Illinois Redistricting Megathread

[Mr. Illini]

Is there any reason to believe Madigan would particularly want to take revenge on Newman? He backed Lipinski, but it's not like Newman explicitly ran against Madigan or like Madigan has any objection to working with relatively liberal politicians.

(Image cred: Madigan circulator(?))

The thing about Chicago is that all politics are hyper-local. Madigan does not particularly care about what people on the North Shore get up to or whatever kind of progressive freaks they promote, so long as they can be reliably defeated when it comes to the important things in life (witness the political disappearance of Scott Drury, the only Democratic state rep to vote against Madigan for Speaker, as well as the utter failure of the Dan Biss 4 Gov campaign). But having an independent in Congress representing the 13th Ward?? Not acceptable!

Yes, but that shows Madigan campaigned against Newman. It doesn't suggest Newman made opposing Madigan an important part of her campaign (talking about defeating 'the machine' is pretty generic.) The machine doesn't bear grudges when it's not worthwhile - Rush challenged Daley in the mayoral election, but that hasn't harmed Rush's relationship with the machine since, because it hasn't been worth expending political capital trying to do it.

Trying to get revenge on Newman just seems like a waste of time when you can just give her a district consisting of areas outside Cook and the bits of Cook where the machine has least reach, then forget about her.

That’s the home turf, though. The district is drawn to encompass the WWC areas of the SW side and SW burbs. It’s a bit of a slap in the face to be beaten there and I’d think he may want to resurrect that.

[Mr. Illini]

Thank you, king! No independent maps in Illinois until we have them nationwide.

[Mr. Illini]

Thank you, king! No independent maps in Illinois until we have them nationwide.

At best Congress can mandate them for congressional districts, but not for state legislative districts. Since Pubs in their supermajority states say the same thing, your statement is equivalent of saying no independent maps for the state ever. The irony is that in states like IL an independent map is unlikely to affect the Dem control of the state, but would probably put a number of incumbents at risk in primaries or general elections with ungerrymandered districts.

Nope, I would be fine with fair maps on the state level. My comment was chiefly about federal districts, in which our congressional seats will sit alongside those of all other states. I see no reason for the Illinois legislature to take away its own power to control the drawing of our federal districts while Republican states with large delegations (TX, FL) continue to gerrymander their states into oblivion.

Unfortunately, it seems that many Democratic states are very happy to cede ten more years of Republican control of the House so they can stand on principle. People are so quick to forget how badly the gerrymandered 2010 maps impeded Democratic legislation during the last decade.

The structure of the Senate is already slanted in favor of Republicans. I'd rather the House not be the same.

[Mr. Illini]

Light blue voted 8.6% Dem in 2012/16 composite. Purple voted 7.1% Dem.
For 2016 only, light blue was 0.6% Republican, purple was 7.9% Dem (so is actually trending D.)

Ignore Cook County. I'm not done yet. Khaki is Lauren Underwood's district. Turquoise is closest to Sean Casten but he lives south of it.  

With the light blue district, I think Dems will be more comfortable with a +5 district or something like that that is a little more compact. I'm not sure the few votes you get down in Carbondale is worth how bad it looks, lol

[Mr. Illini]

Dems should go for the jugular. 15-2, all Dem districts are at least +4 except the downstate one, which is +3. Compactness isn't terrible either except for the central IL district. No attention paid to where any of the incumbents reside.

[Mr. Illini]

Dems should go for the jugular. 15-2, all Dem districts are at least +4 except the downstate one, which is +3. Compactness isn't terrible either except for the central IL district. No attention paid to where any of the incumbents reside.

The downstate district is probably Likely R anyway  as you used composite, and then that Rockford to Peoria is probably barely better than a tossup.  And I wouldn't be sure of other districts either. If you really want a rock solid map that maximizes seats, you draw the VRA seats into white rurals such as Iroquois so Underwood won't need to take Rockford. Then draw the 12 Chicago land seats with preferably all seats except maybe Underwood's being Clinton +12 or more. Then draw a Rockford to  Rock Island to Bloomington. After that draw a Champaign to East St.Louis for a 14-3  Overall though I think certain incumbent demands might push Underwood by the end to take Rockford which means a 13-1-3 could also happen.

