The 1,000 Districts Series

[Hatman 🍁]

It would be neat to see a map of Alaska where you try to divide it evenly by land area as well. You'd have to divide up Anchorage of course.

I bet the splitline method gets you close, seeing as it'll likely give you a straight north-south chop.  (This would, of course, be yet another illustration of just how horrible splitline redistricting actually is.)

You'd get a line from Bristol Bay eastnortheast through Anchorage.

It wouldn't be that bad of an idea. Alaska is huge, and making one Congressman represent most of the state while the other only has to manage a small fraction isn't particularly fair. If it were Canada, they would try to make 2 equal sized districts, I think.

[Padfoot]

Central Ohio:
DISTRICT 17 (Navy): COLUMBUS EAST. Pop 311,504. O 79.1% 50.2% VAP Black. Columbus has a large enough black population for a compact VRA seat with districts of this size. Safe D.
DISTRICT 18 (Yellow): COLUMBUS WEST. Pop 311,240. O 64.5% The rest of the inner-city of Columbus including Ohio State. Safe D.
DISTRICT 19 (Brown): DUBLIN-UPPER ARLINGTON. Pop 311,466. O 47.1% Columbus western suburbs. This one is solidly Republican at the moment but trending toward the Democrats. Still, if Stivers managed to win what was basically a combination of this and district 18 3 years ago, this would probably not be close. Lean R.
DISTRICT 20 (Lime Green): DELAWARE. Pop 311,538. O 44.0% The very wealthy northern Columbus suburbs and Delaware County. Safe R.
DISTRICT 21 (Brown): LANCASTER-PICKERINGTON. Pop 310,823. O 43.4% The rest of the Columbus exurbs. Safe R.
DISTRICT 26 (Cadet Blue): ZANESVILLE-NEWARK. Pop 311,681. O 44.2% This is sort of ugly looking but the population numbers came out well for this arrangement. It dips into the rural Southeast some but not much into the ancestrally Democratic areas.
DISTRICT 28 (Crimson): MT. VERNON. Pop 311,111. O 37.5% Incredibly, I think Mt. Vernon may be the largest city in this sprawling rural area. This is about as Republican a seat you can draw outside of west-central Ohio or the Cincinnati suburbs. Safe R.

Well done overall on Ohio.  There are a few strange configurations but most of them make at least some sense.

I do think there is a slightly better way to configure the East/Southeast Columbus metro and still have good numbers.

District 21: Pickaway, Fairfield, Hocking, and Perry counties plus Canal Winchester, Obetz, and Groveport in Franklin county.

District 26: south Licking, Tuscawaras, and east Guernsey counties plus Reynoldsburg and parts of Gahanna in Franklin county.

This cleans up the shape of District 26 and avoids the unnecessary three-way split of Licking County.  It does create a three-way split within Franklin county but that was essentially already there anyway.

If I were starting from scratch I would have initially combined Licking and Fairfield counties since their population together is only +851.  

Also, if the three districts within Franklin County are drawn in the north, you can combine the southern "leftovers" with Pickaway and Fayette counties.  Assuming all four districts have equal populations each one would be about +240.

[politicallefty]

I went ahead and tried to make a reasonable 9-district Utah map. It's primarily interesting to see what isn't safely Republican. I don't really like the way CD-01 and CD-02 turned out, but they were basically boxed in after the others were drawn. The districts in Salt Lake County only look somewhat odd because of the large and mostly empty voting districts within the county. The largest deviation of any district was 619.

District 1: UTAH NORTHWEST: McCain 66.4-30.9 Despite being geographically large, the vast majority of the population of this district is in Weber and Box Elder Counties. Safe R.
District 2: UTAH NORTHEAST: McCain 65.7-31.0 I don't like how this district really turnout out overall. Like CD-01, the population is heavily concentrated along the Wasatch Front. Safe R.
District 3: DAVIS COUNTY: McCain 69.7-27.5 Davis County is virtually a perfect fit for one district. Romney won this 80-18. Safe R.
District 4: SALT LAKE CITY: Obama 62.5-34.8 This is SLC plus some of its immediate southeastern suburbs. The eastern part of this is mostly empty space that didn't really fit anywhere else. This district should have no problem electing a fairly progressive Democrat. Safe D.
District 5: WEST VALLEY CITY-TAYLORSVILLE-MURRAY: Obama 48.6-48.3 Yes, that's actually a second Obama district in Utah. CD-04 probably has too many Democrats for Matheson to win a primary, so this could be a possibility for him. This is also the least white district I drew in Utah. Toss-up/Lean D (Likely/Safe D with Matheson?).
District 6: WEST JORDAN-SOUTH JORDAN-SANDY: McCain 57.0-40.4 The third and final district entirely contained within Salt Lake County. It's certainly not inconceivable that Matheson could win this one as well. He represents the majority of this district now. Likely R (Toss-up/Lean D with Matheson?).
District 7: RIVERTON-DRAPER-UTAH LAKE: McCain 75.5-21.4 I couldn't think of good name for the Utah County portion of this. It's about 2/3 Utah County and 1/3 Salt Lake County. Not much else to really say about this district. Safe R.
District 8: PROVO-OREM: McCain 76.3-20.2 This district competes with CD-07 as probably the most pro-Romney district that can possibly be drawn in the entire country. It's quite possible Obama didn't even break 10% here in 2012. Safe R.
District 9: UTAH SOUTH: McCain 73.7-22.9 I wanted to draw a Southern Utah seat, which turned out quite nice. Close to half the population comes from Washington County. I think it's interesting to see a district with 1/9 of the population take up over half the area of the state. Safe R.

This map should give Democrats at least one seat, possibly three on a very good night. I think the most likely result is 7R-2D.

[traininthedistance]

I went ahead and tried to make a reasonable 9-district Utah map. It's primarily interesting to see what isn't safely Republican. I don't really like the way CD-01 and CD-02 turned out, but they were basically boxed in after the others were drawn. The districts in Salt Lake County only look somewhat odd because of the large and mostly empty voting districts within the county. The largest deviation of any district was 619.

District 1: UTAH NORTHWEST: McCain 66.4-30.9 Despite being geographically large, the vast majority of the population of this district is in Weber and Box Elder Counties. Safe R.
District 2: UTAH NORTHEAST: McCain 65.7-31.0 I don't like how this district really turnout out overall. Like CD-01, the population is heavily concentrated along the Wasatch Front. Safe R.
District 3: DAVIS COUNTY: McCain 69.7-27.5 Davis County is virtually a perfect fit for one district. Romney won this 80-18. Safe R.
District 4: SALT LAKE CITY: Obama 62.5-34.8 This is SLC plus some of its immediate southeastern suburbs. The eastern part of this is mostly empty space that didn't really fit anywhere else. This district should have no problem electing a fairly progressive Democrat. Safe D.
District 5: WEST VALLEY CITY-TAYLORSVILLE-MURRAY: Obama 48.6-48.3 Yes, that's actually a second Obama district in Utah. CD-04 probably has too many Democrats for Matheson to win a primary, so this could be a possibility for him. This is also the least white district I drew in Utah. Toss-up/Lean D (Likely/Safe D with Matheson?).
District 6: WEST JORDAN-SOUTH JORDAN-SANDY: McCain 57.0-40.4 The third and final district entirely contained within Salt Lake County. It's certainly not inconceivable that Matheson could win this one as well. He represents the majority of this district now. Likely R (Toss-up/Lean D with Matheson?).
District 7: RIVERTON-DRAPER-UTAH LAKE: McCain 75.5-21.4 I couldn't think of good name for the Utah County portion of this. It's about 2/3 Utah County and 1/3 Salt Lake County. Not much else to really say about this district. Safe R.
District 8: PROVO-OREM: McCain 76.3-20.2 This district competes with CD-07 as probably the most pro-Romney district that can possibly be drawn in the entire country. It's quite possible Obama didn't even break 10% here in 2012. Safe R.
District 9: UTAH SOUTH: McCain 73.7-22.9 I wanted to draw a Southern Utah seat, which turned out quite nice. Close to half the population comes from Washington County. I think it's interesting to see a district with 1/9 of the population take up over half the area of the state. Safe R.

