WI redistricting (was Wisconsin GOP's obstruction of Tony Evers)

[lfromnj]

He's DOA for 2022 if Trump loses the next presidential.

I'm surprised you continue to talk about this race given how little you knew about it last time.

Yeah, so the Blue Wave ended up being bigger than expected in this state and washed away Walker, but the GOP holds all the cards for the future in this state. Redistricting will go in their favour due to the courts being GOP-held. Furthermore, the trend is undeniable if Dems continue spitting on the working class and the rurals. The Driftless will match white rural Alabama in terms of GOP support in a decade. 

Even a GOP court wouldn't agree to a GOP gerrymander lol.

[lfromnj]

What is the current partisan lean of the 7 Wisconsin Supreme Court justices?

5-2 conservative. I don’t even know why Evers would want to run for a second term after this. I would just go for Senate in 2022 instead since being a Democratic Governor of Wisconsin is pointless

Uh Wisconsin Gov is literally one of the most powerful in the country.

[lfromnj]

Is there any hint of Evers or the state GOP, you know, trying to govern the state together? Or do they just block each other from doing anything?

Also Wisconsin is a state where geography favors Rs quite heavily. Almost all of the D votes in the state are centered around Milwaukee and Madison. Any fair map would result in Rs getting more seats than they would based on proportional vote share. It is hard to see Dems regaining the majority in Wisconsin barring a huge wave or significant realignment.

I disagree.

Ok draw a 4-4 map with minimal splits  and no connecting north Milwaukee county to Kenosha/Racine. Thats a gerrymander.

https://districtr.org/edit

This has 2016 data FYI so you can use this. Wisconsin democrats are horribly self packed.

The only thing that would happen in a fair map is switch WI 1st from Trump +10 to Trump +4 but WI 3 goes to Trump +8 and WI-8 goes to Trump +16. The rest of the map should be more or less the same.

[lfromnj]

After some practice, here is a fairly clean 6-2 map, using 2016 numbers.
As few county splits as possible, only Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.





It wants improving, naturally, but it's 7-1 using 2012 numbers - I suspect it could be 8-0 with some tweaking.

Do you still insist that "self-sorting" is to blame?

You literally divided up one community(Madison 4 times) No "fair" map maker would accept that considering Dane county itself fits into one congressional district. You then divided Milwaukee county three times. Again completely unacceptable but not as egregious . There is absolutely a self packing problem which was exemplified by the 2016 race. Atleast in 2012 the Milwaukee burbs were so red and Dane wasn't that blue that it caused a virtual tie in those 4 counties with only a minor packing in Milwaukee  but if we remove Milwaukee  Obama still won the state. But do this in 2016 and Trump wins the state by 10 points. Its acceptable to split Dane once for population deviation but a quadruple split is no way clean. The only area of the country where it is acceptable to split a county more than once is if it has more than 1.5 million people or New England where counties are hardly communities of interest.Also weird counties like Passiac and Fulton can be split because of how weird their shape is. But clean midwestern counties with less than 1.5 million people should never be split more than once. Also technically I would like to mention that cities shouldn't be split either. So that means Milwaukee gets to be packed into one or maybe 2 districts max in any proper community of interest map. It may be acceptable to split Milwaukee county 3 times for population sake but not the city of Milwaukee proper.


Also PS. Splitting Either Milwaukee/Madison often requires precinct splitting because the precincts are often non contiguous.

[lfromnj]

Also county splits are only supposed to be used to even out population. As you failed to do that your county splits make no sense.

[lfromnj]

Also county splits are only supposed to be used to even out population. As you failed to do that your county splits make no sense.

Shifting the goalposts?
It's easy to balance out the populations with a slightly more powerful tool.

That's not the real question: why should we respect the rule of avoiding county splits when they lead to inherently unrepresentative congressional representation?

The argument here is that Wisconsin D's are too self packed in two counties for proportional representation which they are. They have a clear geographic disadvantage. You simply can not split counties more than necessary.

[lfromnj]

The argument here is that Wisconsin D's are too self packed in two counties for proportional representation which they are.

Why do splits of arbitrary county lines matter more than proportional representation?

I mean its arbitrary in maybe areas like New England or other areas in the NE(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passaic_County,_New_Jersey) where counties really don't matter or aren't communities of interest but the point of congressional districts is for representation of communities not for proportion representation. Now Obviously if its still possible to make reasonable communities of interests while making representation fair then by all means do that but it isn't very fair to large portions of rural Wisconsin to get their representation by Madison liberals or for Austin liberals to get their representation from random hicks in hill country.

[lfromnj]

I mean the current map is a gerrymander but its quite mild, the only real changes should be switching  st croix county with portage but this actually makes it worse for D's as WI 7 is now Safe R although Baldwin might have won it but WI3 is now Trump +8ish and evers wins it, also maybe some switches in WI 1 to make it maybe like Trump +5 instead of Trump +10.

