2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Kansas

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What are we looking at in Kansas for post-2020 redistricting?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9dd320fe-9e3d-4f3e-a354-3fe1d91af5f3
This is a least-change map. There is only one county split, and that split is inevitable unless you separate Johnson and Wyandotte.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It looks like the Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both houses, but presumably given the moderate-conservative split that wouldn't be sufficient to sustain a veto override?

I think the more important factor is that Steve Watkins will want a safer district. So we see an incumbent protection deal where Davids gets Wyandotte and Lawrence counties and then part of Johnson. It's not as though Johnson County's history gives one the impression that it's a firm D stronghold...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So could we be looking at the 2nd itself being messed with, to help capsize Watkins, even with Davids getting a better district? And if so, what would the extent of the changes be?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Democrats control SCOKS. What would a fair map look like?

An optimized district for Davids and a CoI map elsewhere.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/83c6da12-826e-4175-8865-c66248c7e933
this is what a fair map would look like. Davids gets a seat that is basically flipped in PVI, Likely D essentially. Meanwhile no counties are split outside of Johnson County. The new 2nd isn't as purely CoI as the map I posted earlier - including Topeka in the 3rd makes that impossible - but it does look compact and do the best possible job given the circumstances.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/83c6da12-826e-4175-8865-c66248c7e933
this is what a fair map would look like. Davids gets a seat that is basically flipped in PVI, Likely D essentially. Meanwhile no counties are split outside of Johnson County. The new 2nd isn't as purely CoI as the map I posted earlier - including Topeka in the 3rd makes that impossible - but it does look compact and do the best possible job given the circumstances.

I seriously doubt Kansas City and Topeka end up in the same district, especially when Douglas + Wyandotte + most of Johnson makes for such a convenient district for Davids.  

If Republicans don't care about Douglas being in KS-2 they might even push for just a Wyandotte + Johnson district.   The KS Dems will want Douglas in with KS-3 though.

Topeka hasn't been in the same district with KC for at least five decades.  

A D+3 seat with Topeka is quite a bit safer for Davids than a D+1.5 one without it. A fair map means you have a firmed up D district to help better ensure a Dem is elected to the House.
It seems unwise to just rely on Johnson County voting for Democratic candidates and leave Davids with a quite marginal constituency.
In the end the county with Topeka is more Dem and more reliably Dem than the central parts of Johnson County.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article246347750.html

Kansas GOP admitted they wanted to gerrymander the 4th seat. This is obviously a stupid pipe dream due to the make up of the KS supreme court.

inb4 the GOP sticks Reno and Wyandotte counties in the same district in a hopeless proposal that never has a chance of becoming law

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bcab32e6-9cb5-450e-ba8f-4a0ea0e1a4b2
least change map aimed at reducing county splits

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/112485f7-66b3-44db-adb2-4e181504c043
This gives up the 3rd district while making the 2nd safe and trend-proof. It is splitting both Johnson and Shawnee though and does not have a good shape.

More generally, giving up the 3rd sounds like a good idea, tactically.
Both parties have more to gain than lose from a solid 3R-1D.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's what I consider a fair reasonably compact map for Kansas. The only split county is Johnson. Stats based on the 2020 Prez election.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/89a2dd0b-93d5-436d-8028-72266d31e91a

I'd think the KS GOP would hate this.

"Annoy all the KS Republicans in Congress with this one simple trick. Ron Estes hates it!"

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's what I consider a fair and reasonably compact map for Kansas. The only split county is Johnson. Stats based on the 2020 Prez election.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/89a2dd0b-93d5-436d-8028-72266d31e91a

Even ignoring incumbents, I think the main issue is that southeast Kansas gets a very weird district. KS seems to me like a state that really asks for a 5th district (Kansas City, Topeka-Lawrence, Wichita, Rural east, Rural west), but for a 4 district map I think the best way to go is something like the current map, with the narrow eastern district.

But if you don't like that, here is another alternative albeit one that definitely does not respect COIs and is inferior to the current distribution



https://davesredistricting.org/join/6e657568-e1f2-4f5b-b77d-5a3688571b0b

Splitting the Kansas City suburbs is 100% not ideal, but it works.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/365b2318-2c37-4982-8bc6-2eb7ac7741f2
Thoughts on this mockup of a 5-district map?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a2721145-606a-48b2-80ca-64cd0b6322e7
Drew a State House map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It appears map #2 is the most serious proposal as it comes from the Republican chair. Map #1 is as close as possible to the plan passed by the House in 2012 and appears to be submitted for informational purposes more than anything else. Plans 3&4 are the Democratic and League of Women Voters plans which stand no chance in a Republican controlled committee.

