US House Redistricting: Michigan

[krazen1211]

Pretty sure the Sander Levin district drops to about 52-53% Kerry or so, and 59% Obama. It dropped its best portions.

It lost Southfield, but picked up Pontiac, and some marginally Dem areas in Macomb. It's Dem PVI is not going to drop that much.  

Doesn't look like it; Pontiac is in the black district. Bloomfield is in the Levin district.

Or am I seeing things?

I calculated the Macomb portion with the Macomb SoS data. Problem is the normally excellent Michigan SoS website is broken.

[dpmapper]

Pretty sure the Sander Levin district drops to about 52-53% Kerry or so, and 59% Obama. It dropped its best portions.

It lost Southfield, but picked up Pontiac, and some marginally Dem areas in Macomb. It's Dem PVI is not going to drop that much. 

Look again, Torie - Pontiac is in the 14th.  The parts of Macomb it picked up are in Sterling Heights, so roughly even.  If the goal is to make 9 swingier, I'd tweak the border with MI-11 a bit.  MI-11 was already quite safe and they've made it safer by adding the rest of the thumb, so you could put Mt. Clemens and other parts of SE Macomb into MI-11 quite easily.  

[Torie]

Pretty sure the Sander Levin district drops to about 52-53% Kerry or so, and 59% Obama. It dropped its best portions.

It lost Southfield, but picked up Pontiac, and some marginally Dem areas in Macomb. It's Dem PVI is not going to drop that much.  

Doesn't look like it; Pontiac is in the black district. Bloomfield is in the Levin district.

Or am I seeing things?

I calculated the Macomb portion with the Macomb SoS data. Problem is the normally excellent Michigan SoS website is broken.

Yes, I was typing a recantation when I lost my work on this laptop that I hate because my computer died. What I thought was Pontiac is part of Bloomfield Township, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, and Beverly Hills, all lean to solid GOP territory. So it indeed looks like it might be about a 2-3 Dem PVI CD as you suggest. It's lean Dem, and Levin would have lost it in 2010.

The mappy is too small for my tired eyes, but this is one area of the fruited plain where I think I know almost every precinct by heart now.

[Torie]

Pretty sure the Sander Levin district drops to about 52-53% Kerry or so, and 59% Obama. It dropped its best portions.

It lost Southfield, but picked up Pontiac, and some marginally Dem areas in Macomb. It's Dem PVI is not going to drop that much.  

Look again, Torie - Pontiac is in the 14th.  The parts of Macomb it picked up are in Sterling Heights, so roughly even.  If the goal is to make 9 swingier, I'd tweak the border with MI-11 a bit.  MI-11 was already quite safe and they've made it safer by adding the rest of the thumb, so you could put Mt. Clemens and other parts of SE Macomb into MI-11 quite easily.  

Yes, the Macomb carve up needs some work if the GOP is going for the throat.  They apparently are not worried about all that county split sh*t that so obsessed us, and that only you totally mastered!  

Ideally, you jiggle things so that Levin takes the rest of Sterling Heights, and Miller in the thumb CD takes Mt. Clemens, and slices through Clinton to suck up all of Roseville. That might mean Levin needs to pick up something in Oakland, or take all of Macomb Township as well or something (taking all of Shelby would probably be too many people). You do that and you have a lean GOP CD I think.

[krazen1211]

Look again, Torie - Pontiac is in the 14th.  The parts of Macomb it picked up are in Sterling Heights, so roughly even.  If the goal is to make 9 swingier, I'd tweak the border with MI-11 a bit.  MI-11 was already quite safe and they've made it safer by adding the rest of the thumb, so you could put Mt. Clemens and other parts of SE Macomb into MI-11 quite easily.  

MI-10 I assume you mean?

I believe that would force Troy into the 9th, which is a nonstarter if Knollenberg Jr. wants the McCotter district. Otherwise, the 9th picks up areas from that new 14th, which would make it more Dem, not less.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I tried drawing it in DRA to show which existing districts the new MI-09 comes from:



It's not 100% accurate, because the precincts in Macomb County don't match up with the map, but the district is essentially the existing MI-12 less Oak Park and Southfield, plus some more of Sterling Heights from MI-10 and Royal Oak and Bloomfield Hills (plus some linking territory) from MI-09.