This map should give Democrats at least one seat, possibly three on a very good night. I think the most likely result is 7R-2D.

I think District 1 might actually be non-contiguous by road, seeing as the Bonneville Salt Flats don't really have any north-south connections.  It's a pretty hard barrier, in any case.  So I imagine that would get the map thrown out.  

[jimrtex]

It would be neat to see a map of Alaska where you try to divide it evenly by land area as well. You'd have to divide up Anchorage of course.

I bet the splitline method gets you close, seeing as it'll likely give you a straight north-south chop.  (This would, of course, be yet another illustration of just how horrible splitline redistricting actually is.)

Actually, this is quite unlikely.   Splitline uses great circles.

A lot would depend on what was used for the outline of the state.

You can get a lot shorter cuts going across at an angle.  For instance cutting from the Gulf of Alaska to south of the Seward Peninsula.  This could depend on whether you used a saw, or a laser beam.  The laser beam might chop off a bit of the Panhandle or the Seward Peninsula, while the saw would leave these areas attached to the northeastern half.

If the boundary definition permitted it, you could come up Cook Inlet and cut across to Canada at some point where you can get the right proportions of Anchorage.

Splitline loves concavities.  The first cut in a USA splitline is from the tip of Lake Michigan where you can pick your angle, and if necessary go up north just a bit and pick up a few million from Chicago.   The California version cuts across Los Angeles where the coast turns south towards Palos Verdes.  That gets just enough shorter distance to the Nevada border, and you can position the end point almost anywhere around LA to get the right population mix.

That is a negative of splitline (the best way to divide LA is based on a line perpendicular to the Nevada border.

[jimrtex]

It wouldn't be that bad of an idea. Alaska is huge, and making one Congressman represent most of the state while the other only has to manage a small fraction isn't particularly fair. If it were Canada, they would try to make 2 equal sized districts, I think.

If it were Australia, they'd make Anchorage a district.   Northern Territory has two districts in Parliament, and one doesn't even include all of Darwin.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's Connecticut:



I took out county lines, because they don't matter (aside from geography, so they are in some names).

DISTRICT 1: STAMFORD-GOLD COAST: 59.3% Obama, probably around 55% against Romney. Despite some of the most Republican towns in Connecticut this still has the high minority population in Stamford preventing it from being any worse than Lean D.
DISTRICT 2: BRIDGEPORT-SOUTH FAIRFIELD: 67.1% Obama. Safe D.
DISTRICT 3: DANBURY-NORTH FAIRFIELD: 52.5% Obama, so probably won by Romney. Connecticut Democrats are better at winning these type of districts than you'd expect though, so call it Lean R.
DISTRICT 4: LITCHFIELD: 52.2% Obama, also won by Romney. See above, Lean R.
DISTRICT 5: WATERBURY-NORTH NEW HAVEN: 57.2% Obama, probably similar numbers in 2012. Call it Lean D.
DISTRICT 6: SOUTHWEST NEW HAVEN: 68.9% Obama, Safe D.
DISTRICT 7: NORTH HARTFORD: 62.2% Obama, probably under 60% Obama in 2012, but it's hard to see it as non-Safe D.
DISTRICT 8: CENTRAL HARTFORD: 73.6% Obama, majority minority and barely majority white (50.4%) in VAP. Safe D.
DISTRICT 9: SOUTH HARTFORD: 62.6% Obama, see District 7.
DISTRICT 10: SOUTH CENTRAL: 58.2% Obama. Less winnable for a Republican now than ten years ago, but we'll call it Likely D.
DISTRICT 11: NEW LONDON-SOUTHWEST: 60.3% Obama, probably just barely under 60% Obama. Someone like Rob Simmons could've won this back when he was in Congress, but today it's probably gone (see McMahon/Murphy numbers), Likely D.
DISTRICT 12: TOLLAND-WINDHAM: 58% Obama. See above, same thing really.

Probably a 10-2 map usually.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is anybody else going to be working on Massachusetts?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

traininthedistance had a map on the first page.

[traininthedistance]

Continuing to procrastinate on New York (which remains about half done) with... Arizona.

County lines (such as they are in a state where over half the districts enter Maricopa) were mostly respected, except for Districts 1 and 6, which required a fairly high level of erosity in the name of trying to create minority opportunity districts (especially important given Arizona's... unique political culture).  Town lines are mostly kept to when possible, but town lines out west are often crazy and impossible, with numerous unincorporated enclaves.  Also, the VRA districts tend to slice towns in several directions even when they try to be compact.

The whole state:



DISTRICT 1: NAVAJO-HOPI-FLAGSTAFF.  Pop 301,364.  O 58.1%, D 58.9%.  43.6W/44.1N.  Underpopulated by just about as much as I'm willing to go (3,018) in the search for a Native-plurality district.  And it just makes it.  All of Coconino, most of Navajo and Apache, smaller bits of Mojave, Graham, and Gila.  More to the point, it takes in all the northern reservations (Navajo, Hopi, Fort Apache, and a couple smaller ones).  Safe D.

Closeup on Tucson and Pinal:



DISTRICT 2:  COCHISE-SAFFORD-SOUTHWEST TUCSON.  Pop 303,685.  O 37.1%, D 37.5%.  69W/23H.  The southwestern corner of the state, centered on Cochise County and reaching north to fill in white areas behind District 1, then taking in parts of Pima to the western edge of Tucson.  Very much the map's leftovers district.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 3: SOUTH TUCSON-SANTA CRUZ.  Pop 304,504.  O 57.1%, D 57.1%.  37W/56H.  All of Santa Cruz County and the southern part of the Tucson area, reaching into the heavily Hispanic portions of Tucson proper.  Our first of four Hispanic-majority districts.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 4: TUCSON CITY.  Pop 303,088.  O 61.7%, D 61.6%.  62W/26H.  Entirely within city limits.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 5: TUCSON NORTH AND WEST-FOOTHILLS.  Pop 303,823.  O 47.5%, D 46.3%.  72W/21H.  Tucson west of I-10, and all its northern and western suburbs within Pima County, including Catalina Foothills, Casas Adobes, and Oro Valley.  The western border of this district with 6 looks strange, but it's the boundary for the Tohono O'odham rez.  Lean R.

DISTRICT 6: SONORAN DESERT-BORDER-MARICOPA MOUNTAINS.  Pop 305,465.  O 51.6%, D 52.0%.  35W/50H.  Probably the ugliest district I will draw in this entire series, but I'm drawing it anyway.  The heart of this district is a wide and mostly empty swath along the Mexican border from the Tohono O'odham reservation to Yuma.  But then it gets kind of ugly in an effort to accommodate county boundaries for districts 7 (Yuma) and 9 (Pinal), as well as take in as many Native and Hispanic voters as it can.  To that end, it goes north into Maricopa, grabbing the Gila River reservation and a small slice of the Phoenix metro.  By VAP this should be a VRA district, but by CVAP and partisan stats I'm not sure it quite passes muster.  Still, ground zero for the SB 1070 controversy, so appropriately a Tossup.  

