Opinions on my Washington CD map?

[publicunofficial]

I drew up an attempt at a better congressional map than Washington currently has. I'm not incredibly pleased with it, but Washington is a hard state to draw good maps for and I like how some things turned out.

My main goals were to not split cities, split counties as little as possible, while still making districts that make sense COI wise. Criticism is welcome, as is anyone willing to put in the time to figure out the current PVI of any of these districts:



WA-01:


A compact district made up of the more urban southwest portion of Snohomish county, put with Shoreline and Kirkland. No current incumbent lives here, though either DelBene or Larsen could chose to run here. If they didn't, State Sen. Marko Liias probably jumps at the opportunity. Safe D, this is probably close to a 70% Clinton district.

WA-02:


Pretty straight forward. Combines Whatcom, San Juan, Skagit, and Island counties with the rest of Snohomish. Rick Larsen home of Lake Stevens is here, but his base of Everett is not. Lean/Likely D.

WA-03:


Probably the district most people will take umbrage with. A trans-Cascade district must be made, and I generally prefer the Columbia Gorge method over the Snoqualmie Pass method. Splits both Yakima and Cowlitz counties. Cowlitz County is split along school district lines, with the Kelso-Longview metro remaining whole. The city of Yakima is unfortunately split, but the city is pretty much de facto segregated anyway with the western half being mainly white and the eastern half being mostly Hispanic. Both Dan Newhouse (R - Sunnyside) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R - Camas) live here, though Newhouse would likely run in the 4th to avoid a primary he'd probably be the underdog in. Slightly more D-leaning than the current 3rd, but not by much. Safe/Likely R.

WA-04:


I like how this district turned out from a CoI standpoint, as it puts pretty much all of eastern Washington's agricultural areas into a single district. Picks up the rest of Yakima county, and the only other split is in Douglas Co. to keep the Wenatchee metro area whole. Safe R, if Dan Newhouse chose to run here he risks losing to a Tri-Cities based Republican, or possibly Clint Didier.

WA-05:


Pretty simple district that combines Spokane County with all of the Okanogan Highlands, plus Wenatchee. About the same PVI as the current 5th, Cathy McMorris Rodgers would be Safe here.

WA-06:


Combines the Olympic Peninsula with the rest of the western coast, picks up all of Thurston and Lewis counties, and to round out the population grabs some unincorporated parts of Pierce county as well was all of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. A true toss-up district, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump carried this district by a small margin. Denny Heck (D - Olympia) lives here (As do I), and despite Trump's performance I'd expect him to hold on. This area votes for local Democrats pretty reliably.

WA-07:


Combines all of Seattle with Vashon Island, White Center, and Burien. Obviously super Safe D. I don't believe that a majority-minority district needs to exist in King County for multiple reasons, and as such there was no real reason to split Seattle at all. Pramila Jayapal lives here, unlike the current 7th.

WA-08:


The Reichertmander is dismantled, becoming a entirely eastern King County based district. Traditionally Republican leaning, this area has trended hard to the left in recent years and Hillary got well over 60% here. Both Suzan DelBene (D-Medina) and Adam Smith (D-Bellevue) live here. Safe D

WA-09:


Not incredibly pleased with how this district turned out. Generally based around the working class suburbs of Tacoma and Seattle. Dave Reichert's home of Auburn is here, as are some of his key voter groups in suburban Pierce county. Probably a toss-up with Reichert, and Lean D without him.

WA-10:



The city of Tacoma, put with it's wealthier suburbs in Gig Harbor, Lakewood, and University Place, as well as all of Kitsap county. In order to keep Kitsap county whole, I had to either place it in the 6th (Forcing a split of Thurston), or cross the Puget Sound using the ferry transit (A tactic that, while legal, I don't particularly approve of). This seemed like a nicer option, and is consistent with how state senate districts in this area are drawn. Derek Kilmer would be completely safe here.

[RI]

I like your first and second districts a lot. I don't care much for the fifth, though. The Okanogan-Spokane-Chelan district seems like a stretch and would be a rather difficult district to traverse by road.

[Tintrlvr]

District 3 is generally better than connecting obviously urban/suburban areas in King County to obviously rural areas in Kittitas County (etc.), in my opinion, though the problem of splitting the city of Yakima is there. I think it is possible to keep the city of Yakima together and maintain road contiguity (dropping some areas in the east of Yakima County instead), which may be better, though I know there's a reservation in that area that you have to avoid splitting also.

The comment above about districts 4 and 5 is relevant as well.

Otherwise, I like the map.

[publicunofficial]

For my 5th, I wasn't totally sure on transportation either. But does Highway 97 not work? It goes from Wenatchee to Chelan (city), and then into Okanogan county.

It's not the route most people driving from Wenatchee to Spokane would take, but I think it's fully legal.

[publicunofficial]

Here's an alternate take on Yakima county. Keeps the city of Yakima whole, in exchange for dropping Sunnyside and Grandview. One could argue I'm splitting the Hispanic community by doing that, I imagine. The rest of the map is the same.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The map is great.
I personally do prefer crossing the Cascades the way you did. I'm not really sure about the way you divided up Eastern WA, but I'll defer to you on that. Your Kitsap-Tacoma seat is very interesting; I've never made a seat like that before (I usually want to put Kitsap and that Peninsula area in WA-6, and the rest of Pierce in WA-10).