[Torie]

One little flaw in the ointment is the area I put X's over in Oakland. The three burbs plus the south end of Royal Oak where Levin actually lives are small, but totally toxic to the GOP. Ferndale for example is where BRTD would live if he lived in the Detroit metro area. Enough said.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Peters might as well run against McCotter if this map becomes law; more of his existing district is put in McCotter's than in the new MI-09. He can just move to Troy or Birmingham.

[krazen1211]

One little flaw in the ointment is the area I put X's over in Oakland. The three burbs plus the south end of Royal Oak where Levin actually lives are small, but totally toxic to the GOP. Ferndale for example is where BRTD would live if he lived in the Detroit metro area. Enough said.

It would be controversial for sure, but if I was the GOP, I would put the Pointes in the Levin district and move those 3 suburbs into the black district.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Peters might as well run against McCotter if this map becomes law; more of his existing district is put in McCotter's than in the new MI-09. He can just move to Troy or Birmingham.

Especially if McCotter is vain enough to run for President. An open seat would be vulnerable with Snyder and the Republican legislature having so low approvals.

[Torie]

Below is the way to do it, putting aside the Ferndale, Huntington Woods, and Pleasant Ridge issue over which I have put two little white boxes to depict my displeasure at the Dem scabs appending this CD.



Oh, I don't think now that I look more carefully (that map is so hard to read!), that the Levin CD has the precincts in Clawson in it, which is inconvenient. We are 8,000 folks short after taking in the last available precinct in Clinton. Oh well, some other stuff has to be moved, which I leave to others!

[Torie]

One little flaw in the ointment is the area I put X's over in Oakland. The three burbs plus the south end of Royal Oak where Levin actually lives are small, but totally toxic to the GOP. Ferndale for example is where BRTD would live if he lived in the Detroit metro area. Enough said.

It would be controversial for sure, but if I was the GOP, I would put the Pointes in the Levin district and move those 3 suburbs into the black district.

Ah yes, yet another "illegal" county chop, but as it is, the Pubbie map has a certain noisome aspect to it from a legal aspect, so maybe the law is only intended to apply to Dem maps, or maybe the Pubbies will modify it as necessary, or something.

[Torie]

Here we go. We just draw a "spite strip" in the shape of an "L" hugging the northern and NW boundaries of St. Clair Shores containing 1,455 residents, and voila!  Piece of cake. Nobody has written that the existing precinct lines are the way God intended them, now have they?



And I think I see a way to get Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge and Huntington Woods into the black CD, MI-14, with Levin picking up Clawson and Birmingham, McCotter picking up Rochester, Rogers picking up territory in Oakland in McCotters NW corner, and then McCotter picking up almost all of West Bloomfield, except a spite strip to keep Pontiac hooked to MI-14.

But that means that for every move in PVI towards the Pubbies for the Levin CD, McCotter's goes in precisely the opposite direction.  So that won't happen of course. Levin will keep the terrible town trio.  So what I drew for Macomb, is the only pawn left to move I think to put the Pubbies in a better position against the Dems.

[timothyinMD]

The leaked republican map looks very good.  That's how I think we should do redistricting-- avoid overreaching.  If they wanted to I bet they could have drawn a 10-4 map.

The comments by the Democrat in that article are paper thin.  Who gives a #### if Obama got 57% in Michigan.  9 Republicans were duly elected in that 57% Obama state.  The Dem areas are the areas losing population. It's just that they take the loss.  

9R 5D Michigan is a success

[Dgov]

The leaked republican map looks very good.  That's how I think we should do redistricting-- avoid overreaching.  If they wanted to I bet they could have drawn a 10-4 map.

The comments by the Democrat in that article are paper thin.  Who gives a #### if Obama got 57% in Michigan.  9 Republicans were duly elected in that 57% Obama state.  The Dem areas are the areas losing population. It's just that they take the loss.  

9R 5D Michigan is a success

Granted, that is due to a previous R Gerrymander, but the way the state's demographics is also to blame.  Take out Wayne county and the state goes to like 52:47 Obama, and even then the Democrats are heavily concentrated in Flin, Ann Arbor, and Lansing.  Most of the State is like 50-55% Republican outside of the urban areas.

[Torie]

Well I played my favorite Farmington and Garden City tricks, and it's all better now.

