Multi-member US House Constituencies

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

500,000 people per member. +/-10% deviation. Districts will vary in size from 3 to 5, unless states are smaller than that. County splits/chops are to be used only when necessary.
This is for you Antonio!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Maine forms a single constituency, electing three members.
1 Democrat
1 Republican
1 seat is up for grabs - an Independent, second GOPer, or second Democrat might all win here, though the last-mentioned possibility is the likeliest.

New Hampshire, similarly, is 1 D, 1 R, 1 S, though the third seat would be a firm D-R marginal.

Vermont elects one member, pretty much certain to be a Democrat.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Massachusetts has 4 seats electing 13 members.
Massachusetts-1: Suffolk County+Brookline+Essex County. 2D, 1R
Massachusetts-2: Norfolk County+everything south of it. 2D, 2R
Massachusetts-3: Middlesex County. 2D, 1R
Massachusetts-4: Worcester County and everything west of it. 2D, 1R
Massachusetts overall: 8D, 5R

Rhode Island elects one member, one Democrat and one Republican.

Connecticut has 2 seats electing 7 members.
Connecticut-1: Fairfield+New Haven+Litchfield. 2D, 2R
Connecticut-2: everything else in CT. 2D, 1R
Connecticut overall: 4D, 3R

Total so far: 16D, 10R, 2S

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

NY has 11 seats electing 39 members.
New York-1: Suffolk County. 1D, 1R, 1S
New York-2: Nassau County+Rockaways+an area around JFK airport. 2D, 1R
New York-3: all of Queens not in NY-02. 3D, 1R
New York-4: SI+Southern Brooklyn+the areas closer to Manhattan. 2D, 1R
New York-5: all of Brooklyn not in NY-04. 3D
New York-6: Manhattan. 3D
New York-7: Bronx. 3D
New York-8: everything south of and including Columbia, Greene, and Delaware counties, and north of NYC. 3D, 2R.
New York-9: everything east of and including Otsego, Oneida, and Oswego counties, and north of NY-08. 2D, 2R.
New York-10: the rest of NY not in NY-11. 2D, 2R.
New York-11: Monroe, Orleans, Genesee, Niagara, and Erie counties. 2D, 2R.
New York overall: 26D, 12R, 1S

Total so far: 42D, 22R, 3S

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

NJ has 4 seats electing 18 members.
New Jersey-1: everything south of and including Ocean and Burlington counties. 2D, 2R, 1S
New Jersey-2: Middlesex+Mercer+Monmouth+Union counties. 3D, 2R
New Jersey-3: Hudson+Essex. 3D
New Jersey-4: the rest of the state. 2D, 2R, 1S
NJ overall: 10D, 6R, 2S

Total so far: 52D, 28R, 5S

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Pennsylvania has 6 seats electing 25 members.
Pennsylvania-1: Philadelphia. 3D
Pennsylvania-2: the three counties surrounding Philly. 2D, 2R.
Pennsylvania-3: everything south of and including Dauphin, Berks, and Schuylkill counties; everything east of the Susquehanna; everything west of PA-02. 2D, 2R.
Pennsylvania-4: everything north of PA-02 and PA-03 and east of and including Northumberland, Tioga, and Lycoming counties. 2D, 2R.
Pennsylvania-5: everything west of PA-04, excluding the areas in PA-06. 3R, 2D.
Pennsylvania-6: everything in the Pittsburgh CSA+Greene County. 2D, 2R, 1S.
PA overall: 13D, 11R, 1S.

fun fact: Obama came within 27,000 votes of winning PA-06 in 2012, and Trump won it by around 90,000 votes (568k for Clinton; 658k for Trump). I'm confident enough in the ancestrally Democratic nature of the seat to mark the fifth seat as swingy.

Total so far: 65D, 39R, 6S

And that wraps up the Northeast.

[Antonio the Sixth]

500,000 people per member. +/-10% deviation. Districts will vary in size from 3 to 5, unless states are smaller than that. County splits/chops are to be used only when necessary.
This is for you Antonio!

Much appreciated!

Will you have a map of them with partisan breakdown at the end?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I am working on a map as we speak. I will update this thread with a map as soon as I finish a region. I've done the Northeast. Next up we have the South. I will start up on the South as soon as I have a map of the NE posted.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wonderful!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I colored a seat red if I considered it Democratic-leaning, and blue if it was GOP-leaning. In cases in which I was conflicted enough I colored it purple, because purple is what you get when you combine red and blue.

