2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[Schiff for Senate]

Here is a Democratic gerrymander I constructed for 5 Democratic and 3 Republican seats: https://districtr.org/plan/20021

These are each of the 8 districts (note that election results are calculated using a two-way vote share so that the Democratic percentage and Republican percentage add to 100):

• District 1 - Swaths of land in rural, northwest Wisconsin (similar to current 7th). Supported Trump in 2016 60-40%.
• District 2 - Southwest Wisconsin; similar to current 3rd except Democratic-leaning. Voted Clinton 53-47%.
• District 3 - Northeast Wisconsin; similar to current 8th district. Voted for Trump 60-40% in 2016.
• District 4 - Central Wisconsin; includes parts of Madison. Voted for Clinton 59-41% in 2016.
• District 5 - Includes parts of Madison and south suburbs of Milwaukee. Voted for Clinton 53-47%.
• District 6 - Parts of Milwaukee; Milwaukee's northern suburbs. Voted for Clinton 55-45%.
• District 7 - Includes South Milwaukee. Voted for Clinton 55-45%.
• District 8 - Includes the rest of Wisconsin; from Milwaukee's western suburbs to Appleton. Voted for Trump 60-40% in 2016.

[Schiff for Senate]

I created a 6-2 Democratic gerrymander in WI. 2 of the seats (the western-based 2nd and the very gerrymandered, eastern 7th) voted for Biden kind of narrowly, while the other 4 went blue more convincingly. The 2 red seats each gave Trump very slightly over 60% of the two-way vote.

https://districtr.org/plan/84330

[Schiff for Senate]

Here's a fun experiment I did -  I came up with a scenario where WI gained a 9th district (I know it doesn't have the requisite population, but still), and then drew maps for a WI with 9 districts: https://districtr.org/plan/111118. The results are pretty surprising - even though I came with district boundaries arugably cleaner than the current map, it subtly helped the Democrats greatly, giving the GOP only a 5-4 majority (much more representative of the state's overall politics than 6-2). Because a 9th district allowed for Madison and Milwaukee to be split into two Democratic districts each. And I'm sure a 5-4 Democratic map could be produced by making the 1st include some western parts of the Madison metro area (and make the ultra-blue 2nd district some point redder). Another observation from this map is just how few people live in northern Wisconsin - East WI + Madison takes in the vast majority of the population (7/9 districts here), while a large chunk of land in Northern Wisconsin comprises just a single district (the 9th).

[Schiff for Senate]

Here's a fun experiment I did -  I came up with a scenario where WI gained a 9th district (I know it doesn't have the requisite population, but still), and then drew maps for a WI with 9 districts: https://districtr.org/plan/111118. The results are pretty surprising - even though I came with district boundaries arugably cleaner than the current map, it subtly helped the Democrats greatly, giving the GOP only a 5-4 majority (much more representative of the state's overall politics than 6-2). Because a 9th district allowed for Madison and Milwaukee to be split into two Democratic districts each. And I'm sure a 5-4 Democratic map could be produced by making the 1st include some western parts of the Madison metro area (and make the ultra-blue 2nd district some point redder). Another observation from this map is just how few people live in northern Wisconsin - East WI + Madison takes in the vast majority of the population (7/9 districts here), while a large chunk of land in Northern Wisconsin comprises just a single district (the 9th).

8 seats is def the worse number for Dems. You could go down to 4 and still need D leaning Madison and Milwaukee seats. And any additional 9th district forces the current WI-02 and WI-04 to properly pack Madison and Milwaukee

Here's a map of WI with just 4 seats - https://districtr.org/plan/111181. There are some holes (not sure if the districts are fully contiguous and there may be some tiny islands), but you're absolutely right. It comes down to 2 pretty red and 2 pretty blue seats - which is fair. And you can also make a 4-4 map with WI as is, but it gets crude. Nonetheless, let's see....

