Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

[_.]

Does anybody else think that CO-3 could potentially become competitive down the line considering trends in Western Colorado?

After all, CO-3 only was won by Trump with a margin of 7%, but if you look at this map, you'll see that Western Colorado massively trended D from 2016 to 2020 on the presidential level. If these trends continue, I'd think that this could make Boebert (who is notoriously extreme) vulnerable in her own district, no?

[Nyvin]

Does anybody else think that CO-3 could potentially become competitive down the line considering trends in Western Colorado?

After all, CO-3 only was won by Trump with a margin of 7%, but if you look at this map, you'll see that Western Colorado massively trended D from 2016 to 2020 on the presidential level. If these trends continue, I'd think that this could make Boebert (who is notoriously extreme) vulnerable in her own district, no?

If things go bad for the GOP in CO then this map could produce a 7D-1R delegation by mid decade.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

Interesting that the average of the two median districts are considerably more Rep than the state overall. D+2 in margin vs D+6 in the state overall.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

[lfromnj]

Does anybody else think that CO-3 could potentially become competitive down the line considering trends in Western Colorado?

After all, CO-3 only was won by Trump with a margin of 7%, but if you look at this map, you'll see that Western Colorado massively trended D from 2016 to 2020 on the presidential level. If these trends continue, I'd think that this could make Boebert (who is notoriously extreme) vulnerable in her own district, no?

Calm down a touch, Biden and Obama still had fairly similar margins for this district. Relatively similar to NC11/Western Montana IMO. Wait and watch here.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

Is a fair Kentucky map now supposed to use Beshear 2019 numbers?You know as well as I do, that this is an absurd idea.

Criteria for Drawing Congressional District Map
 
Districts must:
 
Have equal population, justifying each variance, no matter how small, as required by the U.S. Constitution;
Be composed of contiguous geographic areas;
Comply with the federal "Voting Rights Act of 1965," as amended;
Preserve whole communities of interest and whole political subdivisions, such as counties, cities, and towns;
Be as compact as is reasonably possible; and
Maximize the number of politically competitive districts.

Only competitive districts are mentioned, matching partisanship is not. Using some weird downballot race is completely absurd for this purpose. If the goal in creating CO7th did include partisan data then it was flawed.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

Is a fair Kentucky map now supposed to use Beshear 2019 numbers?You know as well as I do, that this is an absurd idea.

It doesn't matter what race you pick to draw from if your goal is to equitably match the state's overall partisanship rather than competitiveness. This is a goal that was adopted by said commission early in the process. State's don't move in a bubble. If say they used 2020 partisanship, a district similar to CO07's electoral data would still appear going by their guidelines. Colorado is a Dem state, so 5-3 Dem, but Colorado isn't 100% committed to Dems so neither should the seat. Drawing a marginal seat based on a marginal result therefore fulfills these goals, since the state won't normally be as competitive as said race, and said seat therefore won't be marginal in most circumstances.

If your goal was competitiveness, then yes, you should use the most modern and all-encompassing data available.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

Is a fair Kentucky map now supposed to use Beshear 2019 numbers?You know as well as I do, that this is an absurd idea.

It doesn't matter what race you pick to draw from if your goal is to equitably match the state's overall partisanship rather than competitiveness. State's don't move in a bubble. If say they used 2020 partisanship, a district similar to CO07's electoral data would still appear going by their guidelines. Colorado is a Dem state, so 5-3 Dem, but Colorado isn't 100% committed to Dems so neither should the seat. Drawing a marginal seat based on a marginal result therefore fulfills these goals, since the state won't normally be as competitive as said race, and said seat therefore won't be marginal in most circumstances.

If your goal was competitiveness, then yes, you should use the most modern and all-encompassing data available.

Except the commission isn't even supposed to consider matching partisanship. They can use partisan data for competitive purposes and in that scenario the most obvious data set would be either Cook PVI,75/25 PVI or composite score.

[Coastal Elitist]

It appears there are no road connections in CO-3 going from Grand to Boulder so that might need to be changed. Not even sure why you would do that.

[Oryxslayer]

Except the commission isn't even supposed to consider matching partisanship. They can use partisan data for competitive purposes and in that scenario the most obvious data set would be either Cook PVI,75/25 PVI or composite score.

The commission appears to have self-defined competitiveness as "If the statewide race is competitive, then the map should be able to swing based on said race." This definition does make some sense to adopt if your state is close-ish to the center of the nation. It was reported previously that they wanted to reflect that states overall partisanship while also fulfilling their mandate.

This is a significantly different definition from "Even If a state votes  Party +X%, there should be large numbers of marginal seats." This definition makes sense if said state is 100% safe like say Arkansas, and control is not in question. People are shy to completely subscribe to the second definition even in the best of times, since it often means artificially accepting that both parties are equivalent when one has a statewide advantage, and therefore gerrymandering the minority party opportunity seats even though the majority party is naturally dominant. See the fallout from the Arizona and Washington maps last cycle for why this is an unpopular position, even though the Arizona map retained its equitability despite the states slide towards competitiveness.