[Tintrlvr]

Here's an alternate take on Yakima county. Keeps the city of Yakima whole, in exchange for dropping Sunnyside and Grandview. One could argue I'm splitting the Hispanic community by doing that, I imagine. The rest of the map is the same.

I mean, in a sense you are splitting up the Latino areas with this design, but the Latino population in the area is far too small to draw a real Latino-influence CD in any case. Also, there are more Latinos in WA-04 than WA-03, so in a sense it is better from an anti-dilution perspective to put Latino areas into WA-04. (Incidentally, this is a good rule of thumb for drawing WA-04 and WA-05 - try to maximize the Latino population of WA-04 and minimize the Latino population of WA-05. In addition to maximizing the influence of Latinos in one district, Latino population is a good proxy for separating farming areas from non-farming areas in eastern Washington). I think keeping Yakima city whole makes the county split somewhat more defensible.

[publicunofficial]

Bump: Made another one. This time with keeping the majority-minority CD 9th and eschewing my distaste for using ferry routes for contiguity. Splits 

Statewide:

Pierce:

King:

Snohomish:



WA-01 (Blue) - Whatcom, Skagit, and San Juan counties combined with Shonomish  using 1-5 as guiding line to split the county. 56-42 Obama 08, 49-50 Murray '10. Probably Lean D most years.

WA-02 (Green) - Island, Kitsap, and west Snohomish county. Contiguous through the Kingston-Edmonds and Mukilteo-Clinton ferry routes.  I always struggle with what communities to group with Kitsap county, and honestly Island county is the closest match for a CoI.  58-39 Obama 08, 53-46 Murray '10. Likely D, though I could see Barbara Bailey or Jan Angel being competitive here.

WA-03 (Purple) - Clark, Lewis, Skamania, and Klickitat counties with all of Yakima county except for the city of Yakima, Selah, and the Yakima Training Center, and a small portion of Cowlitz to round out the population. This IMO is the nicest way to have a district that splits the Cascades. 49-49.1 Obama '08, 42-57 Murray '10. Safe R

WA-04 (Red) - All the agriculture-heavy counties of Eastern Washington plus the city of Yakima. 39-58 Obama '08, 35-64 Murray '10. Safe R.

WA-05 (Gold) - Spokane plus the more mountainous, timber-heavy counties of Eastern Washington. Only split county is to grab the eastern half of Wenatchee. 46-51 Obama '08, 41-58 Murray '10. Only slightly more R-leaning than the current 5th. Safe R

WA-06 (Teal) - Tacoma and nearly all of it's metro area including Gig Harbor, Puyallup, Lakewood, Bonney Lake, University Place, and Midland. 56-42 Obama '08, 50-49 Murray '10. Derek Kilmer would probably be safe here but Republicans have a strong bench and Trump did pretty well here. Likely D

WA-07 (Grey) - Seattle (minus the southeastern area) plus Shoreline, Burien, Vashon, Kenmore, and Seahurst. Similar to the current 7th but without the finger into Snohomish county. 81-16 Obama '08, 78-21 Murray '10. Safe D

WA-08 (Slate blue) - The Reichert-mander drops Chelan and Kittitas, as well as most of it's share of rural Pierce in exchange for Kirkland, Medina, Redmond, Woodinville, Bothell, and the rural mountain towns of Skykomish, Index, and Gold Bar. 57-40 Obama '08, 50-49 Murray '10. Toss-up if Reichert ran, probably Lean D without him.

WA-09 (Cyan) - Majority-minority district, nearly identical to the current 9th but it drops it's share of Tacoma in exchange for more of Seattle. 67-31 Obama '08, 61-38 Murray '10. Safe D. I don't think Washington really needs a VRA distirct, but it's a decent CoI and compared to other ways to split King it's relatively compact.

WA-10 (Pink) - The Olympic Peninsula plus the souteast coast, all of Thurston county, and Joint-Base Lewis McChord. I think this district is perfect from a CoI standpoint. 56-41 Obama '08, 52-47 Murray '10. Toss-Up/Lean D. This area swung hard towards Trump but local Dems have a strong foothold and Olympia gives Dems a high floor.

Thoughts? Which of the two maps do you think is best?

[KingSweden]

FWIW I liked your first map better

[cwt]

I much prefer your way of splitting up Eastern Washington to the current districts. I think Okanogan County belongs in the 5th, like it was from 2003-2013.

[publicunofficial]

I much prefer your way of splitting up Eastern Washington to the current districts. I think Okanogan County belongs in the 5th, like it was from 2003-2013.

Yeah I like not splitting the Colville reservation, and Walla Walla belongs more with the Tri-Cities than Spokane.

[KingSweden]

I much prefer your way of splitting up Eastern Washington to the current districts. I think Okanogan County belongs in the 5th, like it was from 2003-2013.

Yeah I like not splitting the Colville reservation, and Walla Walla belongs more with the Tri-Cities than Spokane.

Yeah WW is only like 40 minutes from Pasco

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I like your second one better, but they are both good maps.