The 1,000 Districts Series

[muon2]

Traininthedistance invites you to: Come on feel the Illinoise!

So… 42 districts.  While this is meant to be a reasonably clean and fair map, there are of course several issues to confront when making such a thing.  First off, when splitting counties (and splitting counties is obviously necessary esp. in Chicagoland), I chose to prioritize keeping townships together rather than cities and villages- the voting districts and county boundaries line up with townships, which also tend to be square or squarish rather than tentacled, irregular blobs.  Granted, several townships need to be split anyway.  All the split townships are within four Chicagoland counties (Cook, Will, DuPage, and Kankakee), and most involve VRA districts.

Second off, there's the VRA.  By sheer population numbers, the state should support between five and six black districts, and also five or six Hispanic districts.  This is not quite possible- I struggled to get to four Hispanic districts (and a token fifth minority-majority district in the suburbs), and the fourth one is the new and permanent winner of "ugliest district I will draw all series".  But six mostly-compact black districts is easy, provided you do the obvious thing and unpack the hilariously overpacked South Side.  There are six districts which stretch from Chicago to the suburbs, but fully five of them are VRA districts, and one is just the inevitable leftovers.

Also worth noting: the partisan figures are Obama '08, which given the partisan climate and home-state effect is obviously far from typical.  There will be quite a few Lean R districts that Obama won here.

I'll do this in two posts.

The state as a whole:


Will County and south Cook (you can get a god view of DuPage as well, though I won't get to those districts for quite awhile):



DISTRICT 1: FAR SOUTHEAST CHICAGO-CALUMET CITY-EAST KANKAKEE.  Pop 305,188.  O 82.1%.  30W/52B/17H.  This is easily the least-compact of our six black districts.  Far Southeast Chicago (and a little bit of South as per the community areas), and then a string down the state line to Kankakee County, which has black populations in the city itself and the township of Pembroke.  In addition to Chicago, Thornton and Bloom are split with 2, mostly along village lines and the Bishop Ford Freeway, and Kankakee City is split with 33.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 2: SOUTH SIDE SUBURBS.  Pop 305,133.  O 77.9%.  38W/52B.  You can, in fact, make a black-majority district entirely within the southern suburbs of Chicago.  This is that district, taking in the rest of Thornton and Blair, all of Rich, and then two townships in Will: Monee (which is also heavily-black), and Frankfort (which is not, but some unpacking is necessary down here).  Safe D.

DISTRICT 3: JOLIET-WILL.  Pop 305,798.  O 59.9%.  66W/12B/18H.  Entirely whole townships, entirely within Will.  Joliet has a significant minority population, but it's too far (and too mixed) to put in a VRA district, so it anchors the main Will district instead.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 4: FAR SOUTH CHICAGO-CALUMET-BREMEN-SOUTH WORTH.  Pop 304,966.  O 83.5%.  35W/54B.  Our second of three black districts to straddle Chicago and the southern suburbs, significantly more compact than 1.  Snappier name welcome.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 5: FAR SOUTHWEST CHICAGO-NORTH WORTH.  Pop 304,598.   O 81.9%.  38W/55B.  More of the same.  Safe D.

Let's pan up a little to get the rest of Chicago proper:



DISTRICT 6:  NEAR SOUTH-HYDE PARK-DOWNTOWN.  Pop 306,112.  O 92.6%.  28W/58B.  Our first all-Chicago district and fifth black-majority district, this finishes up the South Side and then runs north to the Loop. All things go, all things go.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 7: BRIDGEPORT-GAGE PARK-WEST LAWN.  Pop 304,914.  O 79.0%.  21W/10B/59H.  Our first Hispanic-majority district, and one of two entirely within the city.  Along with 8, splits the Mexican community in the city's southwest; also includes the epicenter of the city's Chinese community in Bridgeport.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 8: STEVENSON EXPRESSWAY-BERWYN-STICKNEY.  Pop 305,246.  O 73.9%.  33W/57H.  The rest of the Hispanic areas in the city's Southwest and lower West sides, this district needs to extend past city limits to make up population, taking in all of Berwyn and Stickney, and several cities/villages in Lyons with a relatively high Hispanic population.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 9: WEST SIDE CHICAGO.  Pop 304,556.  O 92.9%.  28W/56B.  Our final black-majority district, it is almost entirely within the city's West Side.  Safest D in the state.

DISTRICT 10: WEST COOK.  Pop 306,259.  O 68.3%.  67W/20B.  Entirely within Cook and outside of Chicago, it is all of Palos, the less-Hispanic parts of Lyons and Proviso, and most of Oak Park.  Man that split of Oak Park is ugly but I couldn't figure out a better way to accommodate 11, which bridges the northern and southern Hispanic communities in Cook since that's the only way to get a fourth VRA district.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 11: CICERO-AUSTIN-BENSENVILLE.  Pop 304,289.  O 75.0%.  34W/56H.  Ladies and gentlemen, this district is a hot mess.  However, it's arguably a necessary mess- there's about one and a half districts worth of Hispanics in and around NW Chicago, and about two-and-a-half in SW Chicago.  And here's where we bridge the gap.  All of Cicero is connected via a thin line in Oak Park to Hispanic-majority and diverse neighborhoods in northwest Chicago and several suburban towns south of O'Hare.  Proviso is split with 10, Leyden with 15, and Addison (in DuPage) with 25.  This is also the least-Hispanic VRA district I made; I would hope that 56 percent is sufficient to elect a candidate of choice.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 12: NEAR NORTHWEST.  Pop 305,051.  O 85.5%.  30W/58H.  Our final Hispanic-majority district; this one fairly compactly takes in most of the city's Puerto Rican community.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 13:  NEAR NORTH SHORE.  Pop 305,370.  O 78.5%.  Only 76% white, but all other groups are roughly even.  Presumably this district has the highest concentration of white liberals in the state.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 14: FAR NORTH SIDE.  Pop 303,705.  O 76.8%.  54W/11B/18H/14A.  Last of six all-Chicago districts.  Safe D.

And now, North Cook and Lake.



DISTRICT 15: FAR NORTHWEST-O'HARE-DES PLAINES.  Pop 305,082.  O 58.9%.  77W/14H.  The final Chicago district, it takes the remainder of the city (including O'Hare), the enclave of Norwood Park and most of Leyden (with 11) and Maine (with 16), pretty much completely along village boundaries.  Probably still Lean D?

DISTRICT 16: EVANSTON-NORTHFIELD-NILES.  Pop 303,746.  O 69.2%.  68W/17A.  The three named townships/city, and the rest of Maine.  Liberal North Shore suburbs, blah blah blah.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 17: LINCOLN SOUTH-SCHAUMBURG.  Pop 302,643.  O 61.9%.  62W/18H/15A.  "Lincoln" is the six townships in the northwestern arm of Cook County; together they work out very well to two full districts (if a bit underpopulated, at -2848 this has the highest deviation in the state).  Hanover, Schaumburg, and most of Elk Grove.  I'm used to considering any 60%+ Obama district safe, but I'm not entirely sure about this one given the massiveness of the home-state effect in '08.  Eh, screw it. Safe D.

DISTRICT 18: LAKE SOUTH-NEW TRIER.  Pop 305,790.  O 61.8%.  Splits Fremont with 20, but otherwise whole townships.  Like 17, I'm going to call this Safe D even if a little Bob Dold-shaped voice in my head says I should be more cautious.

DISTRICT 19: LINCOLN NORTH-ARLINGTON HEIGHTS.  Pop 303,348.  O 55.9%.  76W/12H/10A.  The rest of Cook: Barrington, Palatine, Wheeling, and part of Elk Grove (with 17).  Despite the Obama numbers (he won by 13 points here in 2008), there's a lot of ancestral and down-ballot strength for Republicans here.  Erm, Tossup?

DISTRICT 20: LAKE NORTH.  Pop 305,087.  O 62.0%.  54W/11B/28H.  Splits Fremont with 18, entirely within Lake.  Safe-ish D, modulo Bob Dold of course.

DISTRICT 21: MCHENRY-LAKE WEST.  Pop 304,757.  O 304,757.  O 51.1%.  You can do an all-McHenry district (with just maybe a couple precincts for another district), but that's not compatible with the low number of township splits I was able to make in Lake and north Cook.  So this is the rest of Lake, and most of McHenry.  Lean R for sure.

Part 2 coming next!

Nice work. I'll split my comments in two as well. First a comment about Chicago. There are a set of 77 historically defined Community Areas that can be used both for setting boundaries and for getting more meaningful names.

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

If you did that, you could make the traditional Proviso township - Oak Park - Austin district for one of the black district then link the rest of the west side through the Loop to the south side. You should still get six black-majority districts, and you don't even have to leave Cook.

