowsky. I might've drawn her out of the district (I know she lives in Evanston), but she'd still have no problem running here.

IL-10 (magenta red): It's amazing how easy it is to screw over Dold without making it ugly. 62.6% Obama, mostly done by giving the northern half of Evanston to the seat (as noted above). Just find a different candidate this time please.

IL-11 (olive green): 58.2% Obama which is very good for a mostly downstate district. Once again though, please run a different candidate Democrats.

IL-12 (officially called "cornflower blue"): Didn't change it much, there's still some Dem precincts in the outer St. Louis metro (odd, why isn't this place like the Missouri side with those exurbs?) so those were added in to meet ideal population. 55.4% Obama, if Costello has had no problems so far he won't here.

IL-13 (pink): This district is most comparable to the old IL-06 even though it has Biggert's number, but she lives in IL-03. She'd probably run here anyway, but would likely lose the primary to the more conservative Roskam. It's still 56.3% Obama so Roskam isn't exactly a shoo-in but would likely end up if he lost being held by a faux-moderate Kirk-like Republican. Hultgren might live here too but I don't see how he could win the primary.

IL-14 (that red snake): I made this one reddish too because the brown didn't show up very well in the old map before I removed the voting district lines. This seat is 54.2% Hispanic but only 48.7% Hispanic VAP and 73.1% Obama. There's no requirement to draw a new Hispanic seat though and a Hispanic Democrat is the most likely holder, so I don't see it attracting much controversy. Hultgren obviously won't run here.

IL-15 (orange): Just a giant rural downstate seat now that I removed the cities. 56.8% McCain and his best district in the state, so safe for whoever wins the primary of Johnson and Shimkus (I think Johnson lives in the Champaign area which is now removed, but he won't be running the new IL-11).

IL-16 (light green): Much like the current IL-14, this district is misleading geographically, it's really another suburban district and at only 50.2% Obama the most conservative one. It also includes the surprisingly conservative eastern half of Rockford and some boring rural areas. This is the seat all the suburban Republicans will want to run in, Walsh is probably the most likely winner and he even lives here. Hultgren would also probably run here, I think he'd lose the primary based on geography to Walsh but since both are the epitome of "boring white guy (R)" I don't really care too much.

IL-17 (dark purple): Even more erose! This seat now contains the entirety of only one county (Rock Island). 59.4% Obama, the teabagger nut who slipped in last year isn't winning here, once again though I hope the Democrats find a better candidate than the charisma-less BushOklahoma lookalike.

IL-18 (yellow): Another standard rural seat and 53.9% McCain. I think Schock lives in Peoria proper, which the district no longer contains any part of, but this would be the most logical seat for him to run in and I don't see him having any problems winning.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Now thats the stuff!


We shall see if the ILL Dems have the balls do the same.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ha, I noticed how on the racial map the University of Chicago is a red enclave surrounded by solid blue. Still >90% Obama precincts though, but I never knew that it was deep in the heart of the black neighborhoods of Chicago.

[minionofmidas]

Danny Davis will mind.
It is just about conceivable the Chicago black establishment doesn't mind losing him, though. Or wouldn't if the other two districts are kept a little blacker in return.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't see how he could get primaried, and he's talking about running for the Cook County Commission anyway.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Yeah, I think Missouri has shown us that CBC members are going to pitch a fit if they don't get what they want, and order their followers in the legislature to give them districts at the expense of other members of Congress.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's no doubt possible to avoid diluting Davis' seat too much, but if you do this you have two options:

1-Push Lipinski's seat deeper into Chicago to the white areas downtown. This will keep the seat Democratic, but give Lipinski the type of voters he wants least of all, liberal hipster-type whites.
2-Push Lipinksi's seat into the suburbs, and make it a more heavily DuPage seat, meaning he gets both lots of ultra-partisan Republicans who won't vote for any Democrat who isn't Obama and white latte liberals who won't support him in a primary.

So you can't really avoid diluting Davis without throwing Lipinski under the bus. Do I care if he gets primaried? No. The Democrats in the legislature probably don't either as long as the seat continues to elect a Democrat. But Lipinski no doubt has supporters and connections and his type of Democrats are represented well in the legislature. Try to specifically draw a seat that is reliably Democratic but will be prone to someone with Lipinski's right wing views does seem pretty silly though.

[DrScholl]

Chicago's African-American population went down, it's unavoidable for Davis' seat not to lose some of the percentage.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

And now, for an alternate universe where Bill Brady swept a Republican majority into the legislature, here's a Republican gerrymander:




IL-01 (blue) - 87.6 Obama, 11.8 McCain, 52.5% black VAP.
IL-02 (green) - 82.8 Obama, 16.5 McCain, 51.5% black VAP.
IL-03 (purple) - 51.6 Obama, 47.0 McCain.
IL-04 (red Cook) - 79.6 Obama, 19.2 McCain, 65.7% Hispanic VAP.
IL-05 (yellow Cook) - 79.1 Obama, 19.5 McCain.
IL-06 (teal) - 55.8 Obama, 42.9 McCain.
IL-07 (grey) - 89.4 Obama, 9.9 McCain, 51.2% black VAP.
IL-08 (light purple NE) - 55.5 Obama, 43.1 McCain.
IL-09 (sky blue) - 68.5 Obama, 30.3 McCain.
IL-10 (magenta) - 56.2 Obama, 42.8 McCain.
IL-11 (red central) - 52.6 Obama, 46.0 McCain.
IL-12 (light purple downstate) - 50.4 Obama, 48.1 McCain.
IL-13 (pink) - 53.5 Obama, 45.2 McCain.
IL-14 (brown) - 54.2 Obama, 44.4 McCain.
IL-15 (orange) - 49.3 McCain, 48.8 Obama.
IL-16 (green NW) - 53.4 Obama, 44.9 McCain.
IL-17 (purple W) - 52.4 Obama, 46.1 McCain.
IL-18 (yellow central) - 51.3 Obama, 46.9 McCain.