DISTRICT 7: COLORADO RIVER.  Pop 303,661.  O 33.3%, D 30.4%.  74W/20H.  The western edge of the state- almost all of Mohave, all of La Paz, the whiter areas of Yuma.  The Grand Canyon is here, and so is the London Bridge.  Safe R, the most Republican district in the state.

DISTRICT 8: PRESCOTT-MARICOPA FAR WEST.  Pop 303,841.  O 36.6%, D 34.0%. 80W/15H.  Self-explanatory.  Goes in to the fringes of the Phoenix metro area, but most of the Maricopa space here is just that, space.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 9: PINAL-APACHE JUNCTION.  Pop 304,369.  O 41.6%, D 39.9%.  68W/23H.  All of Pinal that isn't in 6.  The jagged boundary is mostly the fault of the Gila River and Ak-Chin reservations.  Safe R.

And, of course, Maricopa.



DISTRICT 10: SCOTTSDALE-GILA-FOUNTAIN HILLS.  Pop 303,477.  O 40.2%, D 36.9%.  Takes in the rest of Gila County (our final non-Maricopa portion), as well as the Ft. MacDowell Yavapai and Salt River Pima reservations, but the majority of population can be found in Scottsdale.  As legendarily Republican as Scottsdale is supposed to be, there are totally a bunch of Democrats in south Scottsdale, which is not true for some other districts here.  Safe R anyway.

DISTRICT 11: MESA EAST.  Pop 303,413.  O 35.1%, D 34.1%.  79W/15H.  Mesa is pretty big, so it has to get split.  This is functionally an all-Mesa district (there are a couple unincorporated enclaves and the edge of Apache Junction), so most of the city is here.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 12: GILBERT.  Pop 305,255.  O 35.8%, D 32.8%.  76W/13H.  All of Gilbert.  Also Queen Creek and what look like the southeastern outskirts of Mesa and Chandler.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 13: CHANDLER- AHWAHTUKEE FOOTHILLS.  O 45.8%, D 42.8%.  6W/17H.  Virtually all of Chandler, and the Ahwatukee Foothills of Phoenix, which have some mountains in between them and the rest of the city, and therefor fit here better (also, this allows us to better follow city boundaries in this part of Maricopa.)  Lean R pretty strongly.

DISTRICT 14: TEMPE-MESA WEST.  Pop 304,888.  O 53.1%, D 51.7%.  61W/25H.  Exactly as it says on the tin.  Eh, Lean D though not by much.  

DISTRICT 15: CENTER CITY AND SOUTH PHOENIX.  Pop 305,447.  O 70.8%, D72.4%.  25W/13B/56H.  The most Democratic district by far, Safe D.

DISTRICT 16: PHOENIX NEAR NORTH-ALHAMBRA-CAMELBACK EAST.  Pop 304,661.  O 54.5%, D 54.9%.  48W/38H.  Older suburbs just north of downtown, names taken from Phoenix's "urban villages". This district is actually Hispanic-plurality by total population.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 17: PHOENIX NORTHWEST-DEER VALLEY.  Pop 306,021.  O 44.7%, D 44.0%.  71W/19H.  More burbs in the city.  Whee.  Lean R but pretty close to safe.

DISTRICT 18: PHOENIX NORTHEAST AND FAR NORTH-PARADISE VALLEY.  Pop 304,690.  O 38.5%, D 35.7%.  Again, pretty self-explanatory.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 19:  PEORIA-OUTER GLENDALE.  Pop 304,919.  O 38.8%, D 37.9%.  72W/18H.  Just those two cities (well, most of Glendale), give or take some weirdness with city boundaries etc.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 20: PHOENIX MARYVALE-INNER GLENDALE- NORTH AVONDALE.   Pop 304,977.  O 57.8%, D 60.1%.  28W/60H.  Not the least white district in the state, but yes the most heavily Hispanic.  The last district in any part of Phoenix proper.  (South Avondale was given to 6.)  Safe D.

DISTRICT 21: SUN CITY-SURPRISE-NORTH GOODYEAR.  Pop 304,641.  O 39.7%, D 37.5%.  75W/16H.  Lotsa retirees.  Of course, the same can be said for most of these districts, but Sun City makes it especially true here.  Safe R.

...

Four Hispanic-majority districts (3, 6, 15, 21), and two min-maj (1, which is also Native plurality; and 16).  

Safe D  5
Lean D  2
Tossup  1
Lean R  3
Safe R  10

[traininthedistance]

Is anybody else going to be working on Massachusetts?

I did one, but feel free to do a different one.  The more the merrier.

[politicallefty]

I think District 1 might actually be non-contiguous by road, seeing as the Bonneville Salt Flats don't really have any north-south connections.  It's a pretty hard barrier, in any case.  So I imagine that would get the map thrown out.

I don't think that's ever made a map get thrown out, but you're probably right that it's not a good idea. I could have simply shifted the three outer districts, but I went for some bigger revisions. This map keeps a Davis County district, three entirely in Salt Lake County, one entirely in Utah County, and a Southern Utah seat (and leaves a nice Northern Utah seat).



District 1: UTAH NORTH: McCain 70.9-25.8 Safe R.
District 2: UTAH NORTHEAST: McCain 56.2-41.2 Likely R.*
District 3: DAVIS COUNTY: McCain 69.7-27.5 Safe R.
District 4: SALT LAKE CITY: Obama 62.2-35.0 Safe D.
District 5: WEST VALLEY CITY-TAYLORSVILLE-MURRAY: Obama 48.6-48.4 Toss-up/Lean D*
District 6: WEST JORDAN-SOUTH JORDAN-RIVERTON-DRAPER McCain 63.0-34.3 Safe R.
District 7: UTAH LAKE-TOOELE: McCain 74.1-22.2 Safe R.
District 8: PROVO-OREM: McCain 77.6-19.1 Safe R.
District 9: UTAH SOUTH: McCain 72.2-24.6 Safe R.

The changes are pretty self-explanatory (the only significant changes being made to 1-2 and 6-7). CD-06 loses any chance of being competitive, but CD-02 takes that role instead. The asterisks account for the possibility of Matheson. In fact, I'd say this CD-02 (including Ogden, Eastern Salt Lake County, and Summit County) is far more likely to go his way than the previous CD-06 if that's the district he were to choose. Also, I don't think any other state can produce a more pro-Romney district than CD-08. As before, it's probably 6R-3D on a good night, but more likely 7R-2D.

(I'll admit I couldn't really think of good names for CD-02 and CD-07, as the population is somewhat more dispersed.)

[traininthedistance]

Colorado in sixteen.

Although the state is 17.5% VAP Hispanic, there's really only one place where you can put a compact Hispanic-majority seat, so I made that district.  In general, I tried to follow town lines as best I could with the districts in or abutting the Front Range, but town lines are *exceptionally* ridiculous here so of course it's not perfect.  The rural areas and inner Denver-area seats basically drew themselves, but I struggled mightily with the north Range (Ft. Collins, Greeley, Boulder), and still am not completely happy with the splits necessary up there.  