There are lots of choices in the suburbs and yours seem as reasonable as most I've seen. For the record I'd note that you can expect about a 8-12% shift from Obama numbers to elections in 2014. When the Dems drew the legislative districts they used 2006 and 2010 statewide race results to avoid the Obama skew.

[traininthedistance]

Nice work. I'll split my comments in two as well. First a comment about Chicago. There are a set of 77 historically defined Community Areas that can be used both for setting boundaries and for getting more meaningful names.

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

If you did that, you could make the traditional Proviso township - Oak Park - Austin district for one of the black district then link the rest of the west side through the Loop to the south side. You should still get six black-majority districts, and you don't even have to leave Cook.

There are lots of choices in the suburbs and yours seem as reasonable as most I've seen. For the record I'd note that you can expect about a 8-12% shift from Obama numbers to elections in 2014. When the Dems drew the legislative districts they used 2006 and 2010 statewide race results to avoid the Obama skew.

I saw the Community Areas after I first drew the lines; it should be possible to line things up better to them especially if the fourth Latino district is axed.  I'm not surprised you'd need more than 50+1%, but nearly 60 percent is a bit higher than I expected.

I assume that by an 8-12% shift, you mean the margin shifts by that much rather than the Obama percentage?  I was going by the rule of thumb that a 50/50 district in the suburbs would have voted approximately 56 percent Obama in '08 (and a 50/50 downstate district would be a little closer but still pro-Obama), which presumably is a different way of saying the same thing.

I'll wait for your comments on downstate and put a revised IL on the to-do list.

[muon2]

Nice work. I'll split my comments in two as well. First a comment about Chicago. There are a set of 77 historically defined Community Areas that can be used both for setting boundaries and for getting more meaningful names.

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

If you did that, you could make the traditional Proviso township - Oak Park - Austin district for one of the black district then link the rest of the west side through the Loop to the south side. You should still get six black-majority districts, and you don't even have to leave Cook.

There are lots of choices in the suburbs and yours seem as reasonable as most I've seen. For the record I'd note that you can expect about a 8-12% shift from Obama numbers to elections in 2014. When the Dems drew the legislative districts they used 2006 and 2010 statewide race results to avoid the Obama skew.

I saw the Community Areas after I first drew the lines; it should be possible to line things up better to them especially if the fourth Latino district is axed.  I'm not surprised you'd need more than 50+1%, but nearly 60 percent is a bit higher than I expected.

I assume that by an 8-12% shift, you mean the margin shifts by that much rather than the Obama percentage?  I was going by the rule of thumb that a 50/50 district in the suburbs would have voted approximately 56 percent Obama in '08 (and a 50/50 downstate district would be a little closer but still pro-Obama), which presumably is a different way of saying the same thing.

I'll wait for your comments on downstate and put a revised IL on the to-do list.

No, I really meant that a 56% Obama district could be 54% GOP in 2014 if it's a tossup year. For example, there are suburban legislative districts that have a PVI of D+5 due to Obama 08 and were 56% for Obama in 2012. Yet if you calculate the districts' performance in the last two gubernatorial elections it's more like R+4, and so would be 54% GOP if the governor's race is as close as it was in 2010.

[traininthedistance]

Nice work. I'll split my comments in two as well. First a comment about Chicago. There are a set of 77 historically defined Community Areas that can be used both for setting boundaries and for getting more meaningful names.

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

If you did that, you could make the traditional Proviso township - Oak Park - Austin district for one of the black district then link the rest of the west side through the Loop to the south side. You should still get six black-majority districts, and you don't even have to leave Cook.

There are lots of choices in the suburbs and yours seem as reasonable as most I've seen. For the record I'd note that you can expect about a 8-12% shift from Obama numbers to elections in 2014. When the Dems drew the legislative districts they used 2006 and 2010 statewide race results to avoid the Obama skew.

I saw the Community Areas after I first drew the lines; it should be possible to line things up better to them especially if the fourth Latino district is axed.  I'm not surprised you'd need more than 50+1%, but nearly 60 percent is a bit higher than I expected.

I assume that by an 8-12% shift, you mean the margin shifts by that much rather than the Obama percentage?  I was going by the rule of thumb that a 50/50 district in the suburbs would have voted approximately 56 percent Obama in '08 (and a 50/50 downstate district would be a little closer but still pro-Obama), which presumably is a different way of saying the same thing.

I'll wait for your comments on downstate and put a revised IL on the to-do list.

No, I really meant that a 56% Obama district could be 54% GOP in 2014 if it's a tossup year. For example, there are suburban legislative districts that have a PVI of D+5 due to Obama 08 and were 56% for Obama in 2012. Yet if you calculate the districts' performance in the last two gubernatorial elections it's more like R+4, and so would be 54% GOP if the governor's race is as close as it was in 2010.

Well then!  Though I do wonder whether these districts would actually be R+4 in an election for the US House, rather than a statewide election.  And also, 2010 probably shouldn't be considered any more of a typical year than 2008- I would probably put the most stock in 2012 results, and then might actually trust 2004 over any of the intervening years, since 2006, 2008, and 2010 were all wave-ish.

[minionofmidas]

2006 wasn't wavish but freakish. Lots of (sometimes just vaguely) scandal-plagued Republicans - or the successor candidates after they were forced to bow out - doing very badly, elsewhere not that different from 2012.

[muon2]

Now Rockford and the northwest.  Finally exiting Chicagoland.



DISTRICT 29: ROCKFORD.  Pop 303,639.  O 56.1%.  76W/10B/11H.  Entirely within the Rockford metro; all of Boone and the vast majority of Winnebago.  NW Illinois held up better in 2012 than the rest of the state, so you could make a case that it in fact leans D now, but I'm still calling this Tossup.

DISTRICT 30: NORTHWEST ILLINOIS.  Pop 305,518.  O 50.8%.  Splits Winnebago with 29 and Whiteside with 31, which are the only splits for both of those districts.  Seven more whole counties, which include several micropolitan areas and even the edge of the Peoria metro, but really this district is heavily agricultural.  Another Lean R for Obama in '08 (but not in '12).


Central IL.



DISTRICT 31: ROCK ISLAND-MOLINE-MACOMB.  Pop 306,268.  O 56.5%.  The rest of Whiteside and seven more counties going down the Mississippi.  While there is plenty of farmland here, too, the Illinois half of the Quad Cities makes this a distinctly less rural district.  Lean D; it didn't do much better than all of those 55-56% Obama districts in '08, but it definitely did in '12 and in years past.

DISTRICT 32: PEORIA-GALESBURG-CANTON.  Pop304,130.  O 56.7%.  82W/11B.  Our first district entirely made of whole counties, it takes Peoria and four smaller ones to the west and south.  Lean D much like 31.

DISTRICT 33: OTTAWA-STREATOR-PONTIAC-WEST KANKAKEE.  Pop 305,666.  O 49.6%. (McCain was 48.7%.)  And, finally, the last split city (Kankakee, with 1) is dealt with.  The rest of Will (the ruralish parts) and Kankakee (the white parts); also LaSalle, Livingston, and Grundy.  A transitional district between south Chicagoland and Downstate.  Lean R though Obama won it, you know the drill by now.

DISTRICT 34: PRAIRIE DISTRICT THAT WANDERS ABOUT.  303,971.  O 45.0%.  Eight whole counties; Bloomington/Normal is the main population center and everything else is quite rural.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 35: WEST-CENTRAL ILLINOIS.  Pop 306,394.  O 44.4%.  Eleven whole counties, splits Sangamon with 37 (basically taking everything outside of Springfield proper) and Macoupin wih 39.  Quincy and Jacksonville are the main hubs here, I guess.  The Macoupin split is definitely unavoidable, and while I haven't rigorously proved the same for Sangamon, allowing 37 to be more urban/suburban and 35 to be more strongly rural appeals to my aesthetics.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 36: CHAMPAIGN-URBANA-DANVILLE.  Pop 302,686.  O 54.3%.  77W/10B.  Three counties: Champaign, Vermilliion, Douglas.  Romney won this by a smudge in 2012, though it was exceedingly close.  Tossup, though if you wanted to claim an R tilt that would also be reasonable.

DISTRICT 37: SPRINGFIELD-EAST PEORIA.  Pop 307,655.  O 49.7%.  (McCain 48.6%.)  Tazewell, Lincoln, and part of Sangamon including all of the city of Springfield.  Probably the most urban Central IL district, though 32 and 36 are also more metro than farm as well.  Yet another barely Obama-in-'08 Lean R.

DISTRICT 38: DECATUR-CHARLESTON-EFFINGHAM.  Pop 306,691.  O 45.1%.  Eight whole counties; Decatur is by far the largest population center and the rest is pretty rural.  I almost called this district "Round of Applause for Your Stepmother", for reasons that should hopefully be obvious to at least some of you by now.  Safe R.

Finally, Southern IL.



