2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

Draws out LaMalfa, McClintock, Obernolte, Garcia, Kim, Steel, and Issa, and draws together Nunes, Valadao, and McCarthy(or he's drawn out into 21)

Calvert may or may not get 47, plus it looks like a chocobo if you squint.







For the curious:

Partisan leans, 2016-2020 composite


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 50.95% D    43.35% R   

2018 California Attorney General Election: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 52.21% D    47.79% R

2018 California Gubernatorial Election: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 51.02% D    48.98% R   

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-47, 43.66% D    54.37% R

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

I wonder how much of an impact California's size has on the number of people putting out maps of it.

Both from how long it takes to make and put out a 52-district map, and also the fact that there's 20-25k precincts and it brings DRA to a screeching halt.

Hell, I have a pretty beefy rig and I have trouble sometimes, gotta wonder how many people just cannot run California in DRA because their computer can't handle it.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

Draws out LaMalfa, McClintock, Obernolte, Garcia, Kim, Steel, and Issa, and draws together Nunes, Valadao, and McCarthy(or he's drawn out into 21)

Calvert may or may not get 47, plus it looks like a chocobo if you squint.

For the curious:

Partisan leans, 2016-2020 composite


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 50.95% D    43.35% R

2018 California Attorney General Election: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 52.21% D    47.79% R

2018 California Gubernatorial Election: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-44, 51.02% D    48.98% R

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-47, 43.66% D    54.37% R

California is the biggest pain in the butt to draw maps for. Shuffling any sizeable population imbalances around involves passing precincts through a massive chain of other districts.







I present California v2, now with THREE (!!) majority-Asian VAP districts:
10 (50.3% Asian VAP), 15(54.0% VAP), 32(50.7% VAP)

10 (Stanford-Mountain Vale-Cupertino and the Asian parts of Santa Clara and Saratoga)
15 (San Leandro-Fremont-Milpitas and a stretch into the eastern outskirts of San Jose)
and the very *special* 32 (SGV district, sadly the 626 isn't quite big enough for its own district, and bringing it into Monrovia-Duarte or Pasadena really does a number on the Asian population, it's a lot closer to 40% if you leave out the stretch into Walnut-Rowland Heights).

17 is plurality-Asian at 32.4% VAP, and 14 and 8 are fairly close to being plurality-Asian but I kind of hollowed them out a bit to hit 50% in 10 and 15.

Tried to cut out some (a few, can't get too impartial) county splits and neaten up the edges a bit on most districts. Some are essentially unchanged, like the CA-47 chocobo, and the CA-22 chicken.

The LA and SF metros got substantially rearranged to shift to more of a VRA focus, I tried my best to try and draw a Black-plurality district in LA but failed, I really don't think it's possible any more, short of taking some fairly extreme liberties with the district.

Oh, and I basically copied Sabrina Cervantes' district for CA-46 because she is iconic and should get it.
 

2016-2020 Composites:



Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-23, 51.05% D    42.42% R

2018 California Attorney General Election: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-41, 51.99% D    48.01% R

2018 California Gubernatorial Election: 47D-5R

Closest seat: CA-41, 49.82% D    50.18% R

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in California: 48D-4R

Closest seat: CA-41, 52.33% D    45.49% R

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

[-snip- for conciseness]

Gentletheys, why cede four seats to republicans when we can cede three?

This map has more asian majority seats (four) then Republican Majority seats


https://davesredistricting.org/join/73563fbf-b250-4fc9-b517-0c749e01e956

This map does have more seats in the "Likely" category but even in the abosolute worse case scenario where all of them flip it is still only 7 that would be one less then current. And that's only if the San Jose, Sacremento, and LA suburbs/exurbs trend right when all signs point to otherwise. It does all this while also being (somewhat) compact.

The closest is the OC Coastal which went from R+5 in 2016 to R+1 (alost EVEN) in 2020. In 2020 it voted for Biden 51.4/46.6.

South LA County isn't filled in (except for me seeing is it's possible for a plurality black seat) simply because it is so democratic and I'm just trying to show an extreme Demmander

lmao impressive. I would recommend filling out the LA districts to solidify things because geography tends to get a little weird while trying to balance populations across the LA metro. I will say that I'll probably be redoing my map to get something more realistic around 40% for Asian VAP pops because 50% is honestly not the most useful and probably serves more as a pack than anything.