[Schiff for Senate]

Here's a fun experiment I did -  I came up with a scenario where WI gained a 9th district (I know it doesn't have the requisite population, but still), and then drew maps for a WI with 9 districts: https://districtr.org/plan/111118. The results are pretty surprising - even though I came with district boundaries arugably cleaner than the current map, it subtly helped the Democrats greatly, giving the GOP only a 5-4 majority (much more representative of the state's overall politics than 6-2). Because a 9th district allowed for Madison and Milwaukee to be split into two Democratic districts each. And I'm sure a 5-4 Democratic map could be produced by making the 1st include some western parts of the Madison metro area (and make the ultra-blue 2nd district some point redder). Another observation from this map is just how few people live in northern Wisconsin - East WI + Madison takes in the vast majority of the population (7/9 districts here), while a large chunk of land in Northern Wisconsin comprises just a single district (the 9th).

8 seats is def the worse number for Dems. You could go down to 4 and still need D leaning Madison and Milwaukee seats. And any additional 9th district forces the current WI-02 and WI-04 to properly pack Madison and Milwaukee

Here's a map of WI with just 4 seats - https://districtr.org/plan/111181. There are some holes (not sure if the districts are fully contiguous and there may be some tiny islands), but you're absolutely right. It comes down to 2 pretty red and 2 pretty blue seats - which is fair. And you can also make a 4-4 map with WI as is, but it gets crude. Nonetheless, let's see....

Yep, it is possible: https://districtr.org/plan/111206

[Schiff for Senate]

Here's a fun experiment I did -  I came up with a scenario where WI gained a 9th district (I know it doesn't have the requisite population, but still), and then drew maps for a WI with 9 districts: https://districtr.org/plan/111118. The results are pretty surprising - even though I came with district boundaries arugably cleaner than the current map, it subtly helped the Democrats greatly, giving the GOP only a 5-4 majority (much more representative of the state's overall politics than 6-2). Because a 9th district allowed for Madison and Milwaukee to be split into two Democratic districts each. And I'm sure a 5-4 Democratic map could be produced by making the 1st include some western parts of the Madison metro area (and make the ultra-blue 2nd district some point redder). Another observation from this map is just how few people live in northern Wisconsin - East WI + Madison takes in the vast majority of the population (7/9 districts here), while a large chunk of land in Northern Wisconsin comprises just a single district (the 9th).

8 seats is def the worse number for Dems. You could go down to 4 and still need D leaning Madison and Milwaukee seats. And any additional 9th district forces the current WI-02 and WI-04 to properly pack Madison and Milwaukee

Here's a map of WI with just 4 seats - https://districtr.org/plan/111181. There are some holes (not sure if the districts are fully contiguous and there may be some tiny islands), but you're absolutely right. It comes down to 2 pretty red and 2 pretty blue seats - which is fair. And you can also make a 4-4 map with WI as is, but it gets crude. Nonetheless, let's see....

Why do you have those weird tongs on yellow?

No particular reason. I cleaned it up, here's a cleaner version of the map with the Wisconsin Rapids back in the 1st district: https://districtr.org/plan/111207

[Schiff for Senate]

More compact and proportional map of WI I carved out: https://districtr.org/plan/128273. The elections referenced are the 2018 Senate race, 2018 Governor race, and 2020 presidential race. All percentages and margins are in terms of the two-way vote share unless otherwise specified (so the Democratic vote share would be (Democratic votes)/(Democratic votes + Republican votes)).


The 1st district is similar to the current 3rd (Ron Kind's seat), but more compact. Doesn't have an arm stretching out to Stevens Point, but it takes in Wisconsin Rapids and comes just short of including Stevens Point. In place of Stevens Point, it includes Madison's blue-leaning western suburbs. It is a very marginal and WWC seat that's usually blue-leaning but where Trump was able to pull off a win. Evers won by 5.18%, Baldwin by 15.5%, and Trump by 1.54%.

The 2nd district includes Madison, as well as swaths of land to its east and especially its north. Overwhelmingly Democratic and the equivalent of Democrat Mark Pocan's Madison-based 2nd district. Gave Biden 66.67% (so basically almost exactly twice as many votes as Trump if not exactly twice as many), Evers 67.62%, and Baldwin 70.18%.