DISTRICT 39: MADISON-METRO EAST NORTH.  Pop 308,275.  O 53.8%.  Mostly Madison, also Bond and the more built-up southern portion of Macoupin; all within the St. Louis metro area.  It appears to be impossible to put Madison in a whole-counties district.  It's a Kerry-Romney district, so I guess Tossup is appropriate though maybe it's just trending R too much for that?

DISTRICT 40: MONROE-METRO EAST SOUTH.  Pop 307,818.  O 58.6%.  70W/25B.  Just Monroe and Clinton; really almost all Monroe.  The core of Metro East is here, including East St. Louis and some other towns that I'm sure are much nicer.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 41: WABASH-SOUTHEASTERN ILLINOIS. Pop 306,392.  O 42.8%.  Twenty counties.  No even mid-sized towns to speak of.  Farms and coal mining.  Safest R.

DISTRICT 42: CARBONDALE-LITTLE EGYPT.  Pop 308,263.  O 47.1%.  Ten counties along the Mississippi, from the southern reaches of the St. Louis metro (Monroe) to the Carbondale area down to Cairo at the very southern tip.  There's some ancestral Dem strength here, but any McCain district is basically Safe R here.

...

Six black-majority (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9); four Hispanic-majority (7, 8, 11, 12); one more min-maj (23).

18 Safe D
5 Lean D
6 Tossup
7 Lean R
6 Safe R

Given that Obama won Illinois by 16 points in 2012, that's pretty anemic for the Dems.  Illinois is one of the best examples we have of a state "naturally gerrymandered" in the Repub's favor, it's almost as if you need a moderate Dem gerrymander to represent the state fairly.

Anyway, now I sit back and wait for muon2 to rip this thing to shreds.  

As I said before, I generally like the plan. The only place I'd really complain is the chop of Sangamon to link Springfield with East Peoria. I suspect you can rework that, and perhaps improve the wandering district across central IL, too.

In the meantime I was looking at Chicagoland in more detail and discovered some fascinating things that occur in the 1000-district implementation. For instance, Cook county has the population for exactly 17 districts with less than 100 extra persons per district. Coincidentally, 17 districts is the number for the Cook County Board (13D-4R). DuPage county has the population for 3 districts with less than 200 extra per district. Lake + McHenry + Kane has the population for 5 districts with only 7 extra per district, and the three can be divided without splitting townships within the 1% limit.

So I drew it, including 6 black majority districts and 3 Latino districts over 60% HVAP. Here's how it looks with deviations and other stats:



Cook County 1-17
Dist 1 (-547): South Shore - Beverly; 68.7% BVAP, O'08: 88.1%
Dist 2 (+259): Chicago Heights; 56.8% BVAP, O'08: 82.9%
Dist 3 (+6): Roseland - Bremen; 56.5% BVAP, O'08: 86.8%
Dist 4 (-615): Englewood - Oak Lawn; 56.2% BVAP, O'08: 84.4%
Dist 5 (-428): Little Village; 68.3% HVAP, O'08: 82.7%
Dist 6 (+1308): Near West - Hyde Park; 56.5% BVAP, O'08: 92.9%
Dist 7 (+108): Cicero - Midway; 61.1% HVAP, O'08: 72.2%
Dist 8 (+1635): Logan Square; 60.9% HVAP, O'08: 84.7%
Dist 9 (-49): Orland Park; 84.6% WVAP, O'08: 52.2%
Dist 10 (+81): Austin - Proviso; 53.7% BVAP, O'08: 87.5%
Dist 11 (-16): Lincoln Park; 78.4% WVAP, O'08: 77.3%
Dist 12 (-708): Portage Park; 62.9% WVAP, O'08: 66.0%
Dist 13 (-607): Rogers Park; 55.1% WVAP, O'08: 82.8%
Dist 14 (+2937): Evanston; 71.7% WVAP, O'08: 69.1%
Dist 15 (+2955): Park Ridge; 67.7% WVAP, O'08: 60.2%
Dist 16 (-2137): Arlington Heights; 72.5% WVAP, O'08: 58.4%
Dist 17 (-2854): Schaumburg; 64.9% WVAP, O'08: 58.7%

DuPage County 18-20
Dist 18 (+560): Addison - Bloomingdale; 65.4% WVAP, O'08: 56.6%
Dist 19 (-152): Downers Grove; 78.8% WVAP, O'08: 53.5%
Dist 20 (+43): Naperville; 76.5% WVAP, O'08: 54.4%

Lake-McHenry-Kane Counties 21-25
Dist 21 (+129): Waukegan; 59.6% WVAP, O'08: 66.8%
Dist 22 (-473): Mundelein; 73.1% WVAP, O'08: 55.2%
Dist 23 (+188): McHenry; 87.2% WVAP, O'08: 51.5%
Dist 24 (-2351): Elgin; 70.0% WVAP, O'08: 54.2%
Dist 25 (+2543): Aurora; 64.5% WVAP, O'08: 55.0%

[jimrtex]

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

I saw the Community Areas after I first drew the lines; it should be possible to line things up better to them especially if the fourth Latino district is axed.  I'm not surprised you'd need more than 50+1%, but nearly 60 percent is a bit higher than I expected.

Do the courts in Illinois make a distinction between the Mexican and Puerto Rican districts?

[muon2]

I would avoid the messy fourth Latino district. The court uses 59.2% HVAP as the threshold for minority performance, so 60% is probably the right benchmark. I would have two on the southside, one which was entirely in the city with Little Village and Back of the Yards, and one based on Cicero extending to the Midway Airport region. I would only have one on the north entirely in the city including Logan Square, Irving Park and Belmont-Craigin. You might then group Addison township, Leyden township, Melrose Park, and some parts of Chicago to Portage Park to make a Hispanic influence district. For fun, you can play with a very messy 50% HVAP district that links Aurora and Elgin, though I wouldn't recommend it in a map that is otherwise clean like yours.

I saw the Community Areas after I first drew the lines; it should be possible to line things up better to them especially if the fourth Latino district is axed.  I'm not surprised you'd need more than 50+1%, but nearly 60 percent is a bit higher than I expected.

Do the courts in Illinois make a distinction between the Mexican and Puerto Rican districts?

No. Even back in 1991 when they first ruled on the congressional plan, they put all Hispanics together. In any case, the PR population is now much less than the Mexican population, though many community leaders are often of PR extraction. The SE appendage on dist 8 in my plan is a connection to the historical PR neighborhood.

[muon2]

In the meantime I was looking at Chicagoland in more detail and discovered some fascinating things that occur in the 1000-district implementation. For instance, Cook county has the population for exactly 17 districts with less than 100 extra persons per district. Coincidentally, 17 districts is the number for the Cook County Board (13D-4R). DuPage county has the population for 3 districts with less than 200 extra per district. Lake + McHenry + Kane has the population for 5 districts with only 7 extra per district, and the three can be divided without splitting townships within the 1% limit.

So I drew it, including 6 black majority districts and 3 Latino districts over 60% HVAP. Here's how it looks with deviations and other stats:



Cook County 1-17
Dist 1 (-547): South Shore - Beverly; 68.7% BVAP, O'08: 88.1%
Dist 2 (+259): Chicago Heights; 56.8% BVAP, O'08: 82.9%
Dist 3 (+6): Roseland - Bremen; 56.5% BVAP, O'08: 86.8%
Dist 4 (-615): Englewood - Oak Lawn; 56.2% BVAP, O'08: 84.4%
Dist 5 (-428): Little Village; 68.3% HVAP, O'08: 82.7%
Dist 6 (+1308): Near West - Hyde Park; 56.5% BVAP, O'08: 92.9%
Dist 7 (+108): Cicero - Midway; 61.1% HVAP, O'08: 72.2%
Dist 8 (+1635): Logan Square; 60.9% HVAP, O'08: 84.7%
Dist 9 (-49): Orland Park; 84.6% WVAP, O'08: 52.2%
Dist 10 (+81): Austin - Proviso; 53.7% BVAP, O'08: 87.5%
Dist 11 (-16): Lincoln Park; 78.4% WVAP, O'08: 77.3%
Dist 12 (-708): Portage Park; 62.9% WVAP, O'08: 66.0%
Dist 13 (-607): Rogers Park; 55.1% WVAP, O'08: 82.8%
Dist 14 (+2937): Evanston; 71.7% WVAP, O'08: 69.1%
Dist 15 (+2955): Park Ridge; 67.7% WVAP, O'08: 60.2%
Dist 16 (-2137): Arlington Heights; 72.5% WVAP, O'08: 58.4%
Dist 17 (-2854): Schaumburg; 64.9% WVAP, O'08: 58.7%

DuPage County 18-20
Dist 18 (+560): Addison - Bloomingdale; 65.4% WVAP, O'08: 56.6%
Dist 19 (-152): Downers Grove; 78.8% WVAP, O'08: 53.5%
Dist 20 (+43): Naperville; 76.5% WVAP, O'08: 54.4%

Lake-McHenry-Kane Counties 21-25
Dist 21 (+129): Waukegan; 59.6% WVAP, O'08: 66.8%
Dist 22 (-473): Mundelein; 73.1% WVAP, O'08: 55.2%
Dist 23 (+188): McHenry; 87.2% WVAP, O'08: 51.5%
Dist 24 (-2351): Elgin; 70.0% WVAP, O'08: 54.2%
Dist 25 (+2543): Aurora; 64.5% WVAP, O'08: 55.0%

Here's my take on the rest of the map. Will is split of course, and also Winnebago and DeKalb. Everything else is whole counties and within 1%. I've included the population deviations and '08 numbers, too.