[lfromnj]

I mean the current map is a gerrymander but its quite mild, the only real changes should be switching  st croix county with portage but this actually makes it worse for D's as WI 7 is now Safe R although Baldwin might have won it but WI3 is now Trump +8ish and evers wins it, also maybe some switches in WI 1 to make it maybe like Trump +5 instead of Trump +10.

For Clinton and Trump to each win 4/4 congressional districts Clinton would have needed to win Wisconsin by 9%(presuming a uniform swing). Democrats won the House popular vote by 8 points in Wisconsin but only got 3/8 districts in 2018, and they didn't come within single digits in any Republucan district. Tammy Baldwin actually lost a majority of congressional districts despite winning by double digits. Clearly that's not fair representation.

I agree, in a fair map Baldwin would have won 5/8 districts  instead of 3/8. She should have flipped WI 7th without the portage arm in WI 3 and WI 1 would be a bit bluer so Baldwin wins it. But in that same map Clinton and even Tony Evers only wins 2/8 districts.

[lfromnj]

Also this thread is pretty good proof that WI Geography favors the GOP, Wisconsin has like .01 D PVI.

https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/978643345017921537?lang=en

[lfromnj]

Here's a Beauty that even Karl Rove could be proud of. An exercise in map-making.
https://twitter.com/NicolasNevins/status/978752611422793728



Populations near equal (710k-711k)

Green: D +6.51
Red: D +6.51
Purple: D +6.51 (Milwaukee)
Cyan D +6.51
Yellow D +6.55
Grey: D +6.66

Blue: R +16
Mauve: R +18.8

Even splitting it two ways would be illegal in KY. Clearly if it's the law there, it's not arbitrary criteria.

?
What a strange claim. Of course any voting system is arbitrary - and that includes redistricting. When they're smart, they satisfy a majority of their citizens.

In the US on the other hand, it seems pretty maps are deemed superior to letting the majority of voters decide.

but its not possible for 6 D+7 districts, compared to 6R+7 which is much cleaner than the 6 D+6.5. This is despite Wisconsin overall having a  D+0.01 PVI or basically even. Therefore Wisconsin is biased towards the GOP geographically.

[lfromnj]

Seems like Milwaukee should be split north and south, that way you can have the Hispanics go into one district and the African Americans go into another, rather than all of them going into WI-4.  You can't make a majority seat with either ethnicity, but you can make opportunity districts at least.

Something similar to this was done in Orange County FL with the redistricting.   

I'd hardly call a 25% Hisapnic district oppurtunity especially considering their incredibly low turnout rate(it goes both ways, you can't demand 70% Hisapnic districts in Texas because low turnout and then flip that around) At best that 25% Hispanic district is maybe 1/4 the Dem primary, hardly enough for their own opportunity.

[lfromnj]

Made a Wisconsin state senate map with 13 clinton and 20 Trump districts. Democrats  only won non Dane/Milwaukee metro district which is the La Crosse district. Lets be serious, the 2016 election was the death knell for the WI dems geographically. Even the WI GOP gerrymander state senate district only got Romney a bare majority of 17/33 districts but Trump won 23. The Wisconsin GOP didn't "know" that some man would come in and completely destroy in the rurals while only having modest margins in WOW. This just flat out gives Republicans a major advantage when it comes to Wisconsin, this can somewhat be abated in congressional maps as they are large enough but packing is 100% natural with state legislative maps as you can't stretch districts with a population of 60k or 180k. Reminder that Democrats actually held more WI state senate seats in 2012 than they do now.

[lfromnj]

What would a 4/4 or 3/3/2 map look like?  What do you think a federal court would draw?

3 safe r districts would be all but impossible with a federal drawn map. Best for ds is 4 2 2. Probably make wisconsin 3rd around trump +6 and wisconsin 1st around trump+5

[lfromnj]

What would a 4/4 or 3/3/2 map look like?  What do you think a federal court would draw?

3 safe r districts would be all but impossible with a federal drawn map. Best for ds is 4 2 2. Probably make wisconsin 3rd around trump +6 and wisconsin 1st around trump+5

Yes, an important part of this discussion needs to be that Ron Kind will be in roughly the same position as Collin Peterson by 2030.  Perhaps he is planning to challenge Ron Johnson in 2022 anyway?  

Where would the other competitive seats go?  Would there be "room" for a toss up/Lean D suburban seat around Milwaukee?

TBF I don't think his district will be THAT far gone, I think a GOP presidential victory would probably win it by high singles or maybe teens by 2028. Anyway as I said Wisconsin 1st would be the kenosha racine to rock seat with southern milwaukee.