I put Dan Lipinski and Judy Biggert in the same district as well as Jerry Costello and John Shimkus. Assuming Shimkus can beat Costello (and I removed as much of the existing 12th as possible), the Republicans would have a 12-6 advantage on this map.

[DrScholl]

No actual map, but a synopsis of some of what is being planned. 9-8-1.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/blogs?blogID=greg-hinz&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&uid=1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35c&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3a11773231-f2d5-4d73-98c4-43b1da969c85&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Rather meek proposal, all things considered.

[krazen1211]

I guess they weren't willing to draw multiple quad cities districts as has been pictured.


In any case, it looks like:

Dold is chopped and effectively thrown in with Walsh.

Biggert and Kinzinger are thrown into 1 distict, and a new Dem district created.

Schilling remains about as is.


I guess we won't see anything like Kankakee being fed to Jesse Jackson.

[krazen1211]

9-8-1







OK, so lets see. I didn't want to spend all day on this because the information might be entirely wrong, but:


CD-01 (blue): Bobby Rush, 52% black, 81% Obama. Just shoved this outward in Cook County.

CD-02: (forest green): Jesse Jackson, 51% black, 79% Obama. Shoved it south into Will County.

CD-03 (purple): Dan Lipinski, 63% Obama. Added areas in Will County as described.

CD-04 (red): Luis Guitierrez, 63% Hispanic, 82% Obama. Added areas by the airport as described.

CD-05 (yellow): Mike Quigley, 69% Obama. Added areas from current IL-10 and IL-09 to the North.

CD-06 (slate green): Peter Roskan, Judy Biggert, 54% Obama. Dupage County vote dump. Safe R.

CD-07 (grey): Danny Davis, 47% black (51% total population, per the article). Adds some Northern Chicago whites, and blacks from the southside districts.

CD-09: (cyan): Jan Schakowsky, 72% Obama. Expands north into Republican Cook County suburbs.


CD-08 (lavendar): vacant, 59% Obama. Basically all of Lake County. I don't think Dold or Walsh lives here, but 1 of them takes it. Historically Republican, but I guess I'll call this a swing.


CD-10: (pink): John Shimkus, 55% McCain). Old IL-19 Not much to say.

CD-11: (light green): vacant, 51% Obama. Kind of a merger of the rural areas of Hultgren and Kinzinger's districts. Safe R.

CD-12: (sky blue): Jerry Costello, 56% Obama. Adds the rest of Madison County. Safe for him.

CD-13: (peach): vacant, 59% Obama. New district created from Joliet and Aurora, west of current CD-04 as described. Probably safe D.

CD-14: (brownish gold): vacant, 57% Obama. New district created out of random bits of existing Republican districts. I'll call this a swing, too.

CD-15: (orange): Tim Johnson, Adam Kinzinger, 51% Obama. Adda Kankakee County (Kinzinger's home). Safe R.

CD-16: (lime green): Don Manzullo, Joe Walsh, 53% Obama. Runs along the northern IL border. Safe R.

CD-17: (navy): Bobby Schilling, Aaron Schock, 57% Obama. Schock would just run in CD-18. I made it a bit cleaner and added Peoria. The article describes this as swing.

CD-18: (yellow): Aaron Schock, 52% McCain. Adds random rural areas in central IL.



So I guess it depends on how you count districts as swing or safe.

I'd say there's 6 certain safe R districts: 6, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18.

The Democrats probably take 1-5, 7, 9, 12, 13.

The remainder are 14, 17, 8. 8 and 14 are the districts in the Northern suburbs where Obama outperformed historical Democrats, and 17 is the Quad Cities Oddball.

9-6-3 D-R-Swing seems somewhat reasonable I guess, or if you count the above 2 as R, it becomes 9-8-1.

[freepcrusher]

so does this map get rid of Peter Roscum?

[krazen1211]

so does this map get rid of Peter Roscum?

Nope, it gets rid of Biggert, possibly Schilling, and 1 of Manzullo/Walsh/Dold, who were combined from 3 to 2.

I have no idea whether the information provided is accurate but I followed it as best as I was able.

Realistically you can't get rid of Roskam anyway; he's probably the strongest suburban Republican around in a primary.

[BigSkyBob]

Chicago's African-American population went down, it's unavoidable for Davis' seat not to lose some of the percentage.

Mathematically, all that we can say is that one of the three Black Representatives was bound to have fewer Blacks in his district.

[ill ind]

  Illinois map is supposed to come out this morning.  3 AA districts were retained with Davis being at 51% and the others in the low 50's as well.  1 Hispanic district was maintaines, so we have another 10 years with the earmuffs.

  Supposedly a new Democratic friendly district wass created on the Elgin-Joliet axis weat of Chicago dumping Hultgren and Roskam into the same district.  That will be interesting to see.

Ill Ind

[krazen1211]

Here's another 'reasonable' 11-7 Illinois map along the lines of what was described. Gives them the Dold, Schilling, Biggert districts, and dissolves Hultgren. Costello won't be around forever...