Dist 26 (+405): Plainfield; O'08: 57.7%
Dist 27 (+1376): Joliet; O'08: 54.3%
Dist 28 (-505): Kankakee - Danville; O'08: 49.5%
Dist 29 (+2503): Rockford; O'08: 55.9%
Dist 30 (-858): DeKalb - Freeport; O'08: 52.1%
Dist 31 (+2451): Rock Island; O'08: 57.7%
Dist 32 (+2023): Peoria; O'08: 56.8%
Dist 33 (-2253): Oswego - LaSalle-Peru; O'08: 50.6%
Dist 34 (-40): Bloomington; O'08: 47.3%
Dist 35 (-2721): Pekin - Quincy; O'08: 45.1%
Dist 36 (-3054): Decatur; O'08: 48.1%
Dist 37 (-1797): Springfield; O'08: 49.6%
Dist 38 (+2865): Champaign; O'08: 53.8%
Dist 39 (+1553): Edwardsville; O'08: 52.6%
Dist 40 (-2478): Belleville; O'08: 58.5%
Dist 41 (-154): Mt Vernon; O'08: 41.5%
Dist 42 (+195): Carbondale; O'08: 46.8%

[Miles]

muon, I'm really impressed as to how well you know Illinois.

'just thought I'd say that

[Gass3268]

muon, I'm really impressed as to how well you know Illinois.

'just thought I'd say that

Muon: Ever thought about drawing a normal non-partisan map of the state? Right Miles?

[Abhakhazia]

Using Obama '08 numbers says nothing in Illinois. It was a veritable landslide in the state. To get a more accurate picture you should use '12 (for a more D IL) or '04 (for a more R IL)

[muon2]

Using Obama '08 numbers says nothing in Illinois. It was a veritable landslide in the state. To get a more accurate picture you should use '12 (for a more D IL) or '04 (for a more R IL)

O'08 is all that DRA has for IL. Some mix of 04-12 would be better but isn't available without quite a bit of work.

[traininthedistance]

At long last, the big kahuna.   Well, third-biggest.

New York.

Funny thing about NY: the 63 districts it would get in a 1,000-seat House is exactly the same as the 63 State Senate seats it currently has.  So this map doubles as an alternative State Senate map!  Another reason I spent so long on trying to get it "right".  Mind you, the race ratings I'm giving are for hypothetical Congressional seats; Republicans should be expected to overperform somewhat in State Senate races along these lines, since many would have the power of incumbency and the national Republican brand would be less of a burden.

New York's counties are completely subdivided into towns (or cities), and many areas are also subdivided into villages, which can span multiple towns.  Obviously, I prioritized keeping towns together rather than villages.  No towns are split north of Westchester/Rockland, each of those counties must split one town.  Many towns are split in Nassau and Suffolk, since many of those towns are huge; I tried to mostly keep to village lines, but the districts in DRA don't always line up perfectly, and I did also split a couple extra villages for the purpose of making a minority-majority district in Suffolk.

County splits are legion, and mostly unavoidable.  With the caveat that I have not rigorously tested all permutations (only most of the sensible ones), a couple are avoidable but worth it anyway.  Two districts straddle Nassau/Suffolk, one for the North Shore and one for the South Shore.  There is also one case in Upstate where, after going back and forth, I actually declined to make a possible district entirely of whole counties for the benefit of a neighboring district's CoI concerns.  Briefly, I decided it was better to have Binghamton attached to Ithaca rather than both cities be in separate districts which wandered into Onondaga, and because of population constraints in Cortland, it had to eat into what was initially a whole county Elmira/Southern Tier district instead.    But I'm getting way, way ahead of myself.  

Gonna do this in three parts: Long Island, NYC, and Upstate.

The whole state:



And Long Island:



DISTRICT 1: EAST END-BROOKHAVEN SOUTH.  Pop 309,560. O 54.2%, D 55.9%.  76W/15H.  Shelter Island, North Fork (Riverhead, Southold) and the South Fork (East Hampton, Southampton) are joined by the southern portion of giant Brookhaven for our easternmost district.  It's more South Shore than North Shore, especially since the South Fork is bigger anyway, but it's more East than anything.  Lots of beaches and vacation homes, still a few farms.  Lean D (This likely translates to a tossup for State Senate; you can probably assume a similar translation for most of Long Island FWIW.)

DISTRICT 2: BROOKHAVEN NORTH.  Pop 306,091.  O 51.6%, D 55.0%.  The northern half of Brookhaven, which, again, is huge.  (Close to 500K and all the way from North Shore to South.)  Tossup-ish; if pressed I'd say it tilts D for Congress and R for State Senate.

DISTRICT 3: SMITHTOWN-RONKONKOMA-ISLIP EAST.  Pop 309,609.  O 44.3%, D 48.1%.  All of Smithtown, most of Islip, and it has to take a few final precincts in Brookhaven.  Straddling the North and South Shore is a bit of a faux pas, but  this district is mainly shaped the way it is to accommodate the minority-majority 5.  And since this number of town splits is unavoidable, better to split the larger and more minority-heavy Islip (which must be split anyway) than Smithtown or Huntington (which are kept whole).  Safe R.

DISTRICT 4: HUNTINGTON-GLEN COVE-OYSTER BAY NORTH.  Pop 309,849.  O 52.5%, D 53.8%.  79W/10H.  All of Huntington in Suffolk; parts of Oyster Bay and all of Glen Cove in Nassau.  In other words, the North Shore.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 5: BABYLON NORTH-CENTRAL ISLIP-BRENTWOOD.  Pop 306,708.  O 66.5%, D 68.4%.  42W/18B/35H.  Our final all-Suffolk district, it takes in the remainder of Islip and most of Babylon (the portions not next to the water), uniting most of the county's minority-heavy communities.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 6: MASSAPEQUA- SOUTH SHORE.  Pop 309,073.  O 44.7%, D 48.1%.  The most heavily South Shore district, it takes in the southern portions of Babylon (in Suffolk), Oyster Bay, and the southeastern corner of Hempstead (in Nassau).  Peter King central, Safe R.

DISTRICT 7: NORTH HEMPSTEAD-HICKSVILLE. Pop 309,768.  O 54.9%, D 57.4%.  67W/11H/15A.  All of North Hempstead and the rest of Oyster Bay (splitting the north half with 4).  A pretty straightforward North Shore district.  Lean D (though not necessarily for State Senate of course).

DISTRICT 8: HEMPSTEAD CENTRAL.  Pop 308,844.  O 63.6%, D 63.2%.  47W/23B/23H.  As big as Brookhaven is, Hempstead is even larger- nearly three districts large.  There are actually four districts in Hempstead, because it has to take in South Shore parts to the east and one district also has to cross into NYC, but there are essentially two all-Hempstead districts.  This is the eastern all-Hempstead district, drawn to follow village lines as close as possible and also to be majority-minority.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 9: HEMPSTEAD WEST-LONG BEACH.  Pop 307,221.    O 51.6%, D 54.0%.  71W/13H.  The other Hempstead district, also including Long Beach, which is surrounded.  With the Five Towns, and without most of the minority-heavy areas in town (which are given to 8 or 11), this district is much swingier.  Tossup (and probably an R lean in State Senate context).

[traininthedistance]

Onto NYC!  

Queens (and a better view of those Nassau County districts):



DISTRICT 10: ROCKAWAYS-JFK.  Pop 307,236.  O 83.1%, D 84.0%.  19W/50W/16H.  Also includes South Ozone Park and a couple other neighborhoods in heavily black and middle-class southeastern Queens, but I don't want the name to get unwieldy.  Our first of seven black-majority districts in the city, and given that it has to take all of the Rockaways, the barest majority of all of them.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 11 QUEENS VILLAGE-HOLLIS-ELMONT.  Pop 306,369.  O 84.2%, D 84.4%.  18W/53B/12H/12A.  This is the district that splits NYC and Nassau, taking AA-majority Elmont and a couple nearby villages to add to a large swath of SE Queens.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 12: PELHAM-THROGS NECK-WHITESTONE.  Pop 307,020.  O 69.2%, D 71.4%.  42W/16B/31H/10A.  This district got pushed further and further out into the Bronx as I kept revising things, and is now mostly a Bronx district that you'll see better when we get to the Manhattan/Bronx closeup.  Parts of Queens including Little Neck and some of Bayside are joined to the eastern Bronx- Throgs Neck, Pelham (Bay, Bay Park, Gardens, Parkway), etc.  This district was drawn to accommodate the VRA districts it's surrounded by, and is still maj-min.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 13: GREATER FLUSHING.  Pop 306,049.  O 64.6%, D 69.2%.  29W/13H/52A.  Starts in Flushing and runs east to the city line in Douglaston.  Most Asian district in the country outside of Hawaii and the San Jose area (I assume there will be an Asian--majority district or two there.)  Safe D.