[Oryxslayer]

It appears there are no road connections in CO-3 going from Grand to Boulder so that might need to be changed. Not even sure why you would do that.

The handful of boulder precincts getting restored to the county - probably in exchange for Gilpin - seems like the most obvious adjustment that will occur in the final map. In fact, its so obvious one wonders if the west Boulder County stuff was deliberately done to provoke specific public input.

[Stuart98]

I would not say that the commission was closely following the comments they got for the record; I think the single most common comment I saw was "don't put Lakewood with Douglas"

You'll never guess what they did!

[Nyvin]

This is funny, the public comments on the CO website are now getting flooded with people complaining about moving Pueblo to CO-4.   The thing is they all say almost the exact same sentence -

"I recently heard talk of redrawing the third district, excluding Pueblo county and replacing it with Boulder, and/or Summit and Eagle counties."  

It seems some GOP group sent out a mailer or something to put comments on the website about this.

https://redistricting.colorado.gov/public_comments?page=1

[Stuart98]

It's... not even clear that the new configuration hurts Boebert? Moving Pueblo back into the 3rd would force a bunch of drastic changes to the map that could make the map a lot worse for the GOP than it is right now. Playing with fire there.

[Devils30]

Dems have nothing to lose complaining, if they can get Boebert's district to be 7-10 points bluer and/or CO-7 safer why not at least try?

That said, CO-7 only is red if Dems already lose 25 seats.

[Padfoot]

Does anybody else think that CO-3 could potentially become competitive down the line considering trends in Western Colorado?

After all, CO-3 only was won by Trump with a margin of 7%, but if you look at this map, you'll see that Western Colorado massively trended D from 2016 to 2020 on the presidential level. If these trends continue, I'd think that this could make Boebert (who is notoriously extreme) vulnerable in her own district, no?

How much of this swing is due to the higher than average third party vote in 2016?

[Devils30]

Dems should pick a Manchin type in CO-3, give in on the gun issue and run against Boebert as a traitor to this country based on her behavior 1/6.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/Stuart98_/status/1407899343898615810

[lfromnj]

Dems should pick a Manchin type in CO-3, give in on the gun issue and run against Boebert as a traitor to this country based on her behavior 1/6.

Lol, ski resistance liberals would never let that happen .  The San Luis Valley had the better chance of nominating a more moderate candidate

[GALeftist]

This is fine, I guess, a Biden +9 seat isn't going to be competitive unless Democrats are already losing badly, but I wish we'd quit it with the commissions

[lfromnj]

It seems as if the original Hispanic Buisness plan was just a ploy by some Democrats to get 5 solid seats.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/colorado-in-dc/hispanic-business-group-calls-for-new-congressional-district-north-of-denver/article_b7f5a43c-c960-11eb-9701-430145d1eb54.html

The original map would have just had 5 purely Safe D districts. Its unlikely its a genuine hispanic play as a better Hispanic district would be South Adams and Aurora which is around 37% instead of 30% Hispanic like this. It seems as if most of said attempt worked although the commission did push for some form of competition in said district?






https://coleg.app.box.com/s/x3o93nl58p1usyyoqn82twxy4x26avs2/file/820269746866

Here is the original Hispanic Chamber of commerce map.

[Oryxslayer]

It seems as if the original Hispanic Buisness plan was just a ploy by some Democrats to get 5 solid seats.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/colorado-in-dc/hispanic-business-group-calls-for-new-congressional-district-north-of-denver/article_b7f5a43c-c960-11eb-9701-430145d1eb54.html

The original map would have just had 5 purely Safe D districts. Its unlikely its a genuine hispanic play as a better Hispanic district would be South Adams and Aurora which is around 37% instead of 30% Hispanic like this. It seems as if most of said attempt worked although the commission did push for some form of competition in said district?

The map you posted is why I, speaking as a Dem here rather than an analyst, am 100% fine with the direction the commission is taking. An initially safe 5-3, or 6-2, as you note, would never be approved, and Boebert's seat has too many natural COIs to get carved into oblivion. These fantasies of the twitter-verse were in effect people more or less pissing into the wind. More likely based on COIs was a map as you present, that uses Douglas as a base and makes the fourth seat more GOP leaning. So one based out of Jefferson is a nice result. If Dems lose a 7th or 8th similar to those presented by the commission then they are likely looking at 170 seats nationwide or less, and CO is the least of their worries. Meanwhile the third remains marginal (who knows what the future holds for this seat), and whenever El Paso finally flips in 6 to 10 years then the Dems have a new target.

[lfromnj]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/redistricting-colorado-map-perlmutter-495830
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1407897994314366980

Colorado Democrats are trying to act a bit disappointed .

I guess even though I say Colorado Democrats did get a slightly better end at least from the preliminary map from a partisan perspective, all 3 Colorado GOP incumbents get to stay calm .