A few comments on areas of interest:

- I tried to keep the LA County border a lot neater at the top, which does make the Central Valley tougher because you can't pull from LA.

- Riverside-SB seems kind of messy, especially with CD-4. tbh CD-4 is really kinda contrived and brings together a lot of fairly disparate COIs, would not recommend.

- Not sold on 34 as a pack, it should be centered on Temecula-Murrieta-Menifee. Feels like the Calimesa and SD arms are kind of contrived.

- 41 should drop the Rolling Hills bit, that's much more suited to an LA coastal-Westside district.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

California could singlehandedly solve the Republican reign of terror by gerrymandering. 

Is that what we're expecting or does CA have some type of independent commission as well?

It has a commission.  The commissioners were chosen on the basis of bios/essays they submitted, which are now public.  In addition to all of the D's, enough of the I and R commissioners to pass a map under the CA rules wrote explicitly woke personal statements.  While there are limits on what they can draw, expect a very Dem leaning map.

Not to mention the registered Republican NRDC, NARAL and Planned Parenthood donor living in BERKELEY. Who happened to write about how important California's diversity is.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

California could singlehandedly solve the Republican reign of terror by gerrymandering.  

Is that what we're expecting or does CA have some type of independent commission as well?

It has a commission.  The commissioners were chosen on the basis of bios/essays they submitted, which are now public.  In addition to all of the D's, enough of the I and R commissioners to pass a map under the CA rules wrote explicitly woke personal statements.  While there are limits on what they can draw, expect a very Dem leaning map.

Not to mention the registered Republican NRDC, NARAL and Planned Parenthood donor living in BERKELEY. Who happened to write about how important California's diversity is.

Slight correction: ALL the commissioners had to write one essay about the importance of California's diversity.

All commissioners must demonstrate an appreciation for California's diverse demographics and geography as set forth in 2 CCR §60805. Please describe your appreciation for California's diversity and provide any occupational, academic, volunteer, or other life experiences you have had that demonstrate this appreciation*:

Jane Andersen wrote this:

My children's preschool taught inclusion and respect in simple terms and led by example. When my oldest child went to elementary school, diversity was respected but not prioritized. Building on my experiences of seeing the benefit to the community when all voices are heard, I used the opportunity of my volunteer work to increase and support respect for diversity. My work has included adding: appreciation of all religions in class activities; an anti-bullying training into faculty and school curriculum; an acceptance of learning differences in college prep school; and a mandatory, all-inclusive family unit into curriculum. The family unit work evolved into a standing Diversity Committee and NIA, supporting students of color. I am pleased to say that for many years now, that same school has diversity as part of its mission.

Alicia Fernandez, 31-year civil servant and also a registered Republican, wrote this:

We need representation to match the demographics of Californians. For example, the school district I represent was over 50% Hispanic yet they had never been represented during my decades in the area. In my opinion their needs weren't being addressed as the board members didn't understand their struggles which in turn led to decisions being made without being appropriately educated about all of their students' needs. As such, I ran against the incumbent and won. It was truly a grass roots effort as we canvassed each community. This was a rewarding process as I gained a better understanding and appreciation for each community. Instead of thinking I would be educating them, they educated me in understanding we all wanted the best for our students and children. Also, by my being able to educate my fellow board members on the struggles and challenges of the migrant and low income population, in my opinion, we made better decisions by understanding the needs of our diverse district.

As I learned, even in a small area there is diversity, and on a bigger level, the diversity is compounded. The importance is understanding the differences and making decisions based on that knowledge.

And that isn't all; Russell Yee, "lifelong Republican", wrote this on his ability to be impartial:

At my former church, where I was the pastor, we spent a whole year on a big decision about which Christian denomination to join. It was a tough process with many very strong thoughts and feelings shared. In the end we all agreed on a choice that I had not initially preferred but came to fully support.

Some years ago I was a juror in a nine-week(!) murder trial. We deliberated the several charges at great length. As we debated the final count, I found myself a "holdout" on one point. After further consideration I eventually conceded, deciding I could live with the majority view. When we did finally reach unanimous verdicts it felt like justice had truly been served. That experience gave me great faith in the jury system.

I served as the first board secretary of the East Bay chapter of Habitat for Humanity. There were many strong personalities on that board and many decisions meeting after meeting. I remember prevailing in my advocacy for one particular family to be chosen for a house. I also remember conceding to the majority over one particular fund-raising effort. It was all a very positive experience doing important and challenging work together.