The whole state:



DISTRICT 1: GRAND JUNCTION-MONTROSE.  Pop 314,734.  O 38.6%, D 37.4%.  83W/13H.  Eight whole counties along the western border of the state; Grand Junction is obviously the primary center here.  I bet Telluride feels pretty blue here, but no avoiding that.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 2: PUEBLO-SAN LUIS VALLEY-DURANGO.  Pop 315,354.  O 54.6%, D 51.9%.  64W/32H.  Pueblo County and fourteen more, mostly rural, counties in Southern Colorado.  There's a sizable Hispanic community here, but not quite enough for its own district (and I wasn't going to gerrymander south Colorado Springs and Vail in here in an attempt to get 49.9% white).  Lean D.

DISTRICT 3: ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH.  Pop 314,046.  O 57.2%, D 51.0%.  87W/10H.  Twelve whole counties, and rugged western portions of Boulder and Jefferson, going as far east as Golden.  Most of this district is obvious- the rest of Western Colorado, heavily mountainous and besotted with ski areas.  But I struggled mightily with the final 100K that eventually went into Boulder and Jefferson- earlier drafts split Larimer, or El Paso, or some other combination of those four counties.  Eventually I decided I valued keeping Laramie whole sufficiently to do this instead.  Lean D.

Closeup on Colorado Springs and environs:



DISTRICT 4: EL PASO WEST-CAÑON CITY.  Pop 314,868.  O 35.8%, D 31.5%.  Fremont, Teller, and parts of El Paso to the west, north, and south of Colorado Springs proper.  (Well, the fringes of CS proper are here too).  For all that Colorado Springs is a hotbed of evangelical Christianity, this district is more a hotbed of government employees in uniform, with the Air Force Academy and Cañon City's nine (9!) prisons.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 5:  COLORADO SPRINGS.  Pop 314,158.  O 44.6%, D 38.7%.  72W/15H.  Entirely within the city.  Less lopsided, but Safe R all the same.

DISTRICT 6: DOUGLAS-SOUTH JEFFERSON.  Pop 314,058.  O 41.5%, D 34.9%.  Douglas County is almost enough for a whole district, and the mostly-empty southern bit of Jeffco fills things out to make a squarish district that at first blush looks like it might bridge Denver and Colorado Springs, but is really all just south Denver exurbs.  Safe R.

Closeup on the other end of the Front Range, Ft. Collins and Greeley and Boulder.



DISTRICT 7: EASTERN PLAINS.  Pop 314,999.  O 33.7%, D 30.0%.  77W/16H.  Fifteen whole counties, and then four more are split.  The eastern half of El Paso, including largely-undeveloped parts of Colorado Springs proper, is first.  The suburban counties of Adams and Arapahoe have their rural eastern ends chopped off, in such a way as to best accommodate county lines at the other end.  (Cutting these counties is good CoI anyway.)  And most of the land area (though not most of the people) of Weld is here too.  While it does dip into the Front Range's fringes, this district should be dominated by the rural east.  Safest R in the state.

DISTRICT 8: FORT COLLINS-LOVELAND.  Pop 314,125.  O 53.5%, D 47.3%.  All of Larimer and a tiny sliver of Weld for population; I tried as best as I could to line it up with the town of Windsor, since it's partially in Larimer.  The first draft of this had a Ft. Collins-Greeley urban district and gave most of Laramie to 3, but I eventually decided that splitting Loveland (both internally and from Fort Collins) was not good.  First of many Obama-Republican districts in Colorado; in general I'm going to assume that the truth lies in the middle and go Tossup.

DISTRICT 9: GREELEY-LONGMONT-LAFAYETTE.  Pop 314,194.  O 55.7%, D 49.4%.  74W/21H.  A northern Front Range strip from Greeley (in Weld) down to Longmont, Lafayette, and Louisville- basically the Boulder County cities that are not actually Boulder.  A little ugly but ultimately has a sort of logic to it, I hope.  I really don't like 9 and 10 very much at all but everything else on the map was so obvious to draw that I felt boxed in, and the lines here at least prevent a split down the middle of Boulder itself.  Tossup.

Finally, Denver and close surroundings:



DISTRICT 10: BOULDER-BROOMFIELD-ARVADA.  Pop 314,442.  O 66.3%, D 60.8%.   Still not entirely happy with this decidedly leftovers district, which splits Boulder and Jeffco (and even cuts off the bottom of Arvada, at least it does so along a major road) but does have Broomfield all to itself, somewhat of a saving grace.  Safe D.

DISTRCT 11: INNER JEFFERSON-LAKEWOOD.  Pop 313,260.  O 54.3%, D 48.7%.  80W/15H.  For all that I'm not thrilled about the four-way split of Jefferson, I'm happy that like Adams and Arapahoe it has a coherent district all to itself, which is nice symmetry.  Tossup.  

DISTRICT 12:  ADAMS-THORNTON.  Pop 313,405.  O 56.5%, D 48.8%.  66W/27H. The all-Adams district, it makes room for the Hispanic and Aurora districts and takes what's left.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 13: ARAPAHOE-CENTENNIAL.  Pop 313,000.  O 52.2%, D 46.1%.  And it's mirror, the all-Arapahoe district to the south.  Has to take in some of Aurora, even though 14 is the Aurora district, or else split Denver four ways.  This district has the highest deviation, at -1,325; with town lines so bad, I could give up on sticking to them exactly and drive the deviation down.  If 12 was a tossup with a Democratic tilt, this is a Tossup with an R tilt.

DISTRICT 14: AURORA-AIRPORT.  Pop 315,522.  O 69.4%, D 23.5%.  45W/20B/27H.  Mostly Aurora (so Arapahoe and a bit of Adams), but has to retreat from Aurora's southern edge for 13, and also has to take in two separate portions of Denver to enable the Hispanic district.  One of two minority-majority districts, and Safe D.

DISTRICT 15: DENVER SOUTH, EAST, AND CENTER.  Pop 314,270.  O 74.5%, D 70.9%.  73W/12H.  Entirely within Denver, except for a couple Arapahoe exclaves.  Basically, the white parts of the city, with the South Platte an obvious dividing line between it and 16.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 16: DENVER WEST AND STAPLETON-ADAMS SOUTH.  Pop 314,761.  O 73.3%, D 69.7%.  40W/51H.  This is basically the only way to draw a compact Hispanic district in a state with enough Hispanics for multiple districts, so it's more or less forced and everything else is built around it.  Stapleton is that piece that divides 14's two Denver portions; it was the site of the old airport and has now been developed.  Safe D.

…

One Hispanic district (16), one min-maj (14).

Safe D: 4
Lean D: 2
Tossup: 5
Lean R: 0
Safe R: 5

There's a lot of variation in those tossups, but Colorado is sufficiently elastic that I think a mild R or D tilt isn't enough to take it out of that category.  (And it's sufficiently elastic that so many tossups is a Good Thing, too.)

[traininthedistance]

I think District 1 might actually be non-contiguous by road, seeing as the Bonneville Salt Flats don't really have any north-south connections.  It's a pretty hard barrier, in any case.  So I imagine that would get the map thrown out.

I don't think that's ever made a map get thrown out, but you're probably right that it's not a good idea. I could have simply shifted the three outer districts, but I went for some bigger revisions. This map keeps a Davis County district, three entirely in Salt Lake County, one entirely in Utah County, and a Southern Utah seat (and leaves a nice Northern Utah seat).



