Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[Calthrina950]

Is CO getting a commission next year? Sorry, haven't been following political developments there closely.

Yes. Amendments Y and Z, passed by Colorado voters in 2018, created redistricting commissions that will be responsible for drawing the state's congressional and state legislative districts next year.

[Calthrina950]

Here is my take on a "Light Dem gerrymander"; basically the kind of redistricting that could happen if the Colorado commission was somehow seized by a coalition of partisan democrats and RINOs, like it has happened in other states?

Basically this is a partisan map that doesn't go too crazy and tries to keep some COIs at least; although I will admit I probably didn't put enough effort into keeping county borders, so this map, while it looks good, looks less great with county borders on.

Interestingly this does give me a chance to show off the "donut" district from another thread.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/c04e1eca-ce14-441d-a9ab-304acd12b08f

Districts 1, 2 and 6 should all be safe D (though district 6, at D+4 in PVI might have been competitive in the past, but it certainly isn't now). Similarly, districts 4 and 5 should both be Safe R (though the Colorado Springs district is trending D, but should still be safe R for now)

District 7 may have been competitive in the past as well (D+2 PVI), and even in 2016 it was not a huge blowout (Clinton+7); but I imagine it must have zoomed left very fast. For the 2018 governor election it voted Polis+14 so

District 8 is basically a Lean D district that is still very much competitive. It was Clinton+1, Polis+6 and D+1 in PVI. Not sure what the trend here is, if one even exists.

Finally district 3 is a half hearted attempt at getting rid of Boebert. You can't fully get rid of her without doing a "proper" gerrymander, so this just gives her as many of the Dem rural ski counties as you can, and then fills up the population by taking the rural parts of Boulder and Larimer, instead of the more Republican southeast part of the state. It's still Likely R, but slightly better than the current district. It even voted for Polis by 200 votes (Trump+8, Polis+0, R+5)

I would imagine that Biden carried all of the districts on your map last year except for 4 and 5.

[Calthrina950]

This is an interesting map. I'm not sure why they gave part of El Paso County to Buck's district, rather than keeping the whole county intact as its own congressional district. But otherwise, the map makes sense, and pretty closely correlates with what I expected. This would be a 5 D-3 R map in most years, assuming that Republicans don't reverse the Democratic rise in Douglas County.

[Calthrina950]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

[Calthrina950]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

yep, she did

And not only did Mitsch-Bush win it, but she got a majority there. Certainly a humiliating result for Boebert to lose her home county, although she obviously carried her hometown of Rifle (Mitsch-Bush won thanks to a strong performance in Glenwood Springs). Mitsch-Bush did the best of the three major Democratic candidates in Garfield County, as Biden won it with a plurality and Hickenlooper lost it to Cory Gardner.

[Calthrina950]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

yep, she did

And not only did Mitsch-Bush win it, but she got a majority there. Certainly a humiliating result for Boebert to lose her home county, although she obviously carried her hometown of Rifle (Mitsch-Bush won thanks to a strong performance in Glenwood Springs). Mitsch-Bush did the best of the three major Democratic candidates in Garfield County, as Biden won it with a plurality and Hickenlooper lost it to Cory Gardner.

Interesting.
Two things as an aside.
I don't think someone losing their home county necessarily means too much, especially in this era of polarization up and increasingly farther down the ballot.
The other is, it's ironic that the gun rights activist who rises to the fore due to something related to Beto O'Rouke lives in a place called...Rifle. Lol.
I wonder how that place got its name.

You do have a point. It doesn't necessarily mean much, but I think it does mean something that Boebert did worse in her home county than either Trump or Gardner. As for the second, you're right about that also. It's been about two years since Boebert first gained prominence by confronting O'Rourke at his rally in Denver.