DISTRICT 14: JACKSON HEIGHTS-CORONA-COLLEGE POINT.  Pop 307,194.  O 80.1%, D 82.3%.  15W/60H/17A.  The College Point bit is kind of separated from the rest of the district, but I decided I'd rather do that than break up Astoria, and I wanted to make room for an Asian-plurality district to the south (16) and unpack this heavily-Hispanic area somewhat.  LaGuardia is here too.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 15:  ASTORIA-LONG ISLAND CITY-MIDDLE VILLAGE.  Pop 307,665.  O 71.5%, D 72.4%.  55W/25H/13A.  Queens' token white district.  The urban and liberal areas along the East River (Astoria, Long Island City), connected by necessity to the less-dense inland neighborhoods of Maspeth and Middle Village via diverse Sunnyside.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 16:  QUEENS BOULEVARD-ELMHURST-FOREST HILLS.  Pop 305,860.  O 68.2%, D 72.3%. 36W/22H/36A.  This district has a bare Asian plurality, 36.3% by VAP as opposed to 36.0% for whites; the cutout of the Orthodox community in Kew Gardens Hills (given to 17) was done to ensure this.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 17.  OZONE PARK-JAMAICA.  Pop 306,713.  O 72.3%, D 75.2%.  26W/10B/33H/23A.  A lot of mixed precincts in this very melting pot district (a slight Hispanic plurality, but no one group dominates), the final one all in Queens.  Much of what is called "Jamaica" is in 10 and 11, but the central part is here.  Safe D.

Brooklyn and Staten Island:



DISTRICT 18: BUSHWICK-RIDGEWOOD-CYPRESS HILLS.  Pop 308,332.  O 88.5%, D 89.9%.  22W/14B/53H.  The obvious Brooklyn-Queens district, and Brooklyn's only Hispanic-majority district.  Also includes East Williamsburg.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 19: EAST NEW YORK-CANARSIE-BELT PARKWAY.  Pop 309,578.  O 85.7%, D 87.0%.  22W/58B/16H.  With two black-majority districts in Brooklyn right now, you need to have at least four if you want to more than double the districts, and they'll need to be unpacked somehow.  I don't think five is quite possible, though, and even if it was it would have to make complete mincemeat of all the the other communities in Brooklyn.  So four it is.  This one runs along Jamaica Bay in southeast Brooklyn, from Broadway Junction in the north down to Manhattan Beach.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 20.  EAST FLATBUSH-FLATLANDS-SHEEPSHEAD BAY.  Pop 308,342.  O 81.7%, D 84.7%.  25W/58B.  Our second black-majority district, and the second of two (with 19) to unpack things by going south.  I tried to avoid the obvious Orthodox areas, because, well, they're getting themselves a district too.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 21.  CROWN HEIGHTS-FLATBUSH-KENSINGTON.  Pop 307,389.  O 89.7%, D 90.6%.  20W/57B/14H.  A good deal more Democratic even as it's slightly less black, since the whites in Ditmas Park and Kensington are more liberal than the whites in Sheepshead Bay and Gerritsen Beach.  I live here!  Safe D.

DISTRICT 22: BED STUY-FORT GREENE.   Pop 308,787.  O 97.3%, D 96.6%.  18W/59B/16H.  McCain got all of 2,591 votes here.  That many?  Downtown Brooklyn is split with 27 here.  Safest D there is.

DISTRICT 23: BORO PARK-MIDWOOD-GRAVESEND.  Pop 309,541.  O 32.0% (!!!), D 46.1%.  75W/10H/12A.  The NYJew district.  I'm sure it's not a perfect pack- Gravesend is not monolithic, but it fits here on the way to Brighton Beach, and a few Orthodox precincts surely escaped to 19, 20, and maybe 21.  Not the most Republican by Dem average, but yes Virginia, that's a 32% Obama district entirely within Brooklyn.  Zounds.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 24: SUNSET PARK-BENSONHURST.  Pop 307,557.  O 63.2%, D 67.8%.  35W/26H/36A.  Yep, Asian plurality.  Bet you didn't realize that Bensonhurst is almost half-Asian now!  Safe D.

DISTRICT 25: STATEN ISLAND SOUTH.  Pop 307,863.  O 38.0%, D 42.6%.  All of Staten Island south of the Expressway, and a few precincts above it to fill things out.  I think it's mightily hilarious that the two most anti-Obama districts in the state are both within NYC.  Anyway, Safe R.

DISTRICT 26: STATEN ISLAND NORTH-BAY RIDGE-CONEY ISLAND.  Pop 308,308.  O 64.3%, D 65.1%.  52W/15B/21H/11A.  North Shore, and nearby parts of Brooklyn that don't fit in either the Orthodox or the Asian-plurality district.  Majority-minority by total population.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 27: GENTRIFICATION CENTRAL.  Pop 309,134.  O 85.4%, D 86.2%.  64W/20H.  Brownstone Brooklyn, in an arc along the East River from Greenpoint and Williamsburg in the north, through Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, BoCoCa, down to Park Slope and Windsor Terrace.  A little bit of Alphabet City in Manhattan is added to fill out population.  Basically, this is where the hipsters all used to live, until they got priced out by the yuppies.  Not gonna lie- if I ever got rich, this is where I'd want to live.  Safe D.

Manhattan and the Bronx.  You can get a better look at District 12 here as well.



DISTRICT 28: DOWNTOWN.  Pop 308,780.  O 84.1%, D 82.5%.  59W/10H/25A.  The southern portion of Manhattan, roughly everything below 14th St.  Financial District, Chinatown, SoHo, all the various Villages, yadda yadda yadda.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 29: EAST SIDE.  Pop 309,043.  O 75.5%, D 70.3%.  77W/11A.  Includes Roosevelt Island, and runs up to the famous dividing line of 96th St.  With Central Park and the office-heavy, population-light Midtown in District 30, this might be the most densely-populated district in the nation, cramming over 300K rich people into what looks like ~2 square miles.  28, 31, 32, and 35 are close, though.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 30: MIDTOWN-WEST SIDE.  Pop 309,813.  O 84.6%, D 82.1%.  70W/11H/12A.  The northern reaches of the Upper West Side are given to 31 and 32; can't get all the neighborhoods exact.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 31: HARLEM.  Pop 307,133.  O 95.5%, D 94.7%.  16W/43B/34H.  You can't make a black-majority district in Harlem anymore, but Harlem plus Spanish Harlem plus Manhattanville does get you a black-plurality district, still.  Who knows for how long?  If it wasn't for Randall's Island this district might be even denser than 29, it's pretty close.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 32: WASHINGTON HEIGHTS-MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS-INWOOD.  O 91.1%, D 91.0%.  28W/10B/55H.  The far Upper West Side along the Hudson, running north to take the northern tip of the island, and Marble Hill (which is on the mainland, but is part of Manhattan).  NYC's third Hispanic-majority district.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 33: SOUTH BRONX.  Pop 307,773.  O 95.4%, D 96.5%.  31B/65H.  Less than two percent white!  It is likely possible to spaghetti-string things in the Bronx so you have four barely Hispanic-majority districts rather than three heavily-Hispanic districts and the mixed 12, but it would probably be pretty ugly, and everyone seems to say you need rather more than 50% to elect a candidate of choice.  (Not that such a thing should prevent, say, the Bushwick/Ridgewood district, where you can't get to 60 percent but you can get a majority quite compactly.)  Safe D.

DISTRICT 34:  SOUNDVIEW-HUNTS POINT-EAST TREMONT.  Pop 306,785.  O 93.3%, D 94.7%.  30B/60H.  3.8 percent white, twice as much as the last one.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 35:  FORDHAM-KINGSBRIDGE-UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS.  Pop 306,797.  O 91.7%, D 92.5%.  22B/64H.  It's not always easy to decide which neighborhoods get top billing here.  Anyway, here's another tiny district in the running for "densest in the nation".  Safe D.

District 36, which has the rest of the Bronx, will be dealt with in Part 3.

[traininthedistance]

Part 3.  

Rockland, Westchester, the northern edge of the Bronx.