It’s true, the downstate district would be tough to hold on to. There’s not much room for improvement either - much of the territory around it is solid R unless you want to take Springfield, which complicates things for the district it’s in currently.

The Peoria/Rock Island district actually could be shored up a little further by taking more territory along the river and making the reach down to Peoria even stringy-er. I tried to keep things compact where possible, though.

[Mr. Illini]

Dems should go for the jugular. 15-2, all Dem districts are at least +4 except the downstate one, which is +3. Compactness isn't terrible either except for the central IL district. No attention paid to where any of the incumbents reside.

This likely isn't a 15-2 map, as lfromnj pointed out - with the Quad Cities and Metro East districts probably being much more Republican than the composite (which uses 2012 and 2016 Senate data that is more favorable to Democrats downstate). I'll also add that some of these districts are spreading Democrats too thin that they wouldn't be immune from a bad cycle.

Using 2016 Presidential data only, the Rock Island district is still Democrat by a few %. The downstate district would be Republican.

[Mr. Illini]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1399859335329636356

o_O

I hope they know that IL has one of the earliest release dates for maps so they kinda set the precedent for the country.  

I'm not a fan of this honestly.

17 in this map isn't even that bad compared to what Republicans in Texas and Florida are going to spit out. We must have 14-3 in Illinois and a favorable map in New York to counter the big GOP states. Hopefully SCOTUS reviews in the next 10 years and overturns this process before more Democratic states decide to self-own and give away their own power.

[Mr. Illini]

It is a little crazy that Dems didn't decide to split Champaign and Urbana. In the districts below, the Champaign/western district has held up in all elections except for AG 2018 and Senate 2016. Note that the GOP AG candidate in 2018 was from Champaign.

If they went this route, you'd still get one Dem seat out of the area, with a high likelihood of getting two.

[Mr. Illini]

If Dems have any shot of keeping the House in ‘22, I expect Dems in CA, VA, etc, to mail thank you letters c/o JB Pritzker.

[Mr. Illini]

Seems like Dems were just as aggressive downstate as expected but less aggressive in Chicagoland. It is badly gerrymandered, but you could produce a more compact map that still shores up Underwood and Newman better than this one does.

[Mr. Illini]

I feel like vomiting.

How do you think Dems feel when looking at the NC maps Republicans look likely to draw?

You would be making the same argument if it was just MO Republicans who had any power or desire to gerrymander, and of course you know that as well as I do. Only the most gullible people actually buy into the "we’re only doing this because Republicans are even worse" or "we’re only doing this because Republicans don’t support 'independent' commissions [which are stacked with Democratic tie-breakers/members]" we-don’t-want-to-unilaterally-surrender shtick.

That said, Republicans absolutely deserve this if they’re unwilling or too incompetent to go nuclear in their states (IN would have been a good start even if it wouldn’t have been nearly enough to make up for the slaughter in CA/MD/IL/NJ/etc.). Let Darwinism reign.

Imagine believing this when Dems literally have a bill ready in Congress to abolish gerrymandering. Constitutional or not, the Democratic Party is indeed in favor of non-partisan gerrymandering. And, until that happens nationally, more astute state parties like Illinois and New York will continue to gerrymander so as not to completely cede control of Congress to Republicans.

You would really like a world where all Democratic states have commissions and Republican states gerrymander to sh*t, though, right?

[Mr. Illini]

I do appreciate all of the doomers saying that Dems "aren't using their power" here. There may have been some missed opportunities (which could still be fixed before they vote) but they are undoubtedly using their power.

Reserve your fury for Virginia and California.

[Mr. Illini]

Statement from Newman:  

While our team continues to review the draft congressional map that was released earlier today, it is abundantly apparent that what has currently been proposed for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District is not only retrogressive but substantially diminishes the diverse and progressive voices of Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs. I know that IL-03’s constituents will ensure their voices are heard loud and clear at these public hearings over the coming days.”