I've also sat in innumerable leadership meetings for other non-profits. I've had endless opportunities to practice listening to different sides, speaking my own convictions, and coming to decisions even with imperfect and incomplete data. I've led many meetings where deep disagreements were aired. While I don't enjoy leading in contentious moments, I'm fully motivated to serve well, and have been told I lead effectively.

At my church I'm probably in the political minority. I chose to be in a place where I can learn from those who see things differently from me. While I'm a lifelong Republican I regularly vote for candidates of various parties. I have close friends and family of different parties, some apolitical and some strong partisan activists. I've learned a lot from different sides and have changed my own opinions on various issues over the years (e.g., after the Great Recession, I'm pro-financial regulation).

Being impartial is a way of acknowledging that none of us has the whole take on truth and all of us need to genuinely consider those we disagree with. Also, by culture, upbringing, and personality, I'm given to put shared needs above my personal desires.

I'm a married man with two daughters, so I compromise and "give in" all the time! In all seriousness, marriage and family life is a long exercise in putting the common good before personal wants. Earlier this year I had to mediate my family's decision about where to go for a vacation. There were deep disagreements. In the end I had to not only compromise on my own preferences but also had to motivate my wife and daughters to each make her own compromises so that we could all finally agree. And in the end we had a great trip!

Of course, all this could very well just be coincidence, but it's awfully interesting how some of these commissioners come off in a certain light lmao

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

The Visualization map is obviously suuuuper rough around the edges, huge population disparities so it's definitely not anywhere near draft status, but I noticed that it's got a surprising amount of potential.

I'm going off the Daily Kos DRA map available here:
https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1453425053446590468






Big thing that stuck out was that there's only one (!!) solid R district. The district population centers are just begging for a little nudge off the edge to build a great map. Plus it seems like they're going down the path of deprioritizing county splits and compactness, which makes it even easier.

Just off trimming the edges and shifting things around a bit, I managed to get it from a 45-7 Biden map to a 48-4 map, while also knocking Steel 7 points left and Kim 4 points left, and shoring up that new Visalia district.





They've squared the circle! No more Temecula-Murrieta-Menifee sink needed! The configuration I have it in is Biden+4, which is just a few points away from knocking Calvert off, which could well happen within the next couple cycles, given how fast Temecula-Murrieta is shifting blue.

If this is the baseline map, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with once it's refined. Lots of potential.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Starting to think the commission were actually geniuses. There's so much potential in this map.

Reworked the norcal bits a little to take advantage of the northern inland district careening left in the proposal, and with a little elbow grease LaMalfa goes from Trump+15 in the current map to Trump+6 in the "visualization" and Biden+7.5 in this map.



All of this, without even touching the core population centers of SF and LA! Literally just left those alone and reworked the SB-Riverside-OC borders and the Sac/Fresno/Modesto suburbs, and got this beautiful map out of it.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Starting to think the commission were actually geniuses. There's so much potential in this map.

Reworked the norcal bits a little to take advantage of the northern inland district careening left in the proposal, and with a little elbow grease LaMalfa goes from Trump+15 in the current map to Trump+6 in the "visualization" and Biden+7.5 in this map.


All of this, without even touching the core population centers of SF and LA! Literally just left those alone and reworked the SB-Riverside-OC borders and the Sac/Fresno/Modesto suburbs, and got this beautiful map out of it.

I mean I know you are gerrymandering here, but everyone should bear in mind that the initial 2010 visualizations were the best map ever made that cycle for the GOP, the various drafts and impact of minority concerns led to the maps getting better and better for the Dems.

Oh, I have no doubt that the commission will pay special attention to the various minority concerns and COIs in a way that leads up to a beautiful and FAIR map! My mind is just blown by the sheer potential inherent within this first map.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Starting to think the commission were actually geniuses. There's so much potential in this map.

Reworked the norcal bits a little to take advantage of the northern inland district careening left in the proposal, and with a little elbow grease LaMalfa goes from Trump+15 in the current map to Trump+6 in the "visualization" and Biden+7.5 in this map.


All of this, without even touching the core population centers of SF and LA! Literally just left those alone and reworked the SB-Riverside-OC borders and the Sac/Fresno/Modesto suburbs, and got this beautiful map out of it.