District 1: UTAH NORTH: McCain 70.9-25.8 Safe R.
District 2: UTAH NORTHEAST: McCain 56.2-41.2 Likely R.*
District 3: DAVIS COUNTY: McCain 69.7-27.5 Safe R.
District 4: SALT LAKE CITY: Obama 62.2-35.0 Safe D.
District 5: WEST VALLEY CITY-TAYLORSVILLE-MURRAY: Obama 48.6-48.4 Toss-up/Lean D*
District 6: WEST JORDAN-SOUTH JORDAN-RIVERTON-DRAPER McCain 63.0-34.3 Safe R.
District 7: UTAH LAKE-TOOELE: McCain 74.1-22.2 Safe R.
District 8: PROVO-OREM: McCain 77.6-19.1 Safe R.
District 9: UTAH SOUTH: McCain 72.2-24.6 Safe R.

The changes are pretty self-explanatory (the only significant changes being made to 1-2 and 6-7). CD-06 loses any chance of being competitive, but CD-02 takes that role instead. The asterisks account for the possibility of Matheson. In fact, I'd say this CD-02 (including Ogden, Eastern Salt Lake County, and Summit County) is far more likely to go his way than the previous CD-06 if that's the district he were to choose. Also, I don't think any other state can produce a more pro-Romney district than CD-08. As before, it's probably 6R-3D on a good night, but more likely 7R-2D.

(I'll admit I couldn't really think of good names for CD-02 and CD-07, as the population is somewhat more dispersed.)

Yeah, this is much better.  I like it a lot.  (It could very easily 8-1 on a bad night, mind.  Which is more than reasonable for such a lopsided state like Utah.)

[jimrtex]

Colorado in sixteen.

Although the state is 17.5% VAP Hispanic, there's really only one place where you can put a compact Hispanic-majority seat, so I made that district.  In general, I tried to follow town lines as best I could with the districts in or abutting the Front Range, but town lines are *exceptionally* ridiculous here so of course it's not perfect.  The rural areas and inner Denver-area seats basically drew themselves, but I struggled mightily with the north Range (Ft. Collins, Greeley, Boulder), and still am not completely happy with the splits necessary up there. 

The whole state:



DISTRICT 1: GRAND JUNCTION-MONTROSE.  Pop 314,734.  O 38.6%, D 37.4%.  83W/13H.  Eight whole counties along the western border of the state; Grand Junction is obviously the primary center here.  I bet Telluride feels pretty blue here, but no avoiding that.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 2: PUEBLO-SAN LUIS VALLEY-DURANGO.  Pop 315,354.  O 54.6%, D 51.9%.  64W/32H.  Pueblo County and fourteen more, mostly rural, counties in Southern Colorado.  There's a sizable Hispanic community here, but not quite enough for its own district (and I wasn't going to gerrymander south Colorado Springs and Vail in here in an attempt to get 49.9% white).  Lean D.

Durango belongs on the Western Slope.    The current configuration of CO-3 is because the Western Slope didn't have enough population for a district and Pueblo was small enough to make up the difference.  As the Western Slope grew, they didn't want to split Pueblo, so they extended across in the north.  This will also keep more of the Ute reservations together.

Go ahead and extend the green district out into the Lower Arkansas.  This may even bump the Hispanic population up a point or two.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Laramie is in Wyoming.  Larimer is in Colorado.

Boulder wants to be its own district.  Otherwise it wouldn't have 300,000.

After adding Garfield, add Fremont.  If you just barely come into western Boulder and Jefferson counties, you aren't picking up enough people to make splitting worthwhile.  If you do come further, you're taking in Denver suburbs in a district that stretches to Utah.

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Elbert should go with Douglas.  Almost all the population is barely into the western edge of the county.

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If Larimer and Boulder are pretty much their own districts, then Weld can be put with the Lower Platte.  If you need a cut, take out places like Erie and Frederick which are becoming Denver suburbs.

I really don't think your Eastern Plains district works as well as it might appear.  You're cutting too deep into Weld, Adams, Arapahoe, Elbert, and El Paso, so you've got big chunks of farm land linking suburbs.  Better to put the northeast with Greeley and the southeast with Pueblo.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here is Nevada:





DISTRICT 1: DESERT: See the name. Actually includes a chunk of Las Vegas, though not a particularly urban or dense area (as Joe can attest, whether or not a precinct is in Las Vegas proper has very little correlation to how urban it is in Clark County.) 56.8% McCain and Safe R.
DISTRICT 2: HENDERSON-SOUTH CLARK: The name says it all for the description. 50.4% Obama, might've gone narrowly for Romney. 52.7% Republican average. Probably a Lean R seat.
DISTRICT 3: NORTH RENO-SPARKS: The upper half of the Reno metro. 57.9% Obama and 53.2% Democratic average. Definitely a Lean D seat.
DISTRICT 4: SOUTH RENO-LAKE TAHOE: A southern portion of Reno, plus the Republican areas around Lake Tahoe. 51.9% McCain and far stronger for generic Republican (58.2%), Safe R seat.
DISTRICT 5: NORTH LAS VEGAS: Most of the city of the same name, plus some of northern Las Vegas. Majority minority 66.1% Obama Safe D seat.
DISTRICT 6: SUNRISE-EAST METRO: Hispanic majority seat (even in VAP), 69.3% Obama and Safe D.
DISTRICT 7: WEST LAS VEGAS: Whiter, more suburban neighborhoods. 54.9% Obama, but he probably won in 2012 too, 52.8% Democratic average. A true swing district.
DISTRICT 8: SPRING VALLEY-ENTERPRISE: A more heavily minority area (lots of Asians for some reason), 59.6% Obama, 55.3% generic D. Probably Lean D.
DISTRICT 9: THE STRIP: Majority minority and 65.4% Obama. Safe D.

So basically a 5-3-1 map.

[traininthedistance]

DISTRICT 1: GRAND JUNCTION-MONTROSE.  Pop 314,734.  O 38.6%, D 37.4%.  83W/13H.  Eight whole counties along the western border of the state; Grand Junction is obviously the primary center here.  I bet Telluride feels pretty blue here, but no avoiding that.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 2: PUEBLO-SAN LUIS VALLEY-DURANGO.  Pop 315,354.  O 54.6%, D 51.9%.  64W/32H.  Pueblo County and fourteen more, mostly rural, counties in Southern Colorado.  There's a sizable Hispanic community here, but not quite enough for its own district (and I wasn't going to gerrymander south Colorado Springs and Vail in here in an attempt to get 49.9% white).  Lean D.

Durango belongs on the Western Slope.    The current configuration of CO-3 is because the Western Slope didn't have enough population for a district and Pueblo was small enough to make up the difference.  As the Western Slope grew, they didn't want to split Pueblo, so they extended across in the north.  This will also keep more of the Ute reservations together.

Go ahead and extend the green district out into the Lower Arkansas.  This may even bump the Hispanic population up a point or two.

I originally tried to put Durango in the Grand Junction district, actually; this configuration of 1 and 2 was largely a function of trying to get low deviations and no county splits, especially for 1 (which is pretty constrained).  It's going to be hard to change these two.

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Laramie is in Wyoming.  Larimer is in Colorado.

Boulder wants to be its own district.  Otherwise it wouldn't have 300,000.

After adding Garfield, add Fremont.  If you just barely come into western Boulder and Jefferson counties, you aren't picking up enough people to make splitting worthwhile.  If you do come further, you're taking in Denver suburbs in a district that stretches to Utah.

Thanks for the Laramie/Larimer correction, will fix.

