2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Indiana

[StateBoiler]

I feel the thread has not had much discussion about the 1st. I feel the 1st is going to define everything else that happens in the rest of the state. Does the district border move south or move east? I can't realistically see Lake County not remaining whole. Being at a corner limits what you can do.

I'd be in favor of white liberal areas in northern Marion getting subsumed into the 7th if it forces Andre Carson - one of the most worthless Congressmen ever - to start doing something to stave off a primary challenge.

[StateBoiler]

It says 98% is in for all counties, I think Lake has a few more votes but Biden so far has done pretty bad in Lake county Indiana.

https://rrhelections.com/index.php/2020/07/30/indiana-redistricting-2020-choose-your-own-adventure/

Even the relatively fair 3rd scenario map only has Biden leading by 7k votes while Clinton won it by 20k votes. At the very least the GOP might just draw that swing district and call it a day. The 5th district of course is pretty easy by just removing all but the richest parts of northern Marion.

Leyva who was not a strong candidate by any means in the 1st is above 40%, the strongest a Republican (well, Leyva really, who is 0-8 now being district nominee starting in 2002) has done there as far back as I've looked.

[StateBoiler]

IN-1 is D +3.14
IN-2 is R + 10.73

Everything else is safe

My quick attempt to try to gerrymander IN for the GOP. I think it's going to be very hard to make IN-1 red without brining IN-2 too much into play unless the GOP is willing to do something very obscene. Their best bet is to make it a swing district that Democrats actually have to spend time and money in to defend. Cracking Marion would also be very risky since if the gerrymander starts to backfire over the decade depending upon coming political re alignments, it could go very wrong. They are definately going to try to optimize the Marion vote sink though my shifting the district north to prevent IN-5 or it's equivalent from becoming too D-friendly down the road.

Is Allen in the 3rd or 6th? As far as all my connections as they exist in certain counties, the 3rd district as it exists is more or less perfect to me. And I wouldn't be a fan of grabbing Elkhart or South  Bend and putting it in the same district as Fort Wayne.

I think the Democrats would love that 5th. The 6th is prety much a Muncie-centered district.

I still think you leave Lake alone because from the past few elections it's clearly going more red and it has to add redder counties into it to get the population up. And find a more serious congressional candidate. You might not get it in 2022 but by middle of decade you might.

[StateBoiler]

What's a full district of Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper, and Starke for the 1st, is it too large or too small?

Reason I ask is those are the 6 central time zone counties in northwest Indiana.

[StateBoiler]

Lebanon and Richmond in the same district?

[StateBoiler]

Lebanon and Richmond in the same district?

An imperfect 6th in return for a better 8th and 9th is something I have no problems with in the broader scheme of things.

Your southwest district runs from Evansville to west of Lafayette. People on that Tippecanoe County line: "we either vote with Gary or we vote with Evansville".

[StateBoiler]

Lebanon and Richmond in the same district?

An imperfect 6th in return for a better 8th and 9th is something I have no problems with in the broader scheme of things.

Your southwest district runs from Evansville to west of Lafayette. People on that Tippecanoe County line: "we either vote with Gary or we vote with Evansville".

Those counties have nowhere else to go. IN-01's shape cannot be seriously changed.
It makes the most sense for IN-08 to take those counties in, unless maybe there is a radical reworking of rural Indiana that moves IN-06 west so that IN-08 has to take from IN-09 and then IN-09 takes from IN-06 so that all three districts are back at quota.

I'm actually on a political redistricting panel for Indiana that is going to make requests for changes for "this is how districts should be drawn" which will then drive the creation of our map for Congress and state legislature using those principles. I quietly have a lot of criticism for this section of the board because it seems to solely exist just to satisfy people's intellectual masturbation to create a result from a puzzle of in the case of Indiana "divide by 9, now make a map". If people had an overriding purpose guiding them in what they were doing or they were attempting reform in what they were doing or they actually were lobbying for what they create, that's one thing, but unless everyone is staying quiet on the ultimate masters they serve that could use what they create, I have to ask the question of why? What's the goal here unless it's just to show off your mapmaking skills? I can create a map probably where for a district I go from Angola in the northeast corner to Evansville in the southwest corner just following the Ohio and Kentucky state borders, but what would be the point of doing so? We're not looking at results whereby you crunch data to understand voting patterns and why people and communities voted the way they did. We're drawing lines for no rhyme or reason.

