Dave's Redistricting App

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Obviously, the map starts looking a little ridiculous in the central and southern areas, but it's really no worse than the current map, better in some areas. IL-17 is a wonderful masterpiece, combining East Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, Urbana-Champaign, Bloomington-Normal, Danville and Mattoon-Charleston in a single district.

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Verily--good map, but I would suggest making each VRA district just 50-51% black/Latino in order to give more minorities to other districts and make them more Democratic.

Can't do it without way more contortion than would ever hold up in courts. There's no room for the VRA districts to move around because they all border each other. The areas that they do have that border other districts are Republican-voting, That's why IL-05 and IL-01 extend so far out--they take in the white Republican suburbs at the edges of Cook County.* The only exception is in North Chicago, but IL-06, IL-07 and IL-08 are all Democratic enough without needing to dilute the VRA districts to be safe.

*The municipality that sticks out of Cook County between DuPage and Will Counties is around 90% white and voted for McCain. The same is true for the square-shaped appendage to IL-05 at its southwestern-most corner.

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Ilinois is not covered by the VRA.

In theory; in practice, if you reduced the number of minority districts (and, in this case, failed to create a new Hispanic district long overdue), you'd be in trouble.

Plus, you'd prefer this anyway. It gets rid of Dan Lipinski by putting him in either a 64% Hispanic district or a 50% black district, neither of which would ever nominate him.

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Ah, that is nice. Wouldn't hold up in court though I bet.

Why not? It's not any worse than the current map, better in the lack of earmuffs or the strip-districts cutting from Chicago to Iowa.

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Epic gerrymander of Arkansas to create a 49% black district (50% does not appear to be possible, sadly):

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How do I find out how my re-distrciuted district voted Obama or McCain?

Only NY and Maryland have that data.

California and Texas do as well now.

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Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, BRTD. Two majority black districts is very easy. When I drew my gerrymander of Michigan (which was much more intricate than Johnny's and created only one district less Obama than the nation), I intentionally connected the black areas to exurban lily-white areas to outvote the Republicans, and I still had tons of excess black population (something 58% black in one district, 51% in the other).

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I just did a Louisiana map with six seats, two of which are black majority and one of which is 49% black, 47% white. It's a bit more intricate than Realisticidealist's, but not dramatically so. The districts are basically modeled off of his.

LA-01: 86% white, 7% black
LA-02: 52% black, 43% white
LA-03: 50.1% black, 39.7% white
LA-04: 77% white, 16% black
LA-05: 48.8% black, 46.8% white
LA-06: 79% white, 16% black

It would be possible to get LA-05 to 50% black, but only with very intricate gerrymandering.

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It should be noted that my map uses the new population estimates, which make it much, much more difficult to form a black-majority district in the New Orleans area than it used to be.

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Since Republican was already done (although I think it could be a lot harsher)...

An (even more) Dem NC gerrymander! (Added bonus: new coalition district)



NC-1: 63-37 Obama; 50% black
NC-2: 60-39 Obama
NC-3: 39-60 McCain
NC-4: 63-36 Obama
NC-5: 34-64 McCain
NC-6: 37-62 McCain
NC-7: 60-39 Obama; 48% white, 32% black, 9% Hispanic, 8% Native
NC-8: 54-45 Obama
NC-9: 33-66 McCain
NC-10: 35-64 McCain
NC-11: 47-51 McCain (meh)
NC-12: 68-31 Obama; 42% black, 42% white
NC-13: 59-40 Obama

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The key, by the way, is unlocking the black voters in Shelby, Gastonia and Statesville to allow NC-12 to drop Greensboro and remain plurality black. From there, everything falls into place (splitting Myrick's district and unlocking the white and Hispanic Democratic vote around Charlotte, e.g.)

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I was bored. Hispanic-majority district in Colorado.

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I posted this one earlier this year with the 2008 data. It has a more compact Hispanic-majority district, CD 1, at 50.3%.

If they intend to keep CO-01 very heavily Democratic, they might as well make it Latino-majority. Colroado should have one already since its Latino population is near 20% (if I recall correctly). 1/7 is 14%.

However, Colorado already has a Hispanic congressman, so any argument for a preserved Hispanic district falls down immediately.

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You know the sad thing about Georgia is it's quite easy to draw the new district as an R+25 and not affect the other districts much. That's probably what will happen too, I bet the new seat will run across Cherokee, Forsyth and Hall counties with also part of northern Fulton. One of the worst parts of the country, ugh.

Nah, it's possible with 14 districts to draw another black majority one in the Atlanta metro, and the federal government will make them do it. They might try harder to get rid of the central/south Georgia Dems, though.

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Nah, it's possible with 14 districts to draw another black majority one in the Atlanta metro, and the federal government will make them do it. They might try harder to get rid of the central/south Georgia Dems, though.

Not really.  I was having trouble drawing 3 Black-majority districts in the Atlanta Area, let alone another one

Not true at all. It's really easy to make four; they don't even look extremely gerrymandered.

I suspect the actual Census data will make it even easier as (a) Dave's Redistricting uses 2008 estimates, and the growth of the black population in some suburban counties has been phenomenal and (b) Dave's Redistricting assumes uniform change in population across counties, when of course very few blacks are moving in to outer Cobb/Gwinett/Newton/Rockdale/Henry/Douglas counties. As a result the actual growth in the black population will be more concentrated in the areas in the districts I drew than in the areas in those counties outside of my districts.