An earlier draft tried to send 3 south instead of cutting Boulder/Jefferson, and you need to microchop El Paso which is no good either.  As 3 stands right now, the line is just about exactly where the suburbs end and the mountains start, which seems to have a geographic logic to it, but I'll try some other things.

DISTRICT 6: DOUGLAS-SOUTH JEFFERSON.  Pop 314,058.  O 41.5%, D 34.9%.  Douglas County is almost enough for a whole district, and the mostly-empty southern bit of Jeffco fills things out to make a squarish district that at first blush looks like it might bridge Denver and Colorado Springs, but is really all just south Denver exurbs.  Safe R.

Elbert should go with Douglas.  Almost all the population is barely into the western edge of the county.

Elbert plus Douglas is still underpopulated by the standards I'm using, and all the options to fill it out are uglier than what's up there already.

I really don't think your Eastern Plains district works as well as it might appear.  You're cutting too deep into Weld, Adams, Arapahoe, Elbert, and El Paso, so you've got big chunks of farm land linking suburbs.  Better to put the northeast with Greeley and the southeast with Pueblo.

It's the reality of settlement patterns in America today that most rural districts are going to be underpopulated unless they're willing to take in some exurban fringes, and it's also the case that many of these exurbanites are living where they are because they want to feel like they're living the rural lifestyle.  And, FWLIW, the actual Colorado map does indeed split Adams and Arapahoe in this exact manner (not that I agree with everything on that map, but it's better than most this cycle).  Looking at the actual population numbers, the cuts into suburban areas of these counties (and I'm skeptical that Elbert is much of a "cut") are actually pretty shallow, population-wise, and this district would in fact stand a good chance of having real rural representation.

But I'll try a few things and maybe update this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

New Mexico




DISTRICT 1: NORTHWEST: All sorts of territory here. Oil and gas territory, Hispanic areas, lots of Reservations (plurality Native), just about everything that exists in the state is here. 55.3% Obama and just over 50% for a Democratic average. It's hard to see this being anything other than a pure tossup.
DISTRICT 2: SANTA FE-NORTHEAST: A Hispanic majority seat with a bunch of hippies and government workers in Santa Fe too. 73.2% Obama and Safe D.
DISTRICT 3: LAS CRUCES-SOUTHWEST: Hispanic majority and contains the Democratic city of Las Cruces, but some Little Texas and Mormon areas. Overall it's 56.9% Obama and has a 51% Democratic average, knowing how these areas in New Mexico work it's Lean D.
DISTRICT 4: LITTLE TEXAS: And this is how New Mexico can be a swing state and still have so many D districts, the Republicans are all concentrated here. 64.8% McCain, 68.1% Republican average. Safe R.
DISTRICT 5: CENTER: In most states, this would be a strongly R seat. but this is New Mexico. It's a bunch of rural areas and some outgrowth from Albuquerque, but those are Hispanic heavy downtrodden areas, not traditional exurbs, and the rural counties are heavily Hispanic too. Majority Hispanic, 61.1% Obama, 53.1% D average though. So probably a Lean D seat.
DISTRICT 6: RIO RANCHO-NORTH ALBUQUERQUE: The real suburbia of the Albuquerque metro. 51% Obama but 56.9% Republican average, also likely won by Romney. At least a Likely R seat.
DISTRICT 7: ALBUQUERQUE CENTER: The urban district. 64.5% Obama, 57% Democratic average, safe D.

So appears to be 4-2-1 most likely.

[GMantis]

Kansas



This was intended to be a reasonably fair map. Of course if the actual Kansas legilsature was in charge of drawing it, they would probably split Wichita in two and instead of making a Lawrence-Leavenworth district, split the area in two and create another district on the Missouri border.

DISTRICT 1: KANSAS CITY-NORTHERN JOHNSON COUNTY: 56.4-42.3 Obama. The least white district in Kansas (62.9%, 67.2% VAP). Should be safe D for Kansas Democrats.

DISTRICT 2: EASTERN JOHNSON COUNTY: 54.6-44.1 McCain. Contains Overland Park and parts of Olathe. Should be safe R outside of wave years.

DISTRICT 3: SOUTHEASTERN KANSAS: 60.2-37.7 McCain. Most rural of the eastern dstricts, with no significant settlements except Emporia. Safe R.

DISTRICT 4: LAWRENCE-LEAVENWORTH: 49.8-48.3 Obama. Contains also part of Johnson county (mostly Olathe). Was probably won by Romney, but is still the only toss-up district.

DISTRICT 5: TOPEKA-MANHATTAN: 54.6-43.6 McCain. Like the second district should be safe R in a non-wave year.

DISTRICT 6: SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS: 64.2-33.9 McCain. Contains mostly the suburbs of Wichita. Safe R.

DISTRICT 7: WICHITA: 50.3-47.9 McCain. Contains (obviously) most of Wichita and is the second least-white district (63.5%, 68.9% VAP). Slight lean R, though certainly can be taken by a good Democratic candidate.

DISTRICT 8: HUTCHINSON-SALINA-JUNCTION CITY: 64.4-33.7 McCain. The most centrally located district, with several mid-sized cities. Safe R.

DISTRICT 9: WESTERN KANSAS: 73.3-25 McCain. Self-explanatory and of course extremely safe R.

So most likely 7-1-1.

[muon2]

New Mexico




DISTRICT 1: NORTHWEST: All sorts of territory here. Oil and gas territory, Hispanic areas, lots of Reservations (plurality Native), just about everything that exists in the state is here. 55.3% Obama and just over 50% for a Democratic average. It's hard to see this being anything other than a pure tossup.
DISTRICT 2: SANTA FE-NORTHEAST: A Hispanic majority seat with a bunch of hippies and government workers in Santa Fe too. 73.2% Obama and Safe D.
DISTRICT 3: LAS CRUCES-SOUTHWEST: Hispanic majority and contains the Democratic city of Las Cruces, but some Little Texas and Mormon areas. Overall it's 56.9% Obama and has a 51% Democratic average, knowing how these areas in New Mexico work it's Lean D.
DISTRICT 4: LITTLE TEXAS: And this is how New Mexico can be a swing state and still have so many D districts, the Republicans are all concentrated here. 64.8% McCain, 68.1% Republican average. Safe R.
DISTRICT 5: CENTER: In most states, this would be a strongly R seat. but this is New Mexico. It's a bunch of rural areas and some outgrowth from Albuquerque, but those are Hispanic heavy downtrodden areas, not traditional exurbs, and the rural counties are heavily Hispanic too. Majority Hispanic, 61.1% Obama, 53.1% D average though. So probably a Lean D seat.
DISTRICT 6: RIO RANCHO-NORTH ALBUQUERQUE: The real suburbia of the Albuquerque metro. 51% Obama but 56.9% Republican average, also likely won by Romney. At least a Likely R seat.
DISTRICT 7: ALBUQUERQUE CENTER: The urban district. 64.5% Obama, 57% Democratic average, safe D.

So appears to be 4-2-1 most likely.

This seems like a lot of unneeded county splits and it ties chunks of Albuquerque to parts way out into the rural areas. The combination of Bernalillo, Valencia, Sandoval, and Los Alamos is less than 1% over the population to make 3 districts and keeps the Albuquerque area within those same 3. The western edge plus Luna make 1 district, Dona Ana+Otero+Lincoln make 1 district, and the eastern counties of Little Texas can be formed into one district all within 1%. The last district isn't as pretty but keeps Santa Fe, Taos and Las Vegas together with no county splits.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not too concerned about county splits in western states (where the real separations often don't follow county lines), but yeah the Albuquerque split is kind of awkward, I tried to work around it though. Maybe I could follow that outline to see how it goes. It's not really much worse than the current map though that sticks most of Albuquerque in with those rural counties for no real reason.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And here's Maryland:




Obviously as brutal a D gerrymander as they come.