[StateBoiler]

Maps supposed to come out today.

https://howeypolitics.com/Content/HPI-News/-HPI-News/Article/Atomic-Biden-goes-the-mandate-route-Blistering-GOP-response-Map-Tuesday-Rep-Clere-primaried/39/123/28047

General Assembly Republicans will unveil Indiana and U.S. House maps on Tuesday. Tom Davies of AP writes: The big question is whether they will focus on shoring up the suburban Indianapolis district that U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz narrowly kept in Republican hands last year to maintain their 7-2 control of Indiana’s U.S. House delegation. A more aggressive approach could see them try to carve up the northwestern Indiana district now held by U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan with the aim of ending Democrats’ decades long dominance there and gaining another GOP seat as Republicans look to regain U.S. House control in the 2022 midterm elections. Davies notes that due to population shifts, Spartz's 5th CD must shed 51,000 voters (goodbye Marion County), U.S. Rep. Andre Carson's 7th CD has 33,000 too many, while U.S. Reps. Larry Buchson's 8th CD and Greg Pence's 6th CD will need to pick up around 30,000 voters.

Per The Cheat Sheet, the state legislature maps are supposed to look cleaner than the previous version was.

[StateBoiler]

Maps supposed to come out today.

https://howeypolitics.com/Content/HPI-News/-HPI-News/Article/Atomic-Biden-goes-the-mandate-route-Blistering-GOP-response-Map-Tuesday-Rep-Clere-primaried/39/123/28047

Per The Cheat Sheet, the state legislature maps are supposed to look cleaner than the previous version was.

This is something I find interesting about Indiana. In 2012 they understood the GOP had a solid partisan advantage and didn't see any need to mess up the lines and did a clean gerrymander  - sensible but biased. Interesting to see that it might happen again.

The state legislative lines were pretty ugly. Mitch daniels wanted a cleaner map congressionally though

The congressional map to me as it is now is pretty much perfect. The number of split counties is so small and largely fell in line with the TV reach. When I attended the initial Libertarian redistricting meeting I cited the 3rd district as being perfect in my opinion because the lines were drawn pretty much matched everywhere that the Fort Wayne TV stations reached to (minus the counties over in Ohio of course).

If they try to crack Lake County I frankly think that's dumb. I wish I could've attended the redistricting meeting they held in Fort Wayne but could not, but the one thing I would've mentioned if I could have, was there should only be one district in any map (Congress, State Senate, State House) that crosses the time zone line in NW Indiana and only one district that crosses the time zone line in SW Indiana. There's a very real reason for why you shouldn't of you have different poll opening and closing times. For Mrvan's district, that would mean you give him probably the rest of LaPorte County and then go grab the 3 rock-red Republican counties to the south before you start touching the eastern time zone. This district is one if I were a Republican mapmaker I'd just leave alone. Give Mrvan more territory because he needs it, and the district is naturally becoming more Republican. Just let it naturally occur.

John Jacobs from the State House is supposedly going to get drawn into the same district with a Democrat, he was kicked out of the Republican caucus earlier this year, so is not someone the Republicans would mind being gone. There's 1 or 2 other intransigents they may make life difficult for. A lot of Republican rural retirements from the state legislature because where the population growth was occurring was making redistricting impossible to keep everyone happy. Two Senate Democrats from Marion County, J.D. Ford and Faddy Quaddora, were likely to be drawn together, although that's due to I guess they live very close together and I read that was likely going to happen many months ago.

[StateBoiler]

The House Republican Caucus has posted their proposed map. They do NOT crack Lake County:
https://www.indianahouserepublicans.com/clientuploads/2021/Redistricting/All_Map_Comparison_Congressional_Districts.pdf

I thought the 2001-2011 map was the one and was dissecting it. Wow that looked ugly.