What does Plan #2 do? Split Wyandotte?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It appears map #2 is the most serious proposal as it comes from the Republican chair. Map #1 is as close as possible to the plan passed by the House in 2012 and appears to be submitted for informational purposes more than anything else. Plans 3&4 are the Democratic and League of Women Voters plans which stand no chance in a Republican controlled committee.

What does Plan #2 do? Split Wyandotte?

Yes. Very stupid. Probably fertile ground for a lawsuit for now much partisan gain, and that's assuming they manage to override; they have, what, two votes to spare?

I didn't really like the Democratic map drawing Crawford in with Liberal, but splitting Wyandotte like that really takes the cake.
They'd be better off packing the 3rd by restoring Lawrence to it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would the process be looking like if Rs held the governorship in 2018?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Kansas House Redistricting Committee has advanced the garbage Ad Astra 2 map.

It will likely pass the full House and Senate, get vetoed by Kelly, with her veto being overridden, and finally with the fairly-liberal Kansas Supreme Court striking down the map.

It's far from impossible the KS House sustains her veto, but in general, you're correct here.
The map is dead anyway.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Not very surprising news, but good news nonetheless.
The fact Rs don't seem to have the votes to get this past override changes things considerably.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Not very surprising news, but good news nonetheless.
The fact Rs don't seem to have the votes to get this past override changes things considerably.

Kansas politics are weird.

Kansas is the epitome of an ancestral R state. It probably would be 55-45 RW if polarized between hardline liberal or hardline conservative, but the state just doesn't work like that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wyandotte + Johnson has 30k too many people.

Exactly.  It would be pretty easy to just lop of a part of southern Johnson county.

This.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ad Astra 2 is an objectively bad map. Doesn’t change the partisanship, and makes the lines more confusing for no reason or benefit. Can’t believe this is a hill they’re dying on

? It changes a map that has 1 likely D and 1 likely R to a tilt D and Safe R.

Barely? And it won’t last past 2022. Davis could go down, but the way northeast Kansas is trending it’s not a guarantee and likely would flip back in 2024

edit; after some messing around in Dave’s you can get a solid enough 4-0 map. Does require some octopus arms, but I managed to split only one county

The real way to ensure no Dems is elected is placing Wyandotte in KS-01. But that's a bold step that would be very unlikely to get all the votes it needs to pass an override. Many rural legislators would likely dislike that a lot.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ad Astra 2 is an objectively bad map. Doesn’t change the partisanship, and makes the lines more confusing for no reason or benefit. Can’t believe this is a hill they’re dying on

? It changes a map that has 1 likely D and 1 likely R to a tilt D and Safe R.

Barely? And it won’t last past 2022. Davis could go down, but the way northeast Kansas is trending it’s not a guarantee and likely would flip back in 2024

edit; after some messing around in Dave’s you can get a solid enough 4-0 map. Does require some octopus arms, but I managed to split only one county

The real way to ensure no Dems is elected is placing Wyandotte in KS-01. But that's a bold step that would be very unlikely to get all the votes it needs to pass an override. Many rural legislators would likely dislike that a lot.

It occurs to me that one could theoretically justify putting Wyandotte into KS-01 with the logic/excuse of making a minority-influence district! You can combine the Hispanic population in Southwest Kansas with that in Kansas City and Topeka into one district.

In this map the 1st would be only 57% white (down from 64% in 2010), and there's a good chance it could become majority-minority by the end of the decade. https://davesredistricting.org/join/9329dff6-da7e-40fa-be98-e29009c8fc41

KS-01: Trump +16 in 2016; Trump +10 in 2020
KS-02: Trump +20 in 2016; Trump +14 in 2020
KS-03: Trump +19 in 2016; Trump +14 in 2020
KS-04: Trump +26 in 2016; Trump +21 in 2020

 

That shows some very out-of-the-box thinking. Good work!
Of course, it would probably be a long-term loss for Republicans, due to the very hostile trends in KS-01.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

What are you making these maps with?

Made the map in DRA, and inputted them into MS Paint using a template I got back in 2017 iirc.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

Biden won KS-03 as it is currently constituted by 10, this map shrinks that margin to 2 points (rounding up from 1.7). I don't ascribe to the school of thought that we know that 2022 is likely to be a GOP wave, but either way, it makes sense to make the district less safe for Ds, not more. 3 Safe R, 1 Tossup, is better for Rs than 3 Safe R, 1 Lean/Likely D. Ds will have to fight for that one seat every cycle. Doing so means that Ds have less resources to fight for the 1st (which they would be obliged to go after, given it has their best strongholds), or the 2nd (that would have some friendly terrain but should be quite safe-as-houses R regardless).
If Ds are doing good enough in KS to have a lock on the 3rd and be able to realistically win another district, then this map is still depriving them of seats relative to a more neutral map to begin with, so it still makes sense for the GOP.