Challenge: Anti-incumbent redistricting

[Nichlemn]

Some polls suggest that Americans would vote to defeat every single Congressman if they could. Let's try to make this a reality!

My attempt at New Hampshire:



Each district contains almost exactly 50% of the population of each of the previous districts. Guinta and Bass are both drawn into the blue district, which is 57%-42% Obama and contains Ann McLane Kuster's hometown. The green district is 52-47% Obama and contains Carol Shea-Porter's hometown. The population deviance is +/- 45. Cities in general I attempt to keep whole so a challenging local candidate can get a larger home boost.

What I could have done (but didn't) was analyse the Congressional primaries and general elections to a) draw districts suitable for primary challengers and b) find areas of candidate-specific strength. I'm also a bit concerned that Guinta or Bass could quite easily move to the green district given that it borders their home towns.

Naturally in a two district state you can't scramble the districts up too much. But in a larger state, you could wreak all kinds of havoc.

[Nichlemn]

Do the Congressmen have to run in the district they live in for the purposes of this challenge? If so, we can just draw Marcia Fudge out of here district and someone else would have to win. If not, it would be almost impossible since there are too many prominent Congressmen in staunchly partisan areas. For example, if there is any Republican district in Butler County, OH, you can bet John Boehner will win it, and it's too big to put in a Democratic district without making all the surrounding incuments safe, unless you draw something tortured like attaching it to Columbus.

Indeed, it's going to be impossible to ensure the defeat of every incumbent. Even my example map doesn't come close to guaranteeing it. The idea is to scramble the districts such as to maximise the expected number of incumbent defeats.

[Nichlemn]

This could seeming be easily solved by drawing concentric baconstrips around each state.

Yes, but I don't think it's necessarily easy. If all you want to do is scramble up every CD, then that'll work, but scrambling them up in the right ways should be quite difficult.