DISTRICT 36: WILLIAMSBRIDGE-RIVERDALE-MOUNT VERNON.  Pop 307,053.  O 86.0%, D 85.6%.  24W/51B/20H.  The northern tier of Bronx neighborhoods, and Mount Vernon and Pelham in Westchester.  Our final VRA district; you can't make anything that's not plurality white in Upstate, and if you're refraining from splitting towns then even maj-min is impossible.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 37: YONKERS-SOUTHWEST WESTCHESTER.  Pop 305,439.  O 63.2%, D 63.2%.  54W/13B/24H.  All of Yonkers and Eastchester, all of Greenburgh except for Tarrytown.  The towns are large enough that you need a split somewhere here, luckily I could get it along village lines.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 38: NEW ROCHELLE-WHITE PLAINS- EAST WESTCHESTER.  Pop 309,410.  O 63.6%, D 61.5%.  62W/23H.  Whole towns and cities on the east side of the county, from New Rochelle in the south to Mt. Kisco and Bedford in the north.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 39: NORTH WESTCHESTER-SOUTH PUTNAM.  Pop 307,271. O 55.6%, D 56.7%.  75W/15H.  The rest of Westchester and two towns in Putnam.  Can't avoid all these county splits, and especially down here it's better to not cross the Hudson (though the population math works out that one district will have to cross it anyway).  Lean D, though not if this was a State Senate race of course.

DISTRICT 40: ROCKLAND.  Pop 307, 311.  O 52.7%, D 59.0%.  65W/12B/15H.  While Rockland was the perfect size for a district in the 62-seat Senate, it does need a small bite taken out of it when we go to 63.  Sloatsburg and Hillburn (from Ramapo town) will do nicely- and that is the last split town in the state.  Since the Dem average is likely inflated due to Eliot Engel's overperformance here, I'll go with Tossup to be prudent.

Pan up (and out) to the Hudson Valley and Central NY.



DISTRICT 41: ORANGE-NEWBURGH-WEST POINT.  Pop 305,343.  O 50.0%, D 53.9%.  74W/14H.  Except for the little bite of Rockland, this is an all-Orange district, missing only Middletown and a couple surrounding towns (the county is too big for one district).  Eh, Lean R.

DISTRICT 42: ULSTER-SOUTH CATSKIlLLS.  Pop 304,975.  O 60.2%, D 59.3%.  78W/11H.  Basically an Ulster County district, but it also takes from three surrounding counties: Orange (with 41), Sullivan (with 43), and Dutchess (with  44 and 45).  Population dictates that I had to cross the Hudson sometime, and this was that time.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 43: NORTH CATSKILLS-LEATHERSTOCKING.  Pop 305,681.  O 47.7%, D 48.1%. All of four counties (Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie), almost all of Greene (46 needs to take one town for population), and parts of Broome and Sulivan.  A largely rural area, mostly mountainous but with a little bit of the Hudson Valley.  I tried to see if the Ulster district could go north and retreat from Sullivan, which would have been prettier, but I couldn't make it work without an extra county split.  Lean R rather strongly.

DISTRICT 44: POUGHKEEPSIE-HUDSON VALLEY MID-EAST.  Pop 305,177.  76W/10H.  O 52.3%, D 52.9%.  Most of Putnam and Dutchess, working up the exurban eastern banks of the Hudson.  Tossup at a national level, probably more R than that for a State Senate seat.

DISTRICT 45: RENSSELAER- HUDSON VALLEY UPPER EAST.  Pop 306,186.  O 53.5%, D 55.5%.  Working up the rest of the east bank of the Hudson, the rest of Dutchess and all of Columbia, Rensselaer, and Washington.  Tossup?

DISTRICT 46: ALBANY.  Pop 307,574.  O 63.6%, D 64.8%.  79W/10B.  All of Albany County and one town in Greene to fill things out.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 47: SCHENECTADY-SARATOGA.  Pop 310,249.  O 53.6%, D 54.8%.  All of Schenectady and half (more than that by population) of Saratoga, sharing the Capital Region with 45 and 46.  Part of a compact whole-county group with 50, something I was not able to do very much on this map.  Erm, Tossup.

DISTRICT 48: ITHACA-BINGHAMTON.  Pop 307,990.  O 58.1%, D 56.6%.  All of Tompkins, most of Broome, and a bit of Tioga to connect them.  As mentioned in the  intro, my first draft had the Binghamton district go north to the Syracuse suburbs through Cortland, while Ithaca was attached to the Finger Lakes district.  It also allowed 58 to be whole counties.  Then I decided that Binghamton-Syracuse was sufficiently bad CoI, and Ithaca-Binghamton sufficiently better (seeing as both are Southern Tier-inflected cities), that it was worth connecting the two, and the population of Cortland forced me to break up Tioga County instead.  Anyway, 58 is still sealed off in whole counties to the west, so Western NY and the North Country is a separate grouping from the rest of the state.  Lean D pretty strongly.

DISTRICT 49:  UTICA-ROME.  Pop 308,320.  O 46.9%, D 51.8%.  Madison and Oneida counties!  The only one of those I made.  Lean R.

DISTRICT 50:  MOHAWK VALLEY-GLENS FALLS-SOUTH ADIRONDACK.  Pop 304,897.  O 46.5%, D 48.2%.  The rest of Saratoga, all of Warren, Hamilton, Fulton, Montgomery, Herkimer.  Utica and Rome are part of the Mowhawk Valley too, but you know what I mean.  Lean R, but pretty much just safe in a State Senate context.

Closer in on Syracuse and Watertown.



DISTRICT 51: NORTH COUNTRY.  Pop 306,757.  O 57.5%, D 59.2%.  Clinton, Franklin, St. Lawrence, Essex, and split Jefferson with 52; Plattsburgh, more Adirondacks, and a lot of area that votes increasingly like Canada.  Lean D, will probably be safe soon if trends continue.

DISTRICT 52: WATERTOWN-OSWEGO.  Pop 307,711.  O 49.9%, D 53.8%.  Most of Jefferson, all of Oswego and Lewis, and a couple towns in Onondaga.  A little Adriondacks, the Watertown area, and the northern Syracuse metro area.  Obama barely won in 08, so Lean R.

DISTRICT 53: SYRACUSE.  Pop 307,784.  O 63.7%, D 64.4%.  76W/13B.  Entirely Onondaga, the city of Syracuse and surrounding towns.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 54: FINGER LAKES-SOUTH ONONDAGA-CORTLAND.  Pop 307,685.  O 52.6%, D 54.0%.  All of Cayuga, Seneca, and Cortland; the rest of Onondaga (southern and western 'Cuse burbs), and parts of Ontario around the Finger Lakes, such as Geneva and Canandaiuga.  The original district, before I changed around things here, had Yates and Tompkins, and lost Cortland and most of its Onondaga portion, and was more Democratic (of course, 48 was less so).  Tossup, possibly has a D tilt for federal elections and an R tilt for statewide ones.

And, finally Western NY.  Rochester and Buffalo.



DISTRICT 55: WAYNE-LIVINGSTON-EAST ROCHESTER COUNTRYSIDE.  Pop 305,099.  O 46.0%, D 48.1%.  Mostly those two counties of Rochester exurbs, connected by the rest of Ontario and dipping into exurban south Monroe as necessary to accommodate whole-town districts in the inner Rochester metro.  Lean R strongly.

DISTRICT 56: SUBURBAN MONROE.  Pop 308,022.  O 53.4%, D 56.4%.  A ring around the Rochester.   Lean D, but not by much.

DISTRICT 57: ROCHESTER.  Pop 304,898.  O 70.5%, D 69.4%.  Rochester, Irondequoit, Webster, Safe D.

DISTRICT 58: SOUTHERN TIER.  Pop 305,169.  O 44.0%, D 44.9%.  Allegany, Steuben, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, half of Tioga.  Elmira is the largest city in this rather rural and Safe R district.

DISTRICT 59: NIAGARA.  Pop 309,095.  O 51.8%, D 47.6%.  Most of Niagara County, also Tonawanada and Grand Island because they need to go here to let 62 and 63 be whole towns.  Western NY is the one part of the state where the Dem average is, if anything, low (on account of Carl Paladino's home-region effect), so Tossup for a federal race.  (Lean R in-state, of course.)

DISTRICT 60: HOLLAND PURCHASE.  Pop 305,389.  O 40.6%, D 39.0%.  Mostly rural Western NY with some small towns and the fringes of both Buffalo and Rochester- all of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming, eastern Erie, and the rest of Monroe and Niagara.  Safe R, in fact safest R by the 2010 averages.  (Both Republican NYC districts were more anti-Obama, though.)

DISTRICT 61: CHAUTAUQUA-CATTARAUGUS-SOUTHWEST ERIE.  Pop 310,224. O 48.6%, D 45.3%.  Self-explanatory, the rest of the Southern Tier and some Buffalo burbs as necessary for population.  Another pretty strong Lean R.

