US House Redistricting: New Mexico

[WMS]

I'll throw in my two cents, and YES, I do know what I'm doing. *glare*







District 1 is blue, District 2 is green, District 3 is purplish.

District 1: 606,373 pop; 50% White, 41% Hispanic, 3% Native, 2% for Black, Asian, Other. Obama 59%, McCain 40%, Other 1%. *****Deviation is +24***** Albuquerque 'metro area' including Corrales, Rio Rancho, and the Valley, mountain areas there for pop equalization.

District 2: 606,331 pop; 49% White, 46% Hispanic, 2% Black, 1% for Native (sorry Mescalero Apaches, you're in a sea of Whites and Hispanics), Asian, and Other. McCain 53%, Obama 45%, Other 1%. *****Deviation is -18***** Southern and Eastern New Mexico, half of Western New Mexico, with a pop equalization bit or two in there.

District 3: 606,342 pop; 39% Hispanic, 36% White, 22% Native, 2% Other, 1% for Black and Asian. Obama 65%, McCain 34%, Other 1%. *****Deviation is -7***** Northern and half of Western New Mexico, focusing on Native Reservations, with a pop equalization bit or two in there.

Make of that what you will, but judging from the terrain covered, I wouldn't count on NM-1 being all that safe - seems like lots of swingy territory, albeit with a lean left. The other two are clearly going a certain way.

I had a few goals in this one, although not incumbent protection (it's not like you COULD draw two incumbents into the same seat without a lot of gerrymandering). To the greatest extent possible, I drew communities of interest together. To the greatest extent possible, I drew as many Natives as possible into NM-3, to concentrate their power, and so they can at least influence the Democratic primaries up there. To the greatest extent possible, I minimized county splits. To the greatest extent possible, I ignored partisan considerations. And I made sure to limit the deviations as much as I could, because courts really focus in on that. With that in mind, I did pretty well, I believe.

County Splits Explained:

Socorro County Dist 15: Native Reservation added to NM-3.
San Miguel County Dist 15: Geographically, politically, demographically part of the East Plains and very different than the rest of San Miguel County, so put in NM-2.
Torrance County: Split entirely due to population requirements. I worked to keep communities of interest together as much as possible. The Edgewood-Moriarty corridor was kept together in NM-3. Apologies to Estancia, but the moves here enabled a very low deviation. All in all, I can live with this part.
Sandoval County: Rio Rancho and Corrales put into NM-1 *where they bloody belong*. Bernalillo and its use as a corridor to Sandia Pueblo kept in NM-3. I'm quite content with this one.
Bernalillo County: Communities of Interest + population requirements. NOTE! Bernalillo County Dist 567 is NOT a Sandia Pueblo precinct despite appearances - its population is entirely along the southern border in a narrow strip and is entirely part of North Albuquerque Acres. Dists 31 and 93 are Native Reservations and thus added to NM-3. Dist 551 is added to NM-2 entirely to equalize the population. They hate all their neighbors anyway in Chilili, so I'm not too worried about that. The NM-1 push into the east mountains is entirely due to population equalization, and I'm content with how that came out - since you have to split the mountains in any event, this doesn't look too horrible. If they complain, they can blame the courts for being fanatics about population equalization. Sorry Lewis.

If you're looking for a fair map, this is it. Now watch the Census Bureau numbers come out and make fools of us all...

[WMS]

I note that your Albuquerque district is much larger than Muon's, and your NM-2 and 3 smaller... were you working with 2000 census data?

I'll have to check on that. I was using the default in Dave's Redistricting App, so I'll poke around when I get back home. Oh well, enjoy it anyway, we're all just waiting on the actual numbers early next year.

[WMS]

Hmm, looks like Lewis was right. I'll let the previous effort stand as how New Mexico *should* have been redistricted in 2001.

I used the new data, although I highly doubt the numbers are that accurate at the precinct level because of how they were generated (uniformly applying a county's growth/decline percentage to each precinct...no, just no), but I don't think there is any alternative to them yet. It's an interesting exercise, anyway.



Here we have the overview. I had to split a few things for population equalization that I would rather have not, but such are the courts. The reasons I gave in my first post still apply.

NM-1: 661,451 pop; 45% Hispanic, 44% White, 3% Native, 3% Black, 2% Asian, 1% Other. 59% Obama, 39% McCain, 1% Other. Still a Dem-leaning district that could swing under the right circumstances, just as before. Albuquerque and nearby areas, part of Rio Rancho. *****Deviation is -1***** Yes, I got this to within ONE person of optimal.

NM-2: 661,473 pop; 49% Hispanic, 45% White, 2% Black, 1% Native, Asian, and Other. 53% McCain, 45% Obama, 1% Other. Still a Rep-leaning district, and I suppose vulnerable in a wave. Southern, Southwestern, and Eastern NM, reaching up into Torrance County and into the City of Edgewood for population. *****Deviation is +21***** Pretty darn low...