One example, with some wiggle room at the edges.

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Here's a zoom-in of Chicago on the Illinois gerrymander I did a while ago. 1, 4, and 5 are majority black (with plenty to spare; 1 is only 50% black, but 4 is 60% and 5 is 54%), and 2 and 3 are majority Hispanic (heavily so, 64% and 57%). Lipinski is the one who gets screwed, and surely the Illinois Democrats would rather he be screwed than any other Democrat in the delegation.

(Overall, this is huge Democratic gerrymander likely to have 14-16 Democrats and 3-5 Republicans, which is something along the lines of what I would expect the IL Democrats to draw.)

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For completeness on the above, northern and southern Illinois.

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Here's a zoom-in of Chicago on the Illinois gerrymander I did a while ago. 1, 4, and 5 are majority black (with plenty to spare; 1 is only 50% black, but 4 is 60% and 5 is 54%), and 2 and 3 are majority Hispanic (heavily so, 64% and 57%). Lipinski is the one who gets screwed, and surely the Illinois Democrats would rather he be screwed than any other Democrat in the delegation.

(Overall, this is huge Democratic gerrymander likely to have 14-16 Democrats and 3-5 Republicans, which is something along the lines of what I would expect the IL Democrats to draw.)

The minority districts may not be as strong as you think. The courts will use voting age population instead of total population to determine the 50% threshold. To get to 50% VAP for a Hispanic population may require a total population of at least 58 tom 60%. Black districts also need a couple of percent margin in the total population to clear 50% VAP.

I redid the map to make all three black districts 53-54% black; none of the other districts were changed at all. IL-03 maybe could become more Hispanic by trading areas with districts 6 and 7; I did not check. Either way, the partisan balance should be unaffected by the necessary adjustments.

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For a rep NC, try swinging the 4th all the way West to Forysth County and Winston-Salem, giving the Black part of Raleigh to the 1st, Drawing the rest of the Democratic part of Raliegh into the 2nd, and swinging that one down to take the Democratic parts of the 7th and 8th.  Then swing the 12th west to take the Democratic parts of Asheboro.  I think you can get a pretty solid 9-4 Gerrymander that way

Here's my 9-4 GOP version. CDs 1 and 12 are majority Black with 54% and 52%. CD 7 is plurality (41%) Black and CD 4 is the other D district. All other districts would have voted at least 56% for McCain.

You put Coble in NC-5 with Foxx, I believe.

Foxx is actually in the NC-10 part of Avery County on his map, I think.

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Just out of curiosity, what states do we have partisan data for now?  I know we have New York and Texas if you use the "test data" option and we also have Maryland and North Carolina.  Are there any others?

California got partisan data at the same time as Texas. It also needs "test data" selected.

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That map would make things much nicer for McNerney, right?

Not really. He would have to choose between a primary battle with Pete Stark or moving to Stockton (already a bad idea) to run in a seat that is only marginally more Democratic than his current one.

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Nice maps sbane. Too bad if the redistricting initiative passes (I can't imagine that it will not), it all will be totally illegal.  Plus, even if it does not pass, Governor Whitman would veto it.

Hmm, I don't see what's so wrong with my gerrymandering at all, besides not being visually pleasing enough for Xahar. I mean a district that includes both Long Beach and Compton makes a lot of sense doesn't it? Of course it also contains Seal Beach and Cypress. Or the district that joins Sunny hills in Fullerton to Huntington park. There's a lot of epic gerrymandering in there. I'm particularly fond of the central valley districts. I didn't know 3 Hispanic districts could be created there.

3 Hispanics won't be elected though in the central valley. The most Hispanic county in California, Tulare, votes GOP like clockwork.

Not true. You just have to be rigorous with your excision of the whites from such districts. I recently drew a map with three Hispanic districts in the Central Valley, two of which were more than 70% Hispanic! (This involved stretching a district to include San Benito County.)

CA-20 is 72% Hispanic, CA-17 is 71% Hispanic, CA-18 (northernmost) is 55% Hispanic and solidly Dem.

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California? It didn't work for me and I tried it with the test data selected and without it.

You have to have test data selected before you load it. Load Idaho first (it's the fastest-loading state), select new estimates and test data, then change to California.

When did New Mexico get partisan data?

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Is it possible to draw an Asian-majority CD in the lower 48?
How small would that CD have to be to have and Asian majority?

It is possible, btw, to draw a majority-minority CD in Wisconsin. It looks hideous, though, because the Milwaukee ghettos have to be connected via very thin strips with high-minority areas of Racine and Kenosha.

There are several examples of Asian-majority districts in Northern and Southern California on previous pages. They're not pretty, but they're not that terrible.

It is also possible to create an Asian-majority seat in NYC. Muon did one of those, too.

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Here's a more zoomed in version of the NYC Asian district. It's 51% Asian; the Brooklyn and Queens portions are 48% Asian each while the Manhattan part is 71% Asian. The bulk of the population is in Queens, though. This district would have really interesting (read: wild) primaries as the different neighborhoods coalesced around their own candidates. And the Chinese v. Korean v. South Asian dynamic would be interesting (although that's somewhat neighborhood-based as well, and Chinese are clearly the largest Asian group in the district).