The 3rd district is similar to the current 1st (once represented by vice-presidential candidate and Speaker of the House Republican Paul Ryan...now by Republican Bryan Steil), but a bit bluer than the 1st becomes after redistricting. Includes Kenosha, Racine and Janesville. It includes some of Milwaukee's south suburbs. It is almost the polar opposite of the 1st in so many ways (even aside from the juxtaposed numbering): it's a lot more diverse (75.2% of the 3rd's population is white as compared to 89.3% of the 1st's), much more (sub)urban, more educated, and has a lot less Obama-Trump, Evers-Trump and Baldwin-Trump voters. This is evident from its voting patterns: despite voting to the right of the 1st in both the 2018 gubernatorial and the 2018 senatorial races, it voted quite a bit to its left in the 2020 presidential election. It was Baldwin+13.48, Evers+4.56, and Biden+1.52.

The 4th district is quite similar to the real-life Milwaukee-centric 4th district (represented by Democrat Gwen Moore). However, the margins are smaller for Democrats (though still massive) since the district sheds some of Milwaukee and its bluer suburbs for the redder, WOW suburbs: it includes a small part of southern Ozaukee County and of northeastern Waukesha County. Nonetheless, very liberal. And it has a higher proportion of suburban 'Biden Democrats' versus the more 'Baldwin/Evers Democrats' you find in the other districts. In other words, Biden comes a lot closer to or does even better than Baldwin and Evers in these parts, as compared to other parts of the state where Evers and especially Baldwin do so much better. The seat gave Biden 70.81%, Baldwin 70.18% (this is, note, the exact same as the Madison district - but the Madison district also gave Biden a noticeably smaller margin: this makes sense since western WI and Madison generally seem to be more friendly to Trump as compared to other GOPers than eastern WI and Milwaukee, which seem to prefer Walker-type Republicans, are) and Evers 66.71% (nearly 2 points worse than Evers did in the Madison district).

The 5th district is similar to the real-life 5th district (represented for 42 years by Republican Jim Sensenbrenner), but it's less red - as discussed above, it loses parts of northeast Waukesha County and southern Ozaukee County, and instead includes some blue areas in Milwaukee County. The seat is also notable since Biden did a lot better than Evers did, despite Evers doing better than Biden statewide and a lot better than Biden in western WI and Madison. Trump did win a comfortable 58.19%, but this is not much better than Baldwin's opponent's 57.13%, and much worse than Scott Walker's 62.4%.

The 6th district is mostly similar to the real-life 6th but also includes some areas that are in the real-life 8th. It stretches north from northern Ozaukee County and includes Sheboygan (residence of Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman) in Sheboygan County, as well as Fond Du Lac, Oshkosh, and other mid-sized cities in eastern and northeastern WI. It stops just short of Appleton (though it includes urban areas to Appleton's west and southwest), but stretches all the way up to Door County, WI's easternmost county and one of just two Trump-Biden counties statewide. This is arguably the reddest district and the only one where Trump broke 60%: he won 60.51%, whereas Walker won a slightly bigger 60.75% and Baldwin's opponent managed 54.52%.

The 7th in Northeast WI is similar to the real-life 8th, represented by Republican Mike Gallagher, though it excludes counties such as Door. Major cities include Green Bay (Gallagher's residence) and Appleton, though it also stretches west to include counties like Florence (one of two where Trump crossed 70% of the total vote in 2020) as well as the reservation for Menominee Native Americans in Menominee County (one of a handful to have never gone Republican, though that might be because of how recently it was established). Trump's 15.3% margin was bigger than Walker's 14.96% margin and a lot bigger than the 2.44% margin Baldwin's opponent managed.

Lastly, we have District 8, in northwest WI, corresponding to the real-life District 7, represented by Republican Tom Tiffany since a 2020 special election. Trump won by 15.68% (slightly more than he won the next-door 7th by), but Walker won by a much smaller 10.64% (a lot less than Walker got in the neigbouring 7th) and Baldwin actually won the district by 0.66%. She would have lost the district if not for the rural, sparse, overwhelmingly white and ancestrally; and inexplicably, still; blue counties of Ashland, Douglas, and Bayfield, WI's northernmost counties and counties who meet a large body of water.