NM-3: 661,432 pop; 40% Hispanic, 36% White, 21% Native, 1% Black, Asian, and Other. 64% Obama, 35% McCain, 1% Other. Yeah, all the action here is in the Democratic primary. Northwestern and Northern NM, stretching into central NM for population. *****Deviation is -20***** Again, very low.





Two Splits to explain this time: Santa Fe County is split because I didn't want to split the multi-county City of Edgewood and kept it together. Sandoval County is split in Rio Rancho because I have to split it somewhere, and at least Rio Rancho's split is roughly logical along a NW-SE axis. Also, doing it this way gives me that -1 Deviation which is nice.





Colfax County and the City of Raton: population considerations left me with little choice but to split things right through the county. Colfax County has some oddly-shaped precinct boundaries. Oh, although you can't see it in the jpg for whatever reason, the last image has the Climax Canyon Park in it.

A pretty fair map, paying no attention to partisanship. I'd say the actual numbers next year will probably make things even more interesting in Sandoval and Santa Fe Counties regarding those splits, but I believe this is the basic template for a nonpartisan split. I will say even using this, one could certainly gerrymander it a bit...say, swap the South Valley for more of Rio Rancho and Corrales for a pro-Republican gerrymander (yeah, that's not getting anywhere in the Legislature), or swap Rio Rancho for some Native lands for a pro-Dem gerrymander (although I can't imagine why they wouldn't go along with this map unless they're really trying to be dicks, given how well it works out). It's still better than anything La Politica is cooking up, right King?

[WMS]

Well, here's my plan, for fun and games. All of this uses 2010 Census data.

CD1 is in blue: 686,443, Deviation +50, total pop 47.7% Hispanic, 42% White, 3.4% Native, 2.5% Black, 2.3% Asian, 2% Other. 18+: 46.8% White, 43.3% Hispanic, 3.3% Native, 2.6% Black, 2.4% Asian, 1.6% Other. A clear Minority-Majority district.

CD2 is in green: 686,376, Deviation -17, total pop 50.8% Hispanic, 43.8% White, 1.9% Black, 1.3% Native, 1.3% Other, 0.8% Asian. 18+: 49.1% White, 45.6% Hispanic, 2.0% Black, 1.3% Native, 1.1% Other, 0.9% Asian. Barely Hispanic-majority by pop but not by voting age.

CD3 is in purple: 686,360, Deviation -33, total pop 40.4% Hispanic, 35.7% White, 20.8% Native, 1.6% Other, 0.8% Asian, 0.7% Black. 18+: 40.0% White, 38.0% Hispanic, 19.1% Native, 1.2% Other, 0.9% Asian, 0.8% Black. A very clear Minority-Majority district, with significant Native influence.

I didn't bother trying to figure out political leanings, because that isn't matched up to precinct on Dave's site yet (and relying on the projections from 2009 is...iffy). But for the moment - notice the Total Pop and 18+ differences? Many Hispanic kiddies are on the way - CD2 probably is Rep and CD3 certainly is Dem, although I wonder quite a bit about primary races in both. CD1 leans Dem - the big question, though, is whether Obama 2008 was a permanent shift or an aberration. I especially doubt Rio Rancho will remain that Democratic (Corrales is bullmoose and Torie land, with rich liberals to match the rich wet Reps so...) but I'll be very curious to see what happens in 2012.



Here is the overall map. Pretty similar to my previous ones, except for where exactly the splits go.



Here is an inset showing most of the split areas.



Here is an inset focusing on the Albuquerque metro area.



Here is an inset focusing on the Santa Fe and San Miguel splits.

Bernalillo: Split for communities of interest. I know this area, people - Laguna and To'hajiilee belong in the Native district and the East Mountain Area is not the same as the metro area. Chilili in the SE was added to CD2 for balancing purposes, but that actually unites all the bits of the Chilili Land Grant so no worries there.

San Miguel: The easternmost precinct belongs in CD2. The precinct to its west got included because it really made the balancing work well. My apologies to them.

Sandoval: I was able to include all of Corrales. I was not able to include all of Rio Rancho -  too many people. As a side note, if by some random chance the Reps ever got to draw a map, shedding the South Valley areas for more of Rio Rancho would make CD1 swingier. Everything would be compact and contiguous as well.

Santa Fe: Edgewood (well, except for a little bit in BernCo, but no one lives in that part) and the rest of the communities in southern Santa Fe County are all in one district, where they have more in common with nearby Tijeras and Moriarty than with Santa Fe City. Balance reasons made me push the boundary a bit further north.

Socorro: As before, nabbing the Navajos in the NW for the Native district. There are road connections between them and Cibola County.

Of course I would've liked to get the mountain areas of E Bernalillo and SE Sandoval together with the other such areas, but population constraints prevented that.

A very fair map, and better than the existing one! Also much more respectful of communities of interest than some of the others in this thread.