Wonderful!

It's posted.
Note my use of insets. Those were copied from a bigger template and used to allow bigger detail.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Delaware elects two members, one Democrat and one Republican.

Maryland has 3 seats electing 12 members.
Maryland-1: Eastern Shore+Harford County+everything south of and including Prince George's and Anne Arundel Counties. 3D, 2R.
Maryland-2: Baltimore City and Baltimore County. 2D, 1S.
Maryland-3: the rest of the state. 2D, 1S, 1R.
Maryland overall: 7D, 3R, 2S

South so far: 8D, 4R, 2S
Total so far: 73D, 43R, 8S

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The District of Columbia elects a member with full voting rights. This member would be certain to be a Democrat.

Virginia has 4 seats electing 16 members.

Virginia-1 (blue): 2D, 2R
Virginia-2 (green): 2D, 2R
Virginia-3 (red): 2D, 2R
Virginia-4 (purple): 2D, 1R, 1S

South so far: 17D, 11R, 3S
Total so far: 82D, 50R, 9S

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

NC has 5 seats electing 19 members.

North Carolina-1 (blue): 2D, 2R
North Carolina-2 (green): 2D, 2R
North Carolina-3 (purple): 2D, 1R
North Carolina-4 (red): 2D, 2R
North Carolina-5 (white): 2D, 2R
NC overall: 10D, 9R

South so far: 27D, 20R, 3S
Total so far: 92D, 59R, 9S

[Antonio the Sixth]

That strikes me as an excellent map! All your choices seem good to me so far.

In Maryland, ideally I'd rather keep Prince George and Montgomery together if that's at all possible, but if that's not fair enough.

For Virginia, I'd have the blue district extend a little further North to Fredericksburg and compensate by having the green district run further East, but both work afaik.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That strikes me as an excellent map! All your choices seem good to me so far.

In Maryland, ideally I'd rather keep Prince George and Montgomery together if that's at all possible, but if that's not fair enough.

For Virginia, I'd have the blue district extend a little further North to Fredericksburg and compensate by having the green district run further East, but both work afaik.

Antonio, what do you think the impact of race would be like in the South under this? In regards to how elections would turn out...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

South Carolina has 2 seats electing 9 members.
South Carolina-1: everything north of and including Chesterfield, Kershaw, Richland, Lexington, Saluda, Edgefield. 3R, 2D
South Carolina-2: the rest of the state. 2D, 2R

West Virginia has 4 members. 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat, and 1 swing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

GA has 4 seats electing 19 members.

Georgia-1 (purple): 2R, 2D
Georgia-2 (red): 2R, 2D, 1S
Georgia-3 (gray): 3D, 2R
Georgia-4 (green): 3R, 1D, 1S
Georgia overall: 9R, 8D, 2S

South so far: 32D, 27R, 6S
Total so far: 97D, 66R, 12S

[DC Al Fine]

Great stuff!

Side note: How would one go about gerrymandering a multi member map?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio, what do you think the impact of race would be like in the South under this? In regards to how elections would turn out...

Of my proposed changes? I don't think it will alter Blacks' ability to elect Black representatives, if that's what you means. The VA change is probably too inconsequential to change anything in this respect, and in Maryland I don't think it would matter either. Right now MD-1 would probably be able to elect 2 Black representatives and MD-3 1, but if you had a district anchored around Montgomery and Prince George it could easily elect 3 of them on it's own.

Side note: How would one go about gerrymandering a multi member map?

You'd have to get really sneaky, and even then it would be far less effective. One technique would be to systematically underrepresent opposition areas. For example, you can put the equivalent of 4.4 seats' worth of opposition-friendly territory in a 4-seat district while putting 4.6 seats' worth of favorable territory in a 5-seat district (kind of the equivalent of what the NY Senate does with SMDs). An even subtler technique (since the former can easily be outlawed), is to make sure all your party's areas fall in odd-numbered districts while the opposition's fall into even-numbered ones. I think Japan's LDP did that for a long time. Still, that only works with constituencies that are still pretty small, and in bipolarized party systems.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Antonio, what do you think the impact of race would be like in the South under this? In regards to how elections would turn out...