[Schiff for Senate]

Decently-compact map in WI that really benefits Democrats from where they currently are: https://districtr.org/plan/130251

1st district - Lean R. In Western WI (including the 3 blue counties in Northwest WI, La Cross, and Eau Claire). Voted Evers-Baldwin-Trump and Trump only won it by like 5 or 6. In a blue year, this is easily a district that the DCCC can win.
2nd district - Likely D. Madison's western suburbs (and parts of western Dane County and probably parts of Madison proper) and Portage. Voted Evers-Baldwin-Biden and Biden won it by about 8.
3rd district - Safe R. Extremely large district in rural WI. Very red. Voted Walker-Vukmir-Trump. Trump won it by about 26 points.
4th - Safe D. In Madison and to its east. Voted Evers-Baldwin-Biden. Biden won it by about 20 points.
5th - Safe D. Southeast WI. Parts of Kenosha, Racine, Walworth and Milwaukee Counties. Includes parts of Milwaukee and as a result is solidly Democratic. Also includes cities such as Racine and Kenosha. Voted Evers-Baldwin-Biden. Biden won it by about 20 points.
6th - Safe D. Is comprised of parts of Milwaukee (shared with the 5th), Waukesha (shared with the 4th and 7th), Kenosha (shared with the 5th) and Racine (shared with the 5th) Counties. Demographically, only district in the state where black people outnumber Hispanics, as well as the only district where over 20% of the population is black. Voted Evers-Baldwin-Biden. Biden won it by about 20 points.
7th - Safe R. Similar to the real-life 6th and 8th districts. Includes Sheboygan, West Bend, Menoninee Falls. In eastern WI, best described as 'exurban' or 'suburban.' Voted Walker-Vukmir-Trump. Trump won it by about 23 points.
8th - Lean R. Similar to the real-life 8th district (Gallagher's seat) but more urban, less compact, and less conservative. Voted Walker-Baldwin-Trump. But Trump won it by less than 5 points (as is the case in much of eastern WI, including the 6th and 7th districts in this map, Walker did better in his 2018 bid) and it can very plausibly go blue in a good year for the Democrats (like a GOP midterm).

I think 4-4 would be the likely delegation for the most part (2 and 4-6 go blue; 1, 3 and 7-8 go red). A reasonable best-case scenario for the GOP is 5-3 (4-6 go blue; 1-3 and 7-8 go red). A reasonable best-case scenario for the Democrats is 6-2 (all but 3 and 7 go blue).



EDIT: Made a D gerry I wanted to share but didn't want to bump a thread where the last post (this one) is over 4 months old. https://districtr.org/plan/143663. Five Biden districts (three partially in the Madison area; two partially in the Milwaukee area; one in Western WI that voted for him by an extremely thin margin, and likely broke for Trump in 2016 but he's kind of the floor, and other statewide Democrats do quite a bit better), three Trump districts (one a mixture of the current WI06 - Grothman's seat - and WI08 - Gallagher's seat; another that probably is most similar to WI08; and a third that is very large and rural and takes in much of Tiffany's WI07 - excluding the MN-WI border, and those blue counties in the northernmost part of the state, which fall into the 1st District). So - five Biden seats, five Evers seats, and actually 6 Baldwin seats (the five Biden-Evers seats + a Green Bay district that's not that red otherwise). The Milwaukee districts, without my intending for them to, are also kind of nicely demographically divided - one of the seats (the one bluer and further north) is over 30% black, while the other (southern part of Milwaukee (County), as well as Kenosha and Racine and a good bit of Bryan Steil's WI01) is over 20% Hispanic.

EDIT: Another one - https://districtr.org/plan/148311

[Schiff for Senate]

This map also takes some pretty bold steps to try and help Democrats overcome their horrible geography, most notably by putting Milwaukee and Madison into separate districts when logically, they should be kept together cause they're both blue cities.

Good joke? Can't tell in writing. Such beautiful baconstrips whet the appetite.

Decently-compact map in WI that really benefits Democrats from where they currently are: https://districtr.org/plan/130251
(...)
EDIT: Another one - https://districtr.org/plan/148311

Has rdistrict switched 2018 governor and senate results?
Well done, solid 5-3 Dem maps, although the Manitowoc-Fond du Lac tentacle is a little meandering.

I'm 99% sure that's the case.