Misleading Congressional Districts

[ProgressiveModerate]

Basically this thread is about drawing districts that are misleading in some way. I'll start:





These 2 districts map look simillar, or even identical, but one is Biden + 14 and the other is Trump + 23.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Another fun one.



All 4 suburban Houston districts here were Clinton - Trump, while the city center district (district 5) shift left in 2020 Pres

[ProgressiveModerate]

All 4 suburban Houston districts here were Clinton - Trump, while the city center district (district 5) shift left in 2020 Pres

This is insane; one suburban Texas Clinton-Trump district, sure, but 4?!  Well done!  Goes to show just how diverse the Houston area is, I suppose (and just how many pockets of non-shifting suburban/exurban whites there are). 

I assume that overall, the set of 5 still shifted left from 2016 to 2020? 

Collectively, not sure how the set of 5 shifted; it's a very close call.

My strategy in drawing these districts was basically to combine right shifting D-heavy non-white communities with suburban and exurban Houston communities that lean R and may have shifted left from 2016-2020, but saw a huge jump in total votes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5fb62fbc-3354-41d8-9515-d41203f08b39

[ProgressiveModerate]

This district voted Gore in 2000 and Obama twice, but then for Trump twice, even though it's fully contained within Tarrant and Denton Counties in TX.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Not an observation about drawing districts, but I've always been fascinated by enormous seats where the population is in one corner (the way TX-23 is enormous but most of the voters are in the San Antonio suburbs). Most of the people in MI-1 actually living in the part of the seat that's in the Lower Peninsula, even though it's also mostly rural and geographically much smaller than the Upper Peninsula, is another good wacky population-distribution observation.

I think the huge Canadian northern ridings also often have, like, most of the people in one city.

Yeah TX-23 is insane, and it's why relative to the other TX border districts, the rightwards shift has been more muted. Crazy record with the old config going McCain-Romney-Clinton-Biden; only district to do so IIRC on the old lines. If 2020 was truly a one-off and the TX boarder counties don't continue to get notably redder, def a seat Rs should be worried about, I think it prolly stays mostly stagnant for the decade though and Gonzales is a decent incumbent, easily winning the Bexar portion of the district in 2022.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Not congressional, but this seat is surprising in voting patterns:

A 60-38 Biden state house seat in Killeen, TX.

Killeen is def a really interesting place. Sort of the furthest west "rural black town" (even though it's neither truly rural of "black town" given Blacks are only a little over 1/3rd of the population. Killeen is one of those places that tends to suffer big time from poor minority turnout in certain elections, which is why it swung pretty hard right in 2022.

Also, the 2004-2008 Pres swing was insane, with Killeen shifting like 40 points left. Since then it's been relatively stagnant at the Pres level.

I think going forwards seeing to what degree it's pull into Austin's political sphere will be interesting.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Not an observation about drawing districts, but I've always been fascinated by enormous seats where the population is in one corner (the way TX-23 is enormous but most of the voters are in the San Antonio suburbs). Most of the people in MI-1 actually living in the part of the seat that's in the Lower Peninsula, even though it's also mostly rural and geographically much smaller than the Upper Peninsula, is another good wacky population-distribution observation.

I think the huge Canadian northern ridings also often have, like, most of the people in one city.

NV-4 is another good example of this.

CO-04 too. Even though it still leans R, like 80% of the population is concentrated in Douglas, Larimer, and Weld counties. It's basically a left-trending Lean R seat with 20 super R rural plains counties tagged onto it.

Districts like NV-04 and CO-04 were always bound to be awkward just because of how population is distributed in those states. In NV, it's basically impossible to have a truly rural CD; the closest you could get is doing a weird snake from Reno to Vegas which is obviously problematic. In the case of CO-04, all those rural plains counties aren't anywhere near enough to sustain their own CD, so were always going to have to be paired with something a bit awkward.

WA-05 is also underrated imo. Again, leans R but the vast vast majority of the population is concentrated in greater Spokane.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This district swung over 7 points right from 2012 to 2020 Pres, despite Obama doing 10 points worse than Biden in MA statewide

[ProgressiveModerate]

This CD voted for Biden by 4.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Another fun one.

All 4 suburban Houston districts here were Clinton - Trump, while the city center district (district 5) shift left in 2020 Pres

I think that's a very strong illustration to show why Democrats haven't broken through in Texas yet. While the DFW and Austin areas are zooming leftward without hesitation, the same is not true of the Houston area. It's moving left much more slowly and Harris County itself barely moved from 2016-2020. If it had just swung as much as Montgomery or Brazoria (in other words, a slightly larger margin than Beto got in 2018), it would've shaved 100k off the 2020 statewide margin.

Tbf this may have been true in 2020, but in 2016 Pres Houston shifted the hardest left of any of the 4 main metros, and if you compare the 2012-2020 swings across the board, Houston is pretty simillar to the others. One could argue that Hillary overshot a little bit in Houston so Biden just had less to gain.

Overall though, I agree there are more Demographic and cultural reasons I'd expect Houston to have less of a shift than the other main TX metros.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Hochul did so bad, one can draw 5 Zeldin districts entirely within NYC. In this map, all these seats except the Staten Island one was over Biden + 20; the Queens-Bronx seat was over Biden + 30! Can really take advantage of poor Dem turnout in many Hispanic and Black communities.

On Biden 2020, pretty sure it's only possible to draw 2 Trump districts entirely within NYC without doing smtg crazy (i.e using Hudson river to connect Jewish communities in Williamsburg to Whitestone).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Basically this thread is about drawing districts that are misleading in some way. I'll start:





These 2 districts map look simillar, or even identical, but one is Biden + 14 and the other is Trump + 23.

How??? I see absolutely nothing to explain a 37 point difference, even in Baton Rouge they appear to take in similar areas (although I suppose closer scrutiny would be much more revealing - but still...a 37 point shift is insane).

It's by taking advantage of the extreme racial polarization in the southeastern US. The first map takes in all the hyper-Dem black precincts in cities like Alexandria, Monroe, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge, while the second map avoids them.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This CD voted for Biden by 4.

...Pain.

(By the way, did you include the western fringe of Vermont, including much of Burlington and urban Chittenden County, on purpose?)

Ye lol that's what makes it blue leaning.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Trump district on 2020 Pres numbers.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's pretty easy to draw a 3D(I)-1R map on 2022 Sen numbers! Here, the 3 McMullin seats voted for Trump; district 4 by 12 points!

This gerrymander isn't even fully optimized, you could prolly get the 3 McMullin districts to around 3-4 point wins each if you rlly tried. On the map above, they are 0, 1, and 2 point wins.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This district voted R for Pres in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, but getting bluer every cycle. Was McCain + 13 in 2008 to Trump + 0 in 2020.



Also a Biden + 6 majority black district that doesn't touch Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's a fun one; a variant of Gimenez seat that voted for Biden by 6% in 2020. Clinton + 24 though lol.

[ProgressiveModerate]

All these districts swung left from 2008 Pres to 2020 Pres. Sort of dispells the narrative of the black belt shifting right lol.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Eastern MT seat that voted for Biden in 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This district voted for Biden in 2020:



Then voted for Beto by more despite this swing map:



Downtown Austin is an absolute beast when it comes to netting Dem votes.