US House Redistricting: Arizona

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember that Arizona is a VRA preclearance state. The Republicans might make a fuss about what they want, but they don't have veto power over the map, and the DOJ does.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Having played around a few times but not really completing any map, here's what I see as most logical from a non-partisan standpoint:

-Metro Phoenix interestingly should be left mostly unchanged, just population shifts for equality. AZ-02 is the biggest changed district, but that can be done just by removing the non-Maricopa parts. AZ-06 needs to similarly contract.
-AZ-08 can easily be made an immediate Tucscon-area only district, just with the most Hispanic precincts removed for AZ-07. Removing all of Cochise county likely makes it an Obama seat.
-AZ-01 ends up spanning the entire New Mexico border and takes in much of Pinal County. No longer the ugly split with the rezes by the way because:
-AZ-09 is basically what was severed from AZ-02 and a good chunk of AZ-01 in northwestern Arizona. Including all of Cococino County. Yavapai and Mohave probably make it a fairly safe GOP seat though.

And AZ-04 barely needs to be changed, the Hispanic VAP of AZ-07 can be easily boosted by just removing the non-Hispanic areas on the edges, and it needs to shed quite a bit of population.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Nope, you lose an Hispanic majority CD BRTD. That is very probably illegal. A Tucson area CD only falls way short of of majority Hispanic. You need to take in Yuma. If you go from Tucson to Phoenix to grab Hispanics there, you really blow the grid away, and dilute AZ-07 too much to boot. Sorry. And the map would look like hell.

What? You must be misunderstanding me big time.




AZ-04 is virtually unchanged. AZ-07 is now 53.9% Hispanic VAP, an increase from the current bare majority. The new AZ-08 gave 50.8% to Obama.

The current AZ-07 contains a lot of white liberal parts of Tucscon on its edges, and it needs to shed a bunch of population, and AZ-08 is the only logical place to put them.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

IC.. You smashed the grid

Well it's not going to work very well with an odd number of districts.

have Hispanics from Yuma, Phoenix and Tucson all in one

...exactly like the current map.

ignore county lines

As Lewis pointed out, this is largely needed in Arizona. I tried to avoid it when possible, but that's going to be needed a lot splitting 14 counties amongst 9 districts, especially with quirky things like the Hopi/Navajo split and ethnic divisions.

and increases erosity

Where? If anything the Phoenix metro seats are now much cleaner.

in exchange from moving one CD from reasonably safe Pubbie to reasonably safe Dem, thereby not increasing competitiveness.

Erm not quite. One seat goes from a swing district to reasonably safe Dem, and two districts get a bit more Rep (AZ-01 and AZ-05) and the GOP get a new reasonable safe district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So how's the Tuscon district rated? It doesn't look much more Republican than the current district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Since AZ-08 still got more Dem (just not as much as some wanted I guess), I don't know why the GOP is getting too excited unless they are absolutely certain Giffords isn't running again, since Giffords would be unbeatable in that seat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who is the Pubbie incumbent in AZ-09? If it is Quayle, it's gone. If Sweikert (?), he maybe has a 1 in 3 chance, maybe an even chance, of holding it, if the Pubs have a really good year, which they might. But it won't hold.

Quayle might live in the district. Schweikert obviously doesn't.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Actually Schweikert lives in Fountain Hills which is barely in the district via an odd appendage. Hmmm...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah seems that way. Not sure if Quayle lives in AZ-6 but he won't win AZ-9 obviously. Schweikert might technically live in the new AZ-4 but he might think he has a better chance against Quayle in the primary in the new AZ-6 than against a Yavapai or Mohave Republican in the new AZ-4.

So Quayle is probably gone unless he can spew enough Tea Party idiocy to get them to turn out in droves for him in the primary and AZ-9 is a Dem gain, with a new Republican from outside Maricopa winning AZ-4.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BTW surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet (unless I missed it), but is the Navajo/Hopi split no longer an issue or whatever? Or did the Hopis maybe decide that they'd rather be stuck with the Navajo than represented by someone from the northwest Phoenix suburbs?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I kind of agree with Lewis the 4th makes sense in a very odd way, but it allows for the election of another non-Maricopa Republican, and really non-Maricopa Arizona is "entitled" to more than just the first district and the two Tucson area seats.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly looking at things from a non-partisan perspective I don't think this map is all that unfair. If there's going to be five districts in Maricopa, 3-2 is certainly more fair than 4-1, or perhaps 3-1-1 as the current AZ-5 is now a legitimate swing district (counting the current AZ-2 as a Maricopa based seat, which it is population-wise even if not geographically. Democrats get over 40% of the votes there consistently so 40% of the seats isn't ridiculous. As for outstate, an R seat, a D seat and two swing seats one leaning R and one leaning D is pretty even too, and it's a pretty evenly split region.

I can see why Republicans aren't happy, but the non-partisan commission did basically acheive its goal if the map ends up giving Republicans 55.55...% of the seats in a state where a favorite son won around 53% of the vote.

BTW what does everyone think of Harry Mitchell trying a comeback in the new AZ-9? It contains Tempe which is his base. I'd be pretty confident he'd go for it if he wasn't already so old, he might just prefer to get a sweet and work-light lobbyist position to pad his retirement fund.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Grijalva is fine as long as he doesn't call for a boycott of his own state again.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That's still pretty hilarious if they didn't bother to update it by the time of passage.