I mean I know you are gerrymandering here, but everyone should bear in mind that the initial 2010 visualizations were the best map ever made that cycle for the GOP, the various drafts and impact of minority concerns led to the maps getting better and better for the Dems.

Oh, I have no doubt that the commission will pay special attention to the various minority concerns and COIs in a way that leads up to a beautiful and FAIR map! My mind is just blown by the sheer potential inherent within this first map.

If you do it this way, surely better to put Sutter County into a Republican seat and liberate Truckee and South Lake Tahoe?

Edit: On this map, both CA-1 and CA-2 are Biden+17. CA-4 is Trump+16 and would, once the rest of the map is drawn, be the only winnable district in NorCal for the Republicans.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/f35c60eb-6e6c-4374-b315-8bad626677d2

Edit2: If you click through, I swapped Lake County for the rest of Santa Rosa in CA-1 so it is now Biden+22.

You're right. Did a bunch of cleanup around the area, as well as around Riverside. CA-01 is now Biden+16, and the SW Riverside district is now Biden+5.5. And just to really seal the deal and maybe stick it to a certain R-LA around these parts, CA-25 is now Biden+17.

And for funsies, I stuck Inyo and Mono and the Sierras back into a blue district.



People were bemoaning the map on twitter last I checked, but the packing efficiency on these configurations is through the roof compared to the more conventional map I drew earlier in the thread. Declination of only -29.59°, vs -33.73° for the 48-4 map I thought was near-optimal.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Have the Democrats managed to rig an independent commission to produce a gerrymander? What is going on?

The word going around is that one of the "Republicans" on the commission lives in Berkeley and donated to Planned Parenthood as recently as 2019, though I don't know if this is true/entirely accurate.

It's not "word going around", it's literally available for everyone to see on the official commission website.

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ccrc/pages/14/attachments/original/1621809373/1._Andersen_-_Application.pdf?1621809373

She literally discloses all of it. Only takes about ten seconds to find this.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Got bored, decided to take it balls to the wall. Bears barely any resemblance to the commission visualization outside of the main metros, which are still mostly untouched.









https://davesredistricting.org/join/a163e6c0-d47d-471a-8ce0-a120e1f282c8

Didn't bother going for equal populations, I'll save that for some of the maps coming up.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

I'm pissed that we got DINO cucks like "CalamityBlue"* who are pushing these weak maps and they keep on UNILATERALLY DISARMING against Republicans, failing to use their greatest state, California, to their advantage for the upcoming midterms.

There is only one map which can possibly be considered. We can't be literally giving freebies to Republicans in congressional maps. No 49D-3R. No 50D-2R. No 49D-1R. All of these are basically hypermanders for the GOP. The only proper configuration is 52D-0R. Below:

Image Link

Image Link

ON DAVE'S REDISTRICTING APP

*No hard feelings man

All things considered, that’s really not a bad looking map aesthetically as far as gerrymanders go

lol it's ultimately because CA's geographical bias is already in the region of ~20.7% in favor of Dems. With a statewide vote share of 65%, that just leaves another 15% that needs to be accounted for with boundaries, and a pretty reasonable mild gerrymander already accomplishes about 6% of that.

CA is just a spectacularly efficient electoral powerhouse for Dems at this point. If you take a look at other states commonly thought of as having favorable geographic voter distribution for one party, you've got MA with -30.5% D(plus -4.5% from boundaries), Wisconsin with +7.5% R (+9.4% from boundaries), and NY with -18.8% D (+2.3% from boundaries).

A good respectable gerrymander will pull an easy 6 or 7%, so the 14% in Abdullah's map is just a solid shove away from that.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

https://twitter.com/WeDrawTheLines/status/1455402451771674625

It's... marginally better than the previous viz? Progress!

Viz 1, 45-7 Biden



Viz 2, 46-6 Biden



https://davesredistricting.org/join/1ec729a6-1868-4d7d-a0c4-16f254943881


Getting closer to the beautiful 49-3!

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

1) North is entirely reshuffled. The coastal seat stays in it's counties, CA-01 doesn't take Yolo, Bera has more of Placer, the CA-04 successor extends southwards like many in this thread though it would a while ago. This does shift the CA-10 successor from marginally Trump in V.1 to even more Biden then now, cause removing Oakdale and the uber-white NE corner of the county makes the seat plurality Hispanic.