I look forward to continuing to represent the constituents of Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

I bet they make changes to this. Wonder if this was a bit of a warning shot because she was being uncooperative.

[Mr. Illini]

Statement from Newman:  

While our team continues to review the draft congressional map that was released earlier today, it is abundantly apparent that what has currently been proposed for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District is not only retrogressive but substantially diminishes the diverse and progressive voices of Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs. I know that IL-03’s constituents will ensure their voices are heard loud and clear at these public hearings over the coming days.”

I look forward to continuing to represent the constituents of Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

I bet they make changes to this. Wonder if this was a bit of a warning shot because she was being uncooperative.

Inshallah. IL Dems are petty, but I doubt they'd cut off their nose to spite their face on this.

A bunch of people have commented that it's possible to make a better gerrymander that looks better than this; what are the chances they do some minor changes that make it look better to the layman but actually shore up the gerrymander, say they listened to criticism or whatever, and call it a day?

I don't get the impression that IL Dems particularly care how much people are upset that it is a messy map. They know that the chances of that having electoral consequences are very low.

I expect that they'll make adjustments to make 03 and 17 safer and call it a day.

Of course, I am just speculating. My days of knowing people in politics here are in the past.

[Mr. Illini]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

[Mr. Illini]

https://twitter.com/AveryTheComrade/status/1449814750452326401

Never mind (from the above Wasserman map)

You could easily re-arrange south side territory to put Rush in the other district. This is a good map otherwise, but it does look suspiciously like the one that Wasserman drew before IL Dems came out with theirs lol. I'm guessing he drew this and got some sort of "this is interesting/we'll consider it" from said Chicago legislator.

[Mr. Illini]

Beautiful 16th Stuart. Puts the north side of Chicago in a district with Galena lmao

[Mr. Illini]

This is the map we were waiting for. Absolutely beautiful snakes from the city out to McHenry County. Territory for 17 maximized.

Casten's position is a weakened here. They took territory from him in DuPage and drew him down into the more conservative SW burbs like Tinley, Orland, etc. Also, obviously if the above is correct and they put him together with Newman, he can't be happy about it.

Overall, great map. Pass it now!

[Mr. Illini]

I'd be pretty unhappy if I were Bill Foster. His new district was really close in the GOV and AG races from 2018, and that was a Dem midterm. It will probably trend D as it is exurban, but in a GOP-friendly midterm I feel like it could flip.

Meanwhile, sophomore Lauren Underwood gets a district that is 100% safe.

[Mr. Illini]

Foster's district was Biden +15.5, but also Pritzker +2.5, Raoul +3.5, Duckworth +3.5.

I think y'all are forgetting that suburban areas are still much more Republican downballot/locally than they are at the top of the ticket. For an apples to apples comparison, in 2016, while Foster's new district was Duckworth +3.5, it was Clinton +11.

I'm not saying that Foster is inherently in trouble, but he's a senior member of the delegation being taken from a solid D district to one that could be narrow in the right year for Republicans.

Meanwhile, Jan and Quigley are grumpy because their seats have been downgraded to D +29 or whatever.

[Mr. Illini]

Yep, Casten was understandably upset about the prior draft and pressured DuPage lawmakers to block it, hence the revision.

Also...

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1453884325137629189?s=20

[Mr. Illini]

Yeah, I feel like people often underemphasize how much of this is tied up in politics - in the real sense of the word.

They weren't unfair to Newman because she beat Lipinski, they were unfair to her because the Latino community demanded a second district, she was being combative, and her district happens to be very close to one of the Latino districts. She also is very junior and therefore has fewer allies.

They didn't put Mary Miller in Mike Bost's district because she's a Nazi, they most likely put her in Bost's district to give Rodney Davis his own district to keep him from running for Governor.

The redistricting process is first and foremost about the party and individuals in power preserving that power.

[Mr. Illini]

Thinking he waited until Thanksgiving week to make sure that as many people were distracted from it as possible since he basically broke a campaign promise.

Welcome to Illinois