1st-largely left the same, just grabs a different section of LaPorte County while still taking in Michigan City
2nd-aforementioned LaPorte County change, takes in more of Kosciusko (probably all of Warsaw now), and a section of Cass County
3rd-loses some Kosciusko, now not in Warsaw at all, now has all of Blackford County (Hartford City), and takes in northern Randolph County
4th-loses southern Fountain County, loses almost all of Howard County it had (including Kokomo), loses eastern Cass County, now has all of Boone County (gaining Zionsville), and now has all of Morgan County
5th-loses northern Marion County, has almost all of Howard County (gaining Kokomo), loses its portion of Blackford County, and gains all of Delaware County (Muncie)
6th-loses Delaware County (Muncie), loses southern Blackford County, loses northern Randolph County, gains southern Marion County, loses southern Bartholomew County while I think still retaining Columbus, and loses pretty much all of the southeast corner counties of the state
7th-goes from all of Marion County south of a certain line to all of Marion County north of a certain line
8th-gains southern Fountain County, Orange County, and the remainder of Crawford County
9th-loses its part of Morgan County, loses Johnson County, gains southern Bartholomew County, and gains pretty much all of the southeast corner counties of the state

[StateBoiler]

It is an odd decision I think not to shore up IN-05 a little further. Hard to say if the existing trends in Hamilton County will continue as strongly but it seems at least plausible that Hamilton County will vote for a Democrat for President in 2024, at which point IN-05 doesn't look safe at all. The main strange decision is the choice to include relatively somewhat competitive territory, like Muncie, instead of super-Republican rural areas after taking out the northern part of Marion County. But maybe the IN Republicans are relatively anti-gerrymandering, recognize that this arrangement is more fair, and figure that if they lose the seat in 2028 or 2030 they will be able to get it back without too much trouble in the 2030 redistricting.

Remove Ball State University and Muncie might as well be Gary. Auto industry left with all its jobs.

I listen to the Boss Hog of Liberty mostly politics podcast which covers east central Indiana from Henry County. I know when they talk about congressional candidates (not Pence, he wouldn't talk to them) crossing the 6th district to talk to everyone, the candidates would be "we've racked up 30,000 miles on our car the past 6 months" and knew their district was going to have to get LARGER due to population loss. I think all those candidates would gladly take southern Marion county vs. driving down to the southeast corner of the state, albeit really changes the district.

[StateBoiler]

It is an odd decision I think not to shore up IN-05 a little further. Hard to say if the existing trends in Hamilton County will continue as strongly but it seems at least plausible that Hamilton County will vote for a Democrat for President in 2024, at which point IN-05 doesn't look safe at all. The main strange decision is the choice to include relatively somewhat competitive territory, like Muncie, instead of super-Republican rural areas after taking out the northern part of Marion County. But maybe the IN Republicans are relatively anti-gerrymandering, recognize that this arrangement is more fair, and figure that if they lose the seat in 2028 or 2030 they will be able to get it back without too much trouble in the 2030 redistricting.

Yes, I'm really surprised by this.  R's didn't take the free seat here with near zero risk, and didn't even bother to pack the northern Dem seat with South Bend after they left it intact.  All the while, they've apparently decided to play with fire in TN as Nashville goes the way of Austin. 

I mean Im not surprised about the lack of a full crack although I am surprised they didn't make a Biden +2 district using the Democrat proposal from 2010.

Maybe they left South Bend out because they don't want to end up with Congressman Buttigieg?

He has no interest.

[StateBoiler]

https://indypolitics.org/map-maker-map-maker-part-1/

GOP map highlights

The proposed Congressional map keeps 84 of Indiana’s 92 counties whole, and includes a near equal deviation, two or fewer persons, from the ideal population of 753,948.

  The proposed Indiana House map increases the number of counties that are wholly contained within one House district from 26 to 32. There are 22 fewer township splits where a single township is represented by multiple House districts. The draft House map includes a less than 1 percent deviation from the ideal population of 67,855 for each district.

The proposed Congressional map keeps 84 of Indiana’s 92 counties whole, and includes a near equal deviation, two or fewer persons, from the ideal population of 753,948.