2) The Fremont cut is back (ugh) and the East Bay more or less resembles our current districts.

Fremont may be split but the Livermore Valley isn't now, and we don't have the bizarre district that goes from the South Bay and takes in Livermore (but not Pleasanton) and then crosses the Altamont and heads all the way out to Tracy. I think this is obviously preferable.

The Sacramento Valley also makes a lot more sense now. I'm not sure why the first map split Chico and Yuba City, and the only reason I can think of to do that would be to create a gerrymander.

This doesn't really matter, but the names given to districts in the document are very strange. The Santa Clara district is at least in Santa Clara County, although it doesn't contain Santa Clara proper, but the district labeled Cupertino is not the district with Cupertino in it. On that note, it's funny to see the way the Asian district takes a bite out of the western Santa Clara County district by taking in Cupertino. It looks ugly, it doesn't serve an actual community of interest ("Asian" isn't a community of interest), and ultimately that district still ends up only 48% Asian by VAP.

Honestly CA is too large to properly analyze. At least in say TX you can kinda break it down to segments of defined urban areas but CA is one urban slew

What? There is a very large space in between the state's two main urban areas.

Well it's kinda like, even with the Bay Area having 10 districts, the central coastal district goes practically all the way to Ventura, and the central valley connects to both the Bay and LA, and there's only about 4 inland seats, two of which link up with the major metros near them

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Following the commission today, apparently this is what their current configs look like, roughly:



Did a little rough estimation in DRA and this is what it spit out, very rough because the lines on the stream are awful:
NOCOAST: Biden +11
SAVANAANA: Biden +6
SANTANA: Biden +21
OCSBLA: Biden +2? Ended up with a big surplus so take this with a grain of salt.
BEAVICVAL is incomplete because I didn't get enough of a look at it.




I'd reckon they're getting closer, trying for deviations of 0-1 right now.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Mocked up the iterations from today in DRA, take with a massive grain of salt because I'm lazy and most of these are off by quite a bit

Garcia District: Clinton +11 -> Biden +15
Big SB district: Trump +14.5 -> Trump +11.5
Crachkhead Corona-Coachella district: Trump + 6 -> Trump +1.5
Loopy Little Saigon district: Clinton +13 -> Biden +6
Coastal OC district (Steel/Porter): Clinton +7.5 -> Biden +11
East OC pack: Trump +4 -> Biden +2
North SD district (Levin): Clinton +1.3 -> Biden +7.5
Riverside-Imperial district(Ruiz): Clinton +17 -> Biden +15
Issa district: Trump +20 -> Trump +12 (!!)

Left out three SD districts and the rest of the LA metro districts because they're all deep blue.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::64d5b36c-00a6-4a3d-900d-ad9b7c2711b4

Seems like the current iteration. Using uniform swing Levin would only have won by 1.2 points in 2020!

I think they uploaded an old version, the line drawing today had a Steel/Porter district from HB to Irvine, checked it out and it hadn't had today's iterations worked up

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

They published the iterations from yesterday, getting ready to do more socal line drawing today.



I think I got the districts like 99% right-ish, just got lazy with blocks

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/190ZSNlmId7m_mlvGysuN5_kcXNpaOt2N

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Lines are changing quick.

Nah, they decided pretty heavily in favor of sticking with last night's iterations as a baseline, the Plan ST districts were too far away from those and would take too much time.


2016-2020 PVI colors


Honestly not unhappy with these. All the close districts are sprinting left.

AVSCV is Clinton +11.4 -> Biden +14.1
SMESCPOW is Trump +19.6 -> Trump +12.1
MORCOA is Trump +14.7 -> Trump +9.7
BEAVICAL is Trump +6.0 -> Trump +1.0
OCSBLA is Trump +4.4 -> Biden +1.8
SOCNSD is Clinton +1.2 -> Biden +7.7
NOCOAST is Clinton +7.6 -> Biden + 11.1

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Yikes.

On the bright side it seems like CA-22 was cleaned up a bit with negligible change in partisanship

I mean the tail is unnecessary, but this is just the White parts coast separated from the Hispanic parts of the coast.