DISTRICT 62: BUFFALO SUBURBS.  Pop 308,224.  O 52.9%, D 48.9%.  First of two all-Erie districts: Amherst, Cheektowaga, Lancaster, West Seneca, Elma.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 63: BUFFALO.  Pop 308,515.  O 75.1%, D 70.2%.  58W/30B. Buffalo, Lackawanna, and Orchard Park is the only way to get whole towns here.  No, it's not touch-point, though there's not much connection between Orchard Park and the rest.  Safe D.

…

Whew.  

Lots of VRA opportunities.  We've got seven black-majority districts (10, 11, 19, 20, 21, 22, 36); six Hispanic-majority districts (14, 18, 32, 33, 34, 35); and one Asian-majority district (13).  In addition, there's one more black-plurality district (31), one Hispanic-plurality district (17), and two Asian-plurality districts (16 and 24).  Several white-plurality districts are majority-minority, as well (4, 8, 12, and 26 by total population only).

Safe D 34
Lean D 6
Tossup 10
Lean R 7
Safe R  6

If we're translating these numbers to the State Senate, it's probably a good rule of thumb to assume that most of the Lean Ds are actually Tossups, and most of the Tossups are actually Lean R.  (A couple of the Lean Ds, in particular Ithaca/Binghamton and North Country, are probably strong enough to remain Lean D for state races, though.)

[traininthedistance]

Washington, Washington, 22 districts large, made of radiation.

(Not really.)

Two things that I've been trying to do with these maps is make whole-county groupings, especially in the South and West where such things are important, and maximize VRA opportunities, all while trying to stick to maps that reflect the state's overall partisan lean.  And Washington is pretty bad on both of those first two goals, worse than you'd expect.  The state is only 72% white, and yet with 22 districts you can't really do anything better than one measly maj-min district in King County, which is still white-plurality.  There's a sizable Hispanic population around Yakima, a la California's Central Valley, but it's not quite big enough by VAP, even with some ugliness (and I'm sure not close by CVAP).  And, as for minimizing county splits, there are multiple instances where keeping things contiguous by road (or ferry) forces extra splits, or at least very very strongly recommends them.  Ferry connections are important here- some islands have no road access otherwise.  And, no, I wasn't going to even think of crossing the Cascades twice to see if that would help.  There's exactly one crossing, in the south, and that's as it should be.

The "D" figure is the 2010 Senate Race, which is clearly R-leaning but not crazily so (like Massachusetts).  The truth in an even year probably lies exactly in the middle of both numbers.

Anyway, the state:



A little closer in Eastern Washington.



DISTRICT 1: SPOKANE-SPOKANE VALLEY.  Pop 307,092.  O 52.7%, D 48.6%.  Entirely within Spokane County, almost entirely within the metro's center city and largest suburb.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 2: OUTER SPOKANE-PULLMAN-WALLA WALLA.  Pop 306,223.  O 41.5%, D 37.2%.  Rest of Spokane and six more whole counties mostly to the south.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 3: TRI-CITIES-MOSES LAKE.  Pop 304,359.  O 36.0%, D 34.5%.  69W/25H.  Once I determined that a VRA district that winded around Yakima, Pasco, and various farming areas in Eastern Washington was not actually possible, the obvious move was to let the Tri-Cities and Yakima each anchor separate districts.  The Tri-Cities metro (Benton and Franklin) gets you most of the way there, then it has to go north, taking in Adams and part of Grant (the district boundary follows Moses Lake's city line).  Safe R.

DISTRICT 4: GRAND COULEE.  Pop 305,571.  O 41.1%, D 35.5%.  77W/17H.  Six whole counties in the northern portion of Eastern Washington, most of Kittias, part of Grant.  Most of the state's Native reservations are here, in this largest and most rural of districts.  Wenatchee is the largest town, fwiw.  Safe R.

DISTRICT 5: YAKIMA VALLEY-SOUTHERN CASCADES.  Pop 303,461.  O 43.8%, D 37.3%.  63W/31H.  Most of the population is in Yakima, but it also has to take the rest of Kittias and then go west- Klickitat, Skamania, and half of Lewis.  U.S. 12 and the Columbia River help cross the Cascades here.  This is the most Hispanic district in the state, but it's still Safe R.

A quick look at Lewis and Clark (and Cowlitz):



DISTRICT 6: VANCOUVER.  Pop 304,402.  O 54.8%, D 48.4%.  Southern Clark County; Vancouver and some suburbs.  It's impossible to line the district up perfectly with town lines, since the precincts don't cooperate much, but this is pretty close.  Tossup.  

DISTRICT 7: NORTHERN CLARK-LONGVIEW-LONG BEACH.  Pop 303,138.  O 48.7%, D 42.4%.  The rest of Lewis and Clark; all of Cowlitz (Longview), Wahkiakum, and Pacific- this lets 3 thru 7 be a whole-county grouping, sadly the only other one I could muster.  Dem-leaning Longview and Pacific are outvoted by Lewis and the Clark exurbs to create a Lean R district that McCain won very narrowly.

Thurston, Pierce, King, and Kitsap:



DISTRICT 8: OLYMPIC.  Pop 305,595.  O 55.8%, D 51.7%.  Clallam, Jefferson, Mason, Gray's Harbor, and Thurston west of Olympia- aka, the Olympic Peninsula and parts nearby.  My first draft tried to make a district 9 with all of Thurston, but that had serious problems trying to fill out 8.  It couldn't go into the Kitsap district, because then to keep it contiguous by road Tacoma would have had to be split.  So I tried to cross the Puget Sound with the ferry to Whidbey Island… but Island County is not self-contiguous (Whidbey and Camano appear to have no connections) and it would have forced multiple splits up in Skagit that still may not have been contiguous… bleh.  Eventually I realized keeping Thurston together was more trouble than it was worth and had this timber-flavored district encroach on the Olympia area instead.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 9: OLYMPIA-FORT LEWIS.  Pop 305,269.  O 57.1%, D 53.5%.  The rest of Thurston and part of Pierce; Fort Lewis and a couple towns on the other side.  McNeil and Anderson Islands are connected by ferry to Steiliacoom.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 10:  KITSAP-GIG HARBOR.  Pop 304,652.  O 54.3%, D 49.9%.  While I couldn't keep the Olympia metro (Thurston) whole, I did manange Bremerton (Kitsap).  To fill out population, it continues down Kitsap Peninsula into Pierce, taking Gig Harbor and almost all of Pierce's area on the west side of the sound.  Lean D but less strongly than the last two, of course.

DISTRICT 11: TACOMA-LAKEWOOD.  Pop 305,786.  O 63.4%, D 58.4%.  66W/10B/10A.  The more urban of two all-Pierce districts. Tacoma, University Park, Lakewood, the few Kitsap Peninsula precincts that don't fit in 10.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 12: SUBURBAN PIERCE.  Pop 305,861.  O 50.8%, D 44.8%.  Pretty much exactly as it says on the tin.  Some of rural south Pierce is stuck here too, such as Eatonville; I'm pretty sure the line between 12 and 13 does the best job of keeping things contiguous by the main roads.  Lean R.

DISTRICT 13:  EASTERN KING-RAINIER.  Pop 305,105.  O 55.8%, D 47.9%.  Has to take a little bit of Pierce (preferring mountainous empty precincts in the East), and has to cede one precinct to 19 because Stevens Pass is only accessible via Snohomish.  Most of the land here is mountains, but most of the population is in foothill exurban areas like Sammamish and Issaquah.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 14:  KENT-AUBURN-FEDERAL WAY.  Pop 303,222.  O 59.0%, D 52.9%.    61W/12H/15A.  First of five all-King districts.  Almost entirely along town lines (a couple CDPs are split), those three cities and a few adjacent smaller communities.  Pretty close to Safe D.

DISTRICT 15:  RENTON-SEATAC-SOUTH SEATTLE.  Pop 303,951.  O 72.6%, D 69.0%.  46W/14B/11H/25A.  The minority-majority district; it's possible to get the white percentage lower if you go crazy with splits in Renton, Kent, and Federal Way, but it's not worth it.  South Seattle, Renton, the airport, several smaller towns in that general vicinity.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 16: WEST AND CENTRAL SEATTLE-BURIEN-ISLANDS.  Pop 304,825.  O 80.4%, D 76.8%.  70W/12A.  Making the minority-majority district ensured that we would need to have two districts that split Seattle with suburbs; in addition, Mercer and Vashon Islands belong here too.  Vashon is much less developed, but its main ferry connection is with Seattle; I also tried Mercer with Bellevue and areas on the other side of Lake Washington, but that was worse for town splits in the suburbs.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 17: NORTH SEATTLE.  Pop 306,510.  O 84.3%, D 81.4%.  78W/11A.  The rest of the city.  Oddly, the whitest all-King district is also the Safest D in the state.