DISTRICT 1: PANHANDLE: With this many districts, this area is immune from gerrymandering. 60.1% McCain and Safe R.
DISTRICT 2: FREDERICK-GERMANTOWN: Kind of a microcosm of the current MD-06, it brings in a traditionally Republican area (though not so Republican today, at least around Frederick proper) with western MontCo. 55.9% Obama, Lean D.
DISTRICT 3: CARROLL-WEST BALTCO: This looks like a Republican district on a map, but it's misleading, it includes enough black suburbs to tilt it to the D side. And don't worry about any krazen-esque accusations of racism or some rogue black legislators complaining, I made a fix for that later on. Still the seat's only 52.2% Obama, so it's not utterly unwinnable for the Republicans, probably Lean D. Of course the very popular Ruppersberger lives here.
DISTRICT 4: STATE LINE-NORTH SHORE: Another Republican pack district. 61.9% McCain and Safe R.
DISTRICT 5: SOUTH SHORE: This is a 55.4% McCain seat, but local Democrats can do surprisingly well in this area. Of course Andy Harris can't be nominated here either. We'll call it Likely R.
DISTRICT 6: EAST BALTCO-HARFORD: This district is based around an interesting region that most people don't notice in Maryland because the county lines obscure it, most areas immediately east of Balitmore voted for McCain and probably Romney, but prefer Democrats on lower levels (almost all D in the state legislature), and a lot of these precincts actually had a swing TOWARD McCain 2008, even some Kerry/McCain precincts. Not all the rednecks in Maryland are on the shore or panhandle obviously. Still this seat contains some Baltimore proper precincts to anchor it, 50.7% Obama and 55.9% Democratic average. Most likely a Lean D seat, though I'll admit it would've fallen in 2010.
DISTRICT 7: NORTH BALTIMORE-TOWSON: White parts of Baltimore plus some swing/R suburban areas. 56.6% Obama, over 60% Democratic average. Basically safe D. Sarbanes lives here.
DISTRICT 8: SOUTH BALTIMORE-DUNDALK: Similar to the above, although it contains Dundalk, the epitome of District 6-esque areas. Still 57.6% D, basically safe D.
DISTRICT 9: BOWIE-ANNE ARUNDEL: A combo of Annapolis, the Republican areas to its north, and some relatively white parts of Prince George's County. 52.5% Obama, higher Democratic average, probably Lean D. Democrats should definitely run someone from Anne Arundel here.
DISTRICT 10: CENTRAL BALTIMORE AND WEST: This is kind of a hard one to name. But basically it's most of Balitmore's black neighborhoods plus some suburbs, most white, some Republican. A 72.1% black VAP safe D seat.
DISTRICT 11: WEST BALTIMORE-WEST HOWARD: And here's the seat I alluded to earlier. The reason District 10 is so erose is so here can get many of the black precincts, the resulting seat is 50.6% black VAP, so the black precincts in District 3 don't deny a black majority seat. And it also absorbs the Republican western half of Howard County as well. Safe D.
DISTRICT 12: GAITHERSBURG-ROCKVILLE-NORTH MONTGOMERY: Whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians are all over 10% here. Still majority white. 66.1% Obama, Safe D.
DISTRICT 13: POTOMAC-BETHESDA: Same as above, but blacks are around 8%. Safe D of course. Actually more white than district 12 but more Democrat (over 71% Obama.)
DISTRICT 14: WESTERN MONTGOMERY: Same as district 12, except all races except Asians are over 20%, possibly the most diverse district in the country outside of California, Hawaii and NYC. Safe D and over 80% Obama. I think Chris Van Hollen lives here (either here or district 13.) BTW anyone else realize people like Van Hollen and Donna Edwards and NOVA politicians luck out in not having to get a second home?
DISTRICT 15: COLUMBIA-SOUTH GATE: The name more means "from here to here" rather than "based around these areas". 61.4% Obama, safe D.
DISTRICT 16: NORTH PRINCE GEORGE'S-NORTHWEST ANNE ARUNDEL: Most of the white parts of Prince George's County, still plurality black. Primaries could be interesting here, but not the general election at 76.4% Obama. Safe D.
DISTRICT 17: CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE'S: And here we have both the blackest and safest D seat in the state. 76.7% Black VAP, 95.7% Obama.
DISTRICT 18: SOUTH PRINCE GEORGE'S-WESTERN SHORE: The name says it all. These Republican areas get crammed into this 53.8% Black VAP seat. Safe D.
DISTRICT 19: CHARLES-ST. MARY'S: Charles County anchors this one for the Democrats thanks to black spillover from Prince George's that is still coming. 55.4% Obama, at worst Likely D. Steny Hoyer lives here anyway.

So 16-3.

[traininthedistance]

This seems like a lot of unneeded county splits and it ties chunks of Albuquerque to parts way out into the rural areas. The combination of Bernalillo, Valencia, Sandoval, and Los Alamos is less than 1% over the population to make 3 districts and keeps the Albuquerque area within those same 3. The western edge plus Luna make 1 district, Dona Ana+Otero+Lincoln make 1 district, and the eastern counties of Little Texas can be formed into one district all within 1%. The last district isn't as pretty but keeps Santa Fe, Taos and Las Vegas together with no county splits.

So, there's actually a very good reason to split Bernalillo, Valencia, Sandoval, and Santa Fe: namely, to put all the reservations (besides Mescalero Apache, which is on the other side of the state) in one district- and while I do think that trying to keep counties together is, if anything, more important out West (since they are the smallest unit of government for many many people), New Mexico affords the rare possibility for a Native-plurality district, and making that with as few missing reservations as possible is, I think, an overriding concern.

I actually had a NM map I was playing with before BRTD posted his, so might as well add it.  Many of the ideas are the same but if I may be immodest I think mine are slightly cleaner and more cohesive.

The outer four districts mostly drew themselves (at least once I made the decision that uniting Native voters was a priority), the inner three are more awkward (actually, really its just 5 that's awkward).  New Mexico is one of the very few states that's easier to split with its current number of districts than this larger number (since you can easily split North/South/ABQ.)  New Mexico is Hispanic plurality, actually, so it's fitting that along with Hawaii it's one of two states where most districts are going to be min-maj.



DISTRICT 1: FARMINGTON-NAVAJO-PUEBLO.  Pop 294,191.  O 55.8%, D 50.9%.  34W/20H/44N. Roughly the northwestern quarter of the state, this district is willing to get a little ugly in order to unite the vast majority of New Mexico's reservations in one district, which is counterbalanced by the super-Republican area of Farmington.  All of San Juan, McKinley, Cibola, and Los Alamos (which is arguably a better fit with Santa Fe, but has necessary road connections for several smaller reservations).  Most of the land area of Sandoval, but none of the parts which are in Albuquerque's urbanized area.  And the most heavily-Native portions of Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Valencia, and Socorro.  Taking Isleta forces awkward constructions in the Albuquerque area, but it's the right thing to do from a CoI perspective. Probably has a D lean in Presidential years, but overall I'm going to say Tossup.

