early look at gerrymanders in 2020

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Which district in West Virginia likely gets eliminated: Mooney's, Jenkins', or McKinley's?

By default, Mooney's (probably). It's sandwhiched between the other two CDs.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

OH: likely loses a GOP leaning district because rural districts are less populated.

That is incredibly terrible reasoning. Rural districts are just as populated as urban districts. Since Ohio went for Trump by eight points, it would be easy for the GOP to eliminate Tim Ryan's district if the GOP gerrymander stays. But that gerrymander probably won't stay due to the likely victory of an independent redistricting commission extension initiative in 2018.

RealClear Politics says it would be difficult to eliminate GOP seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan; maybe because rural populations are declining more quickly. Tim Ryan's seat includes urban areas like Akron and Youngstown.

Due to their states swinging hard to Trump, it would be incredibly easy for the GOP machines in MI, OH, and PA to eliminate Dan Kildee's, Tim Ryan's, and Matthew Cartwright's districts in 2021. Sadly, a lot of those Obama-Trump voters aren't flipping back, ever. It would have been impossible for the GOP to have done this in 2011, though, as all of these states went for Obama easily.

Youngstown, Flint, Wilkes-Barre are sadly all fast-declining urban areas. That makes the positions of the Dems there even more precarious (except in Ohio, where it is likely nonpartisan redistricting will pass in 2018).

Trump voter=/=House R voter
It would be outrageously foolhardy to draw gerrymanders on that basis, generally. Also, it just screams 'dummymander' to me - Trump won many economically left-wing people in the Rust Belt and to assume they won't ever be won back on presidential level AND they would be reliable House Republican voters is just deeply unwise.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

They have to be careful there. In 2011 they thought they drew IL-12 and IL-13 as Dem leaning seats, but that didn't work out as the decade unfolded. They relied too heavily on the 2008 race repeating in 2012 and incumbents holding those seats thereafter. If Trump runs in 2020, they will have to avoid putting too much weight on anti-Trump votes in 2021, otherwise they may repeat the error of counting too many pro-Obama votes that didn't carry down ballot.

Is this a good map? i.e. especially the form of IL-06 I have.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Illinois will have 17 districts in 2022.

I know. I'm asking in particular if they might produce a similar IL-06 post-2022.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

OH: likely loses a GOP leaning district because rural districts are less populated.

That is incredibly terrible reasoning. Rural districts are just as populated as urban districts. Since Ohio went for Trump by eight points, it would be easy for the GOP to eliminate Tim Ryan's district if the GOP gerrymander stays. But that gerrymander probably won't stay due to the likely victory of an independent redistricting commission extension initiative in 2018.

RealClear Politics says it would be difficult to eliminate GOP seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan; maybe because rural populations are declining more quickly. Tim Ryan's seat includes urban areas like Akron and Youngstown.

Due to their states swinging hard to Trump, it would be incredibly easy for the GOP machines in MI, OH, and PA to eliminate Dan Kildee's, Tim Ryan's, and Matthew Cartwright's districts in 2021. Sadly, a lot of those Obama-Trump voters aren't flipping back, ever. It would have been impossible for the GOP to have done this in 2011, though, as all of these states went for Obama easily.

Youngstown, Flint, Wilkes-Barre are sadly all fast-declining urban areas. That makes the positions of the Dems there even more precarious (except in Ohio, where it is likely nonpartisan redistricting will pass in 2018).

Trump voter=/=House R voter
It would be outrageously foolhardy to draw gerrymanders on that basis, generally. Also, it just screams 'dummymander' to me - Trump won many economically left-wing people in the Rust Belt and to assume they won't ever be won back on presidential level AND they would be reliable House Republican voters is just deeply unwise.

Tim, since when has a dummymander resulted from assuming the congressional vote will resemble the presidential vote, rather than from ignoring the presidential vote and assuming past congressional vote results will always remain? North Carolina has only three Dem districts, and it went for Trump by only four points. Ohio went for Trump by eight points. Surely Ohio can easily afford to lose OH-13 under a GOP gerrymander without it degenerating into a dummymander, and probably OH-09, as well. The majority of Obama-Trump voters were state legislative R voters if a seat was contested, and almost all Obama-Trump voters in GOP-held districts were House R voters.

I understand Romney vote is more strongly predictive of 2017 special election results than Trump vote. That's because presidential election results take time to fully percolate down to the local level. The Arkansas Democratic Party had plenty of fun during the 2000s winning Clinton 96/Bush 2000 voters. Then the 2010s came, and Bush 2000 results all of the sudden became far more predictive of congressional and state legislative vote than in 2006. Matt Cartwright, etc. will survive 2018 easily. But in the 2020s, the current PA-17 will very likely end up R on the House and state legislative level.

I'm saying Rust Belt Rs would be better off treating them as swing voters rather than solid R voters. I think Obama-Trump people are fickle and ultimately not only is there no guarantee they'll be solid Rs forever, but they could actually become Lean D sometime in the future. The fact they aren't solid R votes necessarily means the GOP would be wise not to count them as solid conservative voters. They could crack the Columbus seat and leave dems with just 3 seats, I agree; but such a map would be wise to split up the suburbs of Columbus to ensure multiple solid GOP seats, not assume the Obama-Trump people will vote them in thick and thin. There's no evidence the GOP has a hold on them; if the GOP manages to hold them through 3 elections, then yes I would agree. But it'll take a while to see how things will shake out.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's actually possible to crack MO-05 into many GOP seats and create an absolutely solid 8R-1D, but I bet GOP congresscritters wouldn't like the dilution of their seats and the running of seats from downtown KC to the Arkansas border. Outside of a vote-sinked MO-01 and an MO-02 with all of St. Charles, the rest of the state went McCain by somewhat around double digits.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Maryland dems as some on DKE have noted could actually have a more aggressive gerrymander and get rid of Harris in MD-1 as well

I toyed with MD in DRA and i was able to draw an MD-01 that went Obama by 10.1 points. All other seats were at least D+5.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Since KY and NE Repub gerrymanders will be limited by not being able to split more counties than necessary, I played around with DRA which of course has 2008 and 2010 numbers, but will probably not be that inaccurate.

Kentucky: Jefferson County only has 17K more people than KY-3. Also, the most Democratic areas are not near the border meaning some Repub precincts have to be excised, and this only moves KY-3 0.1% to the right.

Nebraska: adding Douglas County to whole rural counties only puts McCain at most 50.2%.

What if Jefferson County was split in 2 between two CDs that otherwise split 0 counties?