Of my proposed changes? I don't think it will alter Blacks' ability to elect Black representatives, if that's what you means. The VA change is probably too inconsequential to change anything in this respect, and in Maryland I don't think it would matter either. Right now MD-1 would probably be able to elect 2 Black representatives and MD-3 1, but if you had a district anchored around Montgomery and Prince George it could easily elect 3 of them on it's own.

Side note: How would one go about gerrymandering a multi member map?

You'd have to get really sneaky, and even then it would be far less effective. One technique would be to systematically underrepresent opposition areas. For example, you can put the equivalent of 4.4 seats' worth of opposition-friendly territory in a 4-seat district while putting 4.6 seats' worth of favorable territory in a 5-seat district (kind of the equivalent of what the NY Senate does with SMDs). An even subtler technique (since the former can easily be outlawed), is to make sure all your party's areas fall in odd-numbered districts while the opposition's fall into even-numbered ones. I think Japan's LDP did that for a long time. Still, that only works with constituencies that are still pretty small, and in bipolarized party systems.

I wasn't talking about your proposed changes. I mean in general. How do you think things like race will play out...what factors might govern who wins...

Also, another way it could be done is, say, instead, to manipulate things by creating 4-seaters were your party is weak and 3- and 5-seaters in areas it is strong. And make your opponents strong in the 4-seaters but weaker in the other seats. That is how it was done in Ireland.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wasn't talking about your proposed changes. I mean in general. How do you think things like race will play out...what factors might govern who wins...

Oh, I see, my bad. Well, this would depend a lot on what the voting system is exactly. If it's closed-list PR, then it's still all in the parties' hand, and they might choose to make their lists "whiter" than the demographics of the constituency would warrant. That seems to be the tendency in most European countries I'm familiar with. However, America having more experience with multiculturalism, I don't think it would be as pronounced. Especially since, in a PR system, if Blacks or Hispanics feel too alienated from the existing parties, they could easily create their own and be viable. We could easily see a Black party and a Hispanic party together winning a fifth to a quarter of the seats, with the remaining parties realigning to appeal to different political sensibilities of White Americans specifically.

If it's STV or open-list PR, then parties would have less control over who runs in their name, and it's likely that Democrats at least would have many Black and Hispanic candidates running (and winning) among their lists. In general you could see these candidates develop ties to their constituents similar to those that exist IRL among representatives from the Black Belt or the Southwest (except that would be the case even in Whiter geographic areas).

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That's exactly what I said in my second point.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

FL has 9 seats electing 38 members.


Florida-1: all of Florida not in other districts. 2R, 2D.
Florida-2: Seminole+Volusia+Flagler+Putnam+Clay+St. Johns+Duval+Nassau+Bradford+Union+Columbia+Baker. 3R, 2D.
Florida-3: Pinellas+Pasco+Hernando. 2R, 1D.
Florida-4: Indian River+Brevard+Orange+Osceola+Lake+Sumter+Citrus. 2D, 2R, 1S.
Florida-5: Hillsborough+Polk. 2D, 2R.
Florida-6: Lee+Charlotte+Desoto+Hardee+Sarasota+Manatee. 2R, 1D.
Florida-7: every county that has part of Lake Okechobee+Highland and St. Lucie counties. 2D, 2R.
Florida-8: Broward+Collier. 2D, 1R, 1S.
Florida-9: Miami-Dade+Monroe. 3D, 2R.
FL overall: 18D, 18R, 2S

South so far: 50D, 45R, 8S
Total so far: 115D, 84R, 14S

EDIT: I know the Orlando seat is odd-looking...it came about because of complications from efforts on my part to balance the slight under-representation of Southern Florida with a slight over-representation of North and Central Florida (see also: why Hillsborough and Pinellas are separate). But in the end I went too far and was forced to cede areas in what would have been the last district to other seats in order to allow it to be a 4-seater as opposed to a 5-seater.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'd recommend switching Citrus to the purple district if you can without creating too big population discrepancies. Otherwise, you can put Citrus in the grey one, Seminole in the red one, and Marion in the brown one.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

KY has 9 seats.

Kentucky-1 (gold): 2R, 2D, 1S
Kentucky-2 (gray): 3R, 1D

South so far: 53D, 50R, 9S
Total so far: 118D, 89R, 15S