DISTRICT 2: SANTA FE-NORTHEAST.  Pop 294,292.  O 73.2%, D 66.6%.  41W/53H.  Most of Santa Fe County is here, and then it takes areas which have been Hispanic for hundreds of years.  Eight whole counties, and then three are split- Rio Arriba with 1, Curry with 4 (taking the most Hispanic precincts for VRA purposes), and Santa Fe with 1 and 5 (for purposes of connectivity and CoI; Edgewood is a world apart from Santa Fe).  Safe D.

DISTRICT 3: LAS CRUCES-SOUTHWEST.  Pop 293,192.  O 57.1%, D 51.1%.  40W/56H.  Our second Hispanic district.  Mostly keeps to county lines- Doña Ana and five others- but that would not be quite enough population.  It thus grabs  the portion of Chaparral on the other side of the county line in Otero.  (An obvious choice.)  Lean D.

DISTRICT 4: LITTLE TEXAS.  Pop 294,568.  O 35.1%, D 31.8%.  57W/37H.  Six whole counties, almost all of Otero (with 3) and half of Curry (with 2).  Safe R.

And closeup on the Albuquerque area:



DISTRICT 5: RIO RANCHO-VALENCIA-SANDIA.  Pop 295,163.  O 51.4%, D 43.2%.  57W/36H.  All of Torrance and nearly all of Socorro, but most people here are in Sandoval and Valencia, with connecting areas in Edgewood, the western edge of Bernalillo.  Some ugliness was forced here when I put Isleta in 1, preventing a South Valley/Valencia district- but this district still manages a mostly cohesive identity, as the exurbs and satellite cities of Santa Fe.  At +995 it has the highest deviation.  Lean R.

DISTRICT 6: ALBUQUERQUE OLD TOWN-EAST SIDE.  Pop 294,245.  O 61.9%, D 54.7%.  53W/35H.  Entirely within city limits and east of the Rio Grande.  Eh, close enough to call it Safe D.

DISTRICT 7: ALBUQUERQUE WEST-SOUTH VALLEY-NORTH VALLEY.  Pop 293,528.  O 64.0%, D 56.5%.  33W/59H.  Except for the heavily-Native portions of 1, all of Bernalillo west of the Rio Grande, and the North and South Valley areas make a district that is our third Hispanic-majority district and lets 6 stay entirely in the city proper.  Safe D.

Three Hispanic-majority districts and one Native-plurality district; 3 Safe D and one each of the other four ratings.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ha, our four outer districts are practically the same. Even the same colors/numbering.

[muon2]

This seems like a lot of unneeded county splits and it ties chunks of Albuquerque to parts way out into the rural areas. The combination of Bernalillo, Valencia, Sandoval, and Los Alamos is less than 1% over the population to make 3 districts and keeps the Albuquerque area within those same 3. The western edge plus Luna make 1 district, Dona Ana+Otero+Lincoln make 1 district, and the eastern counties of Little Texas can be formed into one district all within 1%. The last district isn't as pretty but keeps Santa Fe, Taos and Las Vegas together with no county splits.

So, there's actually a very good reason to split Bernalillo, Valencia, Sandoval, and Santa Fe: namely, to put all the reservations (besides Mescalero Apache, which is on the other side of the state) in one district- and while I do think that trying to keep counties together is, if anything, more important out West (since they are the smallest unit of government for many many people), New Mexico affords the rare possibility for a Native-plurality district, and making that with as few missing reservations as possible is, I think, an overriding concern.

I actually had a NM map I was playing with before BRTD posted his, so might as well add it.  Many of the ideas are the same but if I may be immodest I think mine are slightly cleaner and more cohesive.

The outer four districts mostly drew themselves (at least once I made the decision that uniting Native voters was a priority), the inner three are more awkward (actually, really its just 5 that's awkward).  New Mexico is one of the very few states that's easier to split with its current number of districts than this larger number (since you can easily split North/South/ABQ.)  New Mexico is Hispanic plurality, actually, so it's fitting that along with Hawaii it's one of two states where most districts are going to be min-maj.



DISTRICT 1: FARMINGTON-NAVAJO-PUEBLO.  Pop 294,191.  O 55.8%, D 50.9%.  34W/20H/44N. Roughly the northwestern quarter of the state, this district is willing to get a little ugly in order to unite the vast majority of New Mexico's reservations in one district, which is counterbalanced by the super-Republican area of Farmington.  All of San Juan, McKinley, Cibola, and Los Alamos (which is arguably a better fit with Santa Fe, but has necessary road connections for several smaller reservations).  Most of the land area of Sandoval, but none of the parts which are in Albuquerque's urbanized area.  And the most heavily-Native portions of Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Valencia, and Socorro.  Taking Isleta forces awkward constructions in the Albuquerque area, but it's the right thing to do from a CoI perspective. Probably has a D lean in Presidential years, but overall I'm going to say Tossup.

DISTRICT 2: SANTA FE-NORTHEAST.  Pop 294,292.  O 73.2%, D 66.6%.  41W/53H.  Most of Santa Fe County is here, and then it takes areas which have been Hispanic for hundreds of years.  Eight whole counties, and then three are split- Rio Arriba with 1, Curry with 4 (taking the most Hispanic precincts for VRA purposes), and Santa Fe with 1 and 5 (for purposes of connectivity and CoI; Edgewood is a world apart from Santa Fe).  Safe D.

DISTRICT 3: LAS CRUCES-SOUTHWEST.  Pop 293,192.  O 57.1%, D 51.1%.  40W/56H.  Our second Hispanic district.  Mostly keeps to county lines- Doña Ana and five others- but that would not be quite enough population.  It thus grabs  the portion of Chaparral on the other side of the county line in Otero.  (An obvious choice.)  Lean D.

DISTRICT 4: LITTLE TEXAS.  Pop 294,568.  O 35.1%, D 31.8%.  57W/37H.  Six whole counties, almost all of Otero (with 3) and half of Curry (with 2).  Safe R.

And closeup on the Albuquerque area:



DISTRICT 5: RIO RANCHO-VALENCIA-SANDIA.  Pop 295,163.  O 51.4%, D 43.2%.  57W/36H.  All of Torrance and nearly all of Socorro, but most people here are in Sandoval and Valencia, with connecting areas in Edgewood, the western edge of Bernalillo.  Some ugliness was forced here when I put Isleta in 1, preventing a South Valley/Valencia district- but this district still manages a mostly cohesive identity, as the exurbs and satellite cities of Santa Fe.  At +995 it has the highest deviation.  Lean R.

DISTRICT 6: ALBUQUERQUE OLD TOWN-EAST SIDE.  Pop 294,245.  O 61.9%, D 54.7%.  53W/35H.  Entirely within city limits and east of the Rio Grande.  Eh, close enough to call it Safe D.

DISTRICT 7: ALBUQUERQUE WEST-SOUTH VALLEY-NORTH VALLEY.  Pop 293,528.  O 64.0%, D 56.5%.  Except for the heavily-Native portions of 1, all of Bernalillo west of the Rio Grande, and the North and South Valley areas make a district that is our third Hispanic-majority district and lets 6 stay entirely in the city proper.  Safe D.

Three Hispanic-majority districts and one Native-plurality district; 3 Safe D and one each of the other four ratings.

This makes more sense to me. Is there any data in NM about the HVAP needed to elect a candidate of choice? That's even assuming that VRA applies in NM in the same way it does most other states.

That question aside, I would quibble about the stretch into Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Valencia and Bernalillo to build the Native plurality district. If instead you use all of Rio Arriba and Catron it still has 44% total Native and 42% NVAP. That cleans up the Albuquerque districts substantially.