Both plans are substantially comparable to or better than the maps passed in 2011 based on the most widely acknowledged compactness standards.

Reaction from Indiana House GOP leadership.

These maps follow all statutory and constitutional requirements and reflect the population trends over the last 10 years. For the new House maps, Representative Steuerwald took a holistic approach and worked tremendously hard to keep communities of interest together with a focus on compactness,” said House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers).

“These proposed maps are the culmination of a months-long effort, which included listening to Hoosiers across the state. We pulled together all the data along with public input to draw fair maps that account for shifts in population over the years. We look forward to obtaining additional public input and fulfilling our constitutional duties in the coming weeks,” said State Rep. Greg Steuerwald (R-Avon), author of House Bill 1581.

“I have been pleased with the high level of collaboration between the House and Senate as we have worked to prepare our new draft congressional map. I look forward to continued conversations with members of the public and other legislators on this proposal as we move forward,” said State Sen. Eric Koch (R-Bedford), sponsor of House Bill 1581.

[StateBoiler]

It is an odd decision I think not to shore up IN-05 a little further. Hard to say if the existing trends in Hamilton County will continue as strongly but it seems at least plausible that Hamilton County will vote for a Democrat for President in 2024, at which point IN-05 doesn't look safe at all. The main strange decision is the choice to include relatively somewhat competitive territory, like Muncie, instead of super-Republican rural areas after taking out the northern part of Marion County. But maybe the IN Republicans are relatively anti-gerrymandering, recognize that this arrangement is more fair, and figure that if they lose the seat in 2028 or 2030 they will be able to get it back without too much trouble in the 2030 redistricting.

Yes, I'm really surprised by this.  R's didn't take the free seat here with near zero risk, and didn't even bother to pack the northern Dem seat with South Bend after they left it intact.  All the while, they've apparently decided to play with fire in TN as Nashville goes the way of Austin. 

I mean Im not surprised about the lack of a full crack although I am surprised they didn't make a Biden +2 district using the Democrat proposal from 2010.

Maybe they left South Bend out because they don't want to end up with Congressman Buttigieg?

He has no interest.

If he did, how well would he fair?

I don't think a former strong presidential candidate is going to run in a race for Congress where he has a chance of losing, that and his desire to only serve in an executive capacity. Buttigieg's prior experience running outside of South Bend was losing a statewide race 57-40.

[StateBoiler]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nickroberts317/status/1437813164431888387/photo/1

[StateBoiler]

I wonder which districts Rainwater came in second and which one was his best in the 2020 Governors race?

3, 4, 5, 6. Not sure which is best. He did not do comparatively well in Ohio River country.

[StateBoiler]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nickroberts317/status/1437949265188425730/photo/1

Allen County where Fort Wayne is was made incredibly cleaner. Where there used to be 9 House districts all or part of the county it's now 5 fully inside with 1 going outside the county. Fort Wayne has 3 districts while rest of county has two in full and majority of a third. This as he posts will net 1 for Democrats. There's an outer Bloomington seat that contains Indiana University that will be a battleground.

Outside of Marion County and the 1st district he counts 11 Democratic seats (2 Fort Wayne, 2 Bloomington, 2 South Bend, 2 Lafayette, Evansville, Jeffersonville, Muncie). Republicans have 56 seats he rates safe (+15 points), so how they ever gain the legislature back if Democrats keep not giving a flying f#ck about everyone not living in a big city is a damn good question.

[StateBoiler]

Indeed IN-01 has been trending R quite strongly too, it was Obama+24%, Clinton+13% and Biden +9%, and it looks pretty much unchanged under this map. It's not very good for Democrats demographically either, this site says only 23.5% have a degree there (but I'm not sure whether this is out of total population or voting age population or something else). So if trends just continue it could flip by the end of the decade.

I can see it flipping in the 2026 midterms but do some of the Trump +11 incoming TX seats flip the other way by that point.

One thing to remember about the 1st is it's never had a serious Republican candidate put in effort to win the race. Mark Leyva is not a serious candidate and in 2020 he got sbove 40%.