I feel like a major recurring theme in this thread is people expressing {shock, horror, dismay} at district lines in California because they don't look "pretty", without realizing that

1. precincts are just awful outside major urban areas because the terrain is weird
2. the commission explicitly has to conform to municipality lines, which also look terrible

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Final map:

SoCal zoom:


Swings in R/Close districts:
Swings:
1 (LaMalfa): Trump +21.8 -> Trump +19
3 (McClintock): Trump +7.8 -> Trump +1.6
5 (Open, Harder) Trump +15.1 -> Trump +12.3
20 (McCarthy): Trump +30.7 -> Trump +24.9
21 (Nunes, Open): Clinton +21.8 -> Biden +20.4
22 (Valadao): Clinton +16.1 -> Biden +10.8
23 (Obernolte): Trump +14.8 -> Trump +9.8
27 (Garcia): Clinton +9.8 -> Biden +12.4
40 (probably Kim): Trump +4.4 -> Biden +1.7
41 (Calvert): Trump +6.0 -> Trump +1.0
45 (probably Steel): Clinton +13.2 -> Biden +6.1
47 (Porter): Clinton +7.6 -> Biden +11.1
48 (Issa): Trump +19.9 -> Trump +12.3
49 (Levin): Clinton +5.6 -> Biden +11.4

40/41 are definitely big targets going into 2024/2026, and 3 is an absolute sleeper pick with how hard the Sac suburbs and Lake Tahoe areas are shifting. Central Valley isn't great but still plenty blue enough for pickups with good candidates. If only they'd drawn LB into one of the OC districts though, woulda really shifted the balance there.

Can't complain, they had to minimize municipality splits and managed to pack all 11 Rs into 6 safe seats anyway, even if Harder is a sacrificial lamb. Could very well be 47-5 in 2024/2026, possibly even 48-4 in a real good year assuming swings stay constant in the R districts.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

It's strange that out of all the county crossings you make, San Bernardino and Riverside is where you refuse to cross, when they are the most similar overall. As you can see just by looking at the roads, Southern OC and Riverside really shouldn't be paired that way.

Does this make more sense?



Sorry about the North San Diego-El Cajon-East County thing, but it does make everything else very logical and tidy.

Also apologies to San Bernardino and the Victor Valley. Doesn't seem like there's a good place for the Victor Valley to go in general--too big for the Imperial County-Palm Springs-Mojave seat, most like the Antelope Valley but then prevents a really nice and attractive Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita seat.

The Riverside districts do look better, although I'd reiterate my suggestion to follow the highways, connecting eastern Riverside (and Temecula?) with Apple Valley feels very awkward, and what appears to be an attempt at drawing an Asian district linking Pasadena to Chino Hills is unnecessary and should be done more compactly--you can easily get around 44% just staying within the Western SGV.

What about this

Seconding some of the points in cvparty's post above, felt like elaborating a bit too:

-Glendale does not belong in that district, it's effectively not contiguous because Griffith Park is in the middle of an unpopulated area of mountains. Glendale is part of a very high concentration of Armenians that stretches to Burbank and Sunland-Tujunga, so optimally that's what you want to pair Glendale with

Santa Monica/Venice are way closer culturally to BH, Palisades, and Westwood/Brentwood than Malibu, shift Malibu into the Valley district. Keep Atwater Village, Eagle Rock and surroundings with Glendale.

-DTLA preferably goes with the neighborhoods to the west like Koreatown and Echo Park but it's not an absolute requirement

Everything south of the 10 (Santa Monica Freeway) should not go with downtown. South of the 10 and east of the river is primarily suburban, vs the more urban character of downtown and Ktown. Also do not split University Park, keep the area east of Normandie and south of the 10 together.

-Asian population between Hacienda Heights, Walnut and Chino Hills is cracked three ways
-36 honestly fundamentally doesn't make sense

Yeah, the SGV Asian population in 36/37/38 seems cracked to hell, definitely just put it all in one district and just let 36 naturally take in the Hispanic suburbs around Montebello - Whittier compactly. Put Diamond Bar and Walnut in 37 instead and rotate 38 counterclockwise to get Baldwin Park and Covina.

-Palos Verdes Peninsula should really be with Torrance and the beach cities

PV doesn't go with Long Beach. That little stripe of the City of LA with San Pedro is pretty much a divider, don't go further than the Port of LA.

-Might be boxing yourself in with trying to maximize the AA population in 32?

Don't bother trying to maximize honestly, you can't draw a plurality-Black district in LA County any more. Just keep the cores together but don't fuss too much about the edges.