Ya, I did an extra chop through Westland, but MI-11 had a chop to take from MI-13, and so it was taken. There is no read to be a veritable saint about these things.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I should try drawing a fair Michigan map just to see how it'd go. It'd actually probably be 7:7, (well more like 6:6:2.)

[Kevinstat]

Why wouldn't 6-6-2 be fair (at least from a Republican perspective, not that they would have any interest in that) in a Gore-Kerry-Obama state like Michigan?

[BigSkyBob]

Why wouldn't 6-6-2 be fair (at least from a Republican perspective, not that they would have any interest in that) in a Gore-Kerry-Obama state like Michigan?

Michigan, like much of the rest of the country, has a natural Republican redistricting advantage. The Democrats are concentrated in a few strongholds, such as Detroit, while the vast majority of the people of the state live in areas in which Republican fair better in the typical election than Democrats.

The other reality is that the GOP, currently, won all the swing seats but one, Peters' seat. So, if the current map was something like 5-5-5, the reasonable outcome would be 8-5-toss-up Republican until the next "wave" election.

[minionofmidas]

Why wouldn't 6-6-2 be fair (at least from a Republican perspective, not that they would have any interest in that) in a Gore-Kerry-Obama state like Michigan?

Michigan, like much of the rest of the country, has a natural Republican redistricting advantage. The Democrats are concentrated in a few strongholds, such as Detroit, while the vast majority of the people of the state live in areas in which Republican fair better in the typical election than Democrats.

The other reality is that the GOP, currently, won all the swing seats but one, Peters' seat. So, if the current map was something like 5-5-5, the reasonable outcome would be 8-5-toss-up Republican until the next "wave" election.

Uh, the current map is a perfectly disgusting - if deceptively clean-looking, thanks to the legal constraints - gerrymander. (Not saying it's worse than the Illinois map, or the last Illinois map, or this proposed monstrosity here.)

[JohnnyLongtorso]

5 safe Democratic districts (pink, red, brown, sky blue, yellow), 5 safe Republican districts (teal, green, purple, magenta, light green), 4 swing districts (grey, blue, both light purple districts). County splits are minimized, municipalities are kept intact (except for Detroit, obviously). The only district I'm not really happy with is the grey one, but it's hard to put those counties south of Detroit anywhere logical.

[BigSkyBob]

5 safe Democratic districts (pink, red, brown, sky blue, yellow), 5 safe Republican districts (teal, green, purple, magenta, light green), 4 swing districts (grey, blue, both light purple districts). County splits are minimized, municipalities are kept intact (except for Detroit, obviously). The only district I'm not really happy with is the grey one, but it's hard to put those counties south of Detroit anywhere logical.

It is a decent example of how to make reasonable choices that favor the Democrats [The finger into central Michigan by the UP district seems tortured, for instance].

[JohnnyLongtorso]

A draft plan got leaked.

So I drew these districts in DRA now that there's partisan data, and here's what I came up with:

MI-01 - 50-49 Obama (was 50-48 Obama)
MI-02 - 50-48 McCain (was 51-48 McCain)
MI-03 - 50-49 Obama (was 49-49 McCain)
MI-04 - 50-48 Obama (no change)
MI-05 - 63-36 Obama (was 64-35 Obama)
MI-06 - 53-45 Obama (was 54-45 Obama)
MI-07 - 51-47 Obama (was 52-46 Obama)
MI-08 - 52-46 Obama (was 53-46 Obama)
MI-09 - 58-40 Obama (was 56-43 Obama)
MI-10 - 50-48 McCain (no change)
MI-11 - 50-48 Obama (was 54-45 Obama)
MI-12 - 67-32 Obama (MI-15 was 66-33 Obama)
MI-13 - 85-14 Obama (was 85-15 Obama)
MI-14 - 79-20 Obama (was 86-14 Obama)

Looks like status quo for all the Republican districts except for McCotter's, which gets 3-4 more points Republican.

[Torie]

MI-09, the Levin CD, is more Dem rather than less?  Are you sure Johnny?

[krazen1211]

MI-09, the Levin CD, is more Dem rather than less?  Are you sure Johnny?

That's less Dem than MI-12, which it basically is. Makes sense as it drops blacks.

What is the PVI of a Flint to Lansing Connection?