2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Minnesota

[Former President tack50]

Yeah lfromnj is right with his easiest pairing in the metro. And said pairing leads to a very clean map, but said map only has 2 Safe D seats in Minneapolis, let alone 4. (although presumably with trends there will indeed be 3 safe Biden seats?)



MN-01: Trump+19; R+7
MN-02: Trump+4; R+3
MN-03: Clinton+2; R+1
MN-04: Clinton+27; D+12
MN-05: Clinton+48; D+22
MN-06: Trump+18; R+6
MN-07: Trump+29; R+12

So yeah, a map with 3 Safe R districts; 2 Safe D districts, 1 tossup and 1 lean R district. Though it depends on how safe you see the 2nd and 3rd districts in this map I suppose but still.

[Former President tack50]

Also decided to make an 8 district map and the end result is very similar. The 3rd district moves from tossup/Lean Dem to clearly Safe D and the 2nd becomes a pure tossup instead of Lean R. Still it's a map that is no better than 4R-3D-1S. The rural districts also generally become more democratic so I guess that makes a comeback in the 1st or 8th districts more likely?



MN-01: Trump+13; R+4
MN-02: Clinton+0.5; R+2
MN-03: Clinton+11; D+3
MN-04: Clinton+29; D+13
MN-05: Clinton+52; D+25
MN-06: Trump+28; R+14
MN-07: Trump+30; R+13
MN-08: Trump+13; R+3

[Former President tack50]

Here is my attempt at a fair map, although I am not sure if this map would be accepted by the state legislature:



MN-01: Trump+20, R+8
MN-02: Trump+2, R+2
MN-03: Clinton+1, R+2
MN-04: Clinton+27, D+12
MN-05: Clinton+50, D+24
MN-06: Trump+33, R+14
MN-07: Trump+14, R+4

Basically the 2 Dems from St. Paul and Minneapolis get titanium and compact seats. The 2 dems from the suburbs that got elected in 2018 get districts with their homes in it that are tossups, albeit ones that are probably trending D relatively fast (I am confident that these were probably both Biden winning by mid single digits)

The Republicans get 3 safe districts, with the Republican elected in 2020 and one of the new ones from 2018 getting placed into the safe district.

Overall probably this is the most D-friendly map that can be sold as fair I think, but I guess the R state legislature will push to take Rochester out of MN-02 and put in some rurals instead (which would mean a 2D-3R-2S map in the short term, but with MN-03 very rapidly trending D)

[Former President tack50]

For fun and to see just how bad the dem vote distribution is, here is a "high risk, high reward" map for Republicans that is 5-2:

All districts here voted Dem for governor in 2018 (although most by very narrow margins) and were at least Trump+10 in 2016:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5928ff76-7498-4020-9eb3-d1b20ab0c0a2



MN-01: Trump+16, Johnson+0 (wins by only 19 votes!), R+6
MN-02: Trump+10, Johnson+1, R+6
MN-03: Trump+13, Johnson+6, R+8
MN-04: Clinton+35, Walz+40, D+16
MN-05: Clinton+49, Walz+53, D+23
MN-06: Trump+18, Johnson+8, R+8
MN-07: Trump+16, Johnson+3, R+5

[Former President tack50]

When people talk about combining the twin cities, other than what everyone who has lived in the area has said; I will also add that it adds an extra county chop

It's not a huge chop or anything but it is there. If you separate the 2 cities, you get:

>Ramsey + Washington (you have to to make a cut worth 5k)
>Minneapolis + inner suburbs
>Rest of Hennepin + Anoka (again you have to make a cut worth 5k people)
>Carver + Scott + Dakota + Goodhue + Rice (you get short by 15k, which if you want no county splits, you can add from Sibley, or from splitting any of the other counties)

Meanwhile, if you combine the 2 cities, you get:

>Minneapolis + St Paul + a couple inner suburbs (huge cut into Ramsey)
>Rest of Hennepin
> Rest of Ramsey + Anoka + Washington

It's not a super huge county chop or anything, but is it really a worthy chop at all when a solution with no such cuts exists? So if you need a "real" argument, I guess county integrity works.

[Former President tack50]

To be honest, Minnesota is so white that minorities should not be considered at all when drawing a map.

Even if you did an absolutely horrendous tentacle district I doubt you could get the minority % below 60%; let alone make a proper minority district where the minority in question is able to always elect a candidate of their choice. Not to mention minorities are having 0 trouble getting elected in those districts (see: Ilhan Omar)

As for the "combine the cities" argument, like I said it's an unnecesary county chop. It's not the best argument ever I know, but if you combine the twin cities you are cutting Ramsey County in half.

Also, let me doubt about the "2 separate districts means 2 districts dominated by cities argument". The St. Paul district definitely would not be dominated by cities. Here is a quick summary of how such a district looks like:

>302k people from St. Paul proper (38%)
>239k people from the rest of Ramsey County (30%)
>249k people from Washington county (31%)

I struggle to see how St Paul, being only 38% of the district, is somehow dominating it.

[Former President tack50]

I mean, after looking that map by Dr RI I am more convinced than on a map purely and exclusively based on COIs, the way to go would be to merge the twin cities. However there are arguments that go both ways so it is far from an easy question.

That of course ignores the arguments about why it will not happen due to partisan, political and historical concerns so it is purely hypothetical.