DISTRICT 18: BELLEVUE-KIRKLAND-REDMOND.  Pop 307,931.  O 63.6%, D 55.7%.  70W/20A.  Covers the area between Lakes Washington and Sammamish, then goes north.  Dominated by these three towns, and entirely along town lines (save for one exclave precinct of Redmond in 13).  Safe D.

And, finally, Snohomish and points north:



DISTRICT 19: MARYSVILLE-MOUNT VERNON-NORTH CASCADES.  Pop 308,224.  O 52.5%, D 46.5%.    Lotsa county splits with 22, with this district mostly taking the inland portion (though it does reach to Puget Sound in northern Snohomish).  And, of course, the Stevens Pass district in King.  Why all the splits?  Well, the geography of Washington makes multiple splits unavoidable- far eastern Whatcom looks like it's only accessible via Skagit (a la Stevens Pass), and the two islands in Island County are noncontiguous and connected to the mainland rather far from each other, and having the district lines fiddle around Anacortes, as would be necessary if they were split north-south rather than east-west, was pretty bad.  Splitting things inland/Sound is arguably better CoI anyway.  Probably an R tilt, but I'll call it Tossup anyway.

DISTRICT 20:  SHORELINE-LYNWOOD-BOTHELL.  Pop 307,928.  O 66.3%, D 60.9%.  73W/14A.  This is the "real" King/Snohomish district, taking in suburbs just north of Seattle.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 21: EVERETT-CENTRAL SNOHOMISH.  Pop 308,155.  O 58.9%, D 51.8%.  76W/10A.  Pretty much what it says on the tin.  Lean D.

DISTRICT 22:  BELLINGHAM-ISLANDS AND BAYS.  Pop 307,280.  O 57.3%, D 52.7%.  All of Island and San Juan, the coastal parts of Whatcom and Skagit (including Bellingham, the main city here), and a little corner of Snohomish necessary to make all of Island contiguous by road.  Lotsa splits with 19, as explained there.  Lean D.

…

One min-maj district, 16.

7 Safe D
5 Lean D
4 Tossup
2 Lean R
4 Safe R

[traininthedistance]

Oregon is an interesting counterpoint to Washington.  I was able to do much better in terms of whole-county groupings here, but at the expense of making the CoI groupings somewhat worse in the rural Eastern part, and crossing the Cascades twice- you expect one down by Medford/Klamath Falls, but this map has one up by the Columbia River valley too.  I may at some point consider doing an alternate map that eliminates one of these crossings at the expense of several extra county splits, we'll see.  

Oregon is very white and minorities are somewhat spread out, so the VRA is a non-factor here.  Partisan figures are not given, so my ratings are guesstimates based on county-level results from recent elections, mostly the last couple Presidentials and the 2010 Governor race (which was a 1-point Dem win, so a good example of what an R-favoring year might bring).  Most of these seats are fairly obvious though.

The whole state:



DISTRICT 1: MEDFORD-KLAMATH FALLS-SOUTHEASTERN OREGON.  Pop 321,132.  Baker, Malheur, Harney, Lake, Klamath, and most of Jackson.  Medford and Klamath have the vast majority of the people, east of that is mostly just desert.  While Obama probably just won this district's portion of Jackson in '08, everything else has been uniformly Republican, so Safe R.

DISTRICT 2: BEND-PENDLETON-NORTHEASTERN OREGON.  Pop 317,962.   Wallowa, Union, Umatilla, Grant, Wheeler, Crook, Jefferson, Deschutes.  Entirely whole counties in Eastern Oregon; Bend is by far the largest population center and most of the rest are in Pendleton/Hermiston.  Even McCain won every one of these counties. Safe R.

DISTRICT 3: GRANTS PASS-ROSEBURG-SOUTH COAST.  Pop 318,710.  All of Douglas, Coos, Curry; shares Jackson (and the Rogue River Valley in general) with 1 and the southern edge of Lane with 4.  Lots of timber, Safe R- it surely does not include the Democratic parts of Lane, and even the coastal counties were Republican recently.

DISTRICT 4: EUGENE-SPRINGFIELD.  Pop 320,010.  The rest of Lane (most of it), such that 1/3/4 is a whole-county group.  Safe D, of course.

Willamette Valley and the Portland metro.



DISTRICT 5: ALBANY-EAST WILLAMETTE.  Pop 319,219.  80W/15H.  Districts 5 and 6 are a clear whole-county group of Lincoln on the coast and the agricultural/small-city Central Willamette (Albany, Corvallis, Salem).  There seem to be two sensible ways to split it: either this, which is east/west with almost all of Salem going in the west half (since that side of the river has far fewer people), or Marion (where Salem is) plus a tiny sliver of Salem in Polk County versus everything else.  Either way, one county and the city of Salem is split.  This configuration, which has all of Linn and the non-city portions of Marion in 5, is a little prettier I think.  It also divides things into two strongly partisan districts rather than two virtually-even tossups.  Normally I'd love to have more competitive districts, but Oregon is one of those states that is heavily polarized with few persuadable voters, so the strongly partisan approach actually represents the state better, I think.  Anyway, this is the Safe R half.

DISTRICT 6: SALEM-CORVALLIS-WEST WILLAMETTE.  Pop 319,804.  82W/10H.  Benton, Polk, Lincoln, and most of the city of Salem in Marion.  The Safe D half.

DISTRICT 7: NORTHWESTERN OREGON.  Pop 318,343.  Yamhill, Tillamook, Clatsop, Columbia, and part of Washington, including just about of it outside the growth boundary (but reaching in anyway, because it still needs more population).  Some coasts, some Willamette, some Portland burbs.  By far the closest district we've had yet; it looks like Obama won it both times but Chris Dudley won the Gov election here in 2010.  Tossup.

DISTRICT 8: HILLSBORO-BEAVERTON.  Pop 319,285.  71W/14H/10A.  Entirely within suburban Washington, most of the population in those two cities.  Least white district in the state, Safe D.

DISTRICT 9: SUBURBAN CLACKAMAS.  Pop 319,011.  Entirely in Clackamas, which is somewhat less compact than Washington and doesn't have hubs quite as large as Hillsboro or Beaverton.  This district has the vast majority of the county's population, but most of the area is in 12.  Given that Clackamas as a whole has voted with the winning party in Presidential elections since 1980, I think a rating of Tossup is in order.

DISTRICT 10:  NORTH AND WEST PORTLAND-SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON.  Pop 319,420.  Pretty self-explanatory; the rest of Washington but mostly Multnomah.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 11: EAST PORTLAND.  Pop 319,386.  The farthest east fringe of the city is in 12, but this gets the point across.  Entirely within city lines.  Safe D.

DISTRICT 12: GRESHAM-MOUNT HOOD-COLUMBIA RIVER.  Pop 318,792.  About two thirds of the population is in eastern Multnomah, but this district also takes the rest of Clackamas and a series of counties along the Columbia River: Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, Morrow.  The state lege maps all throw Hood River in with east Multnomah, so maybe that's justification?  (Really, the whole-county 2 is my main justification here.) I'm certain that Obama won it both times, but I can't quite tell about the 2010 Gov race.  Let's go with Lean D.

...

5 Safe D
1 Lean D
2 Tossup
4 Safe R

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So Oregon is one of the few states where the population distribution actually favors the Democrats.

[traininthedistance]

So Oregon is one of the few states where the population distribution actually favors the Democrats.

No, actually not at all.  It's far from the worst state, since Eugene helps things and Eastern Oregon is pretty monolithic (except for the growing number of wasted votes in Bend) but Multnomah is very much a Dem sink. 

While the population distribution is not expressly harmful to the Dems in every single state (it's pretty even sometimes), it is actively helpful almost never.  Maybe in Connecticut and New Mexico, that's about it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Massachusetts is actually a pretty good example, there's plenty of 60% Obama counties and regions that if you divided into nine fair districts would have at least one Republican district. Marion County, IN for example is pretty comparable in Obama numbers, but it'd clearly have at least one safe R seat, likely at least two, and at least one other seat winnable by a Republican. Wayne County, MI is ten points more D, and it'd most likely have a Republican seat in a nine-district layout. Here in Hennepin County we're about two points more D and have seven county commissioner districts, and if the elections were partisan one seat would be safe R, and another somewhere between lean R and tossup. Massachusetts would require a pretty epic gerrymander to get any seat below Lean D.

I was also going to mention Iowa and Colorado, but those are probably more like a wash with neither party having a real advantage. Actually Iowa would probably be a slight Dem benefit due to a rather obvious R vote sink area.

[traininthedistance]

Massachusetts is actually a pretty good example, there's plenty of 60% Obama counties and regions that if you divided into nine fair districts would have at least one Republican district. Marion County, IN for example is pretty comparable in Obama numbers, but it'd clearly have at least one safe R seat, likely at least two, and at least one other seat winnable by a Republican. Wayne County, MI is ten points more D, and it'd most likely have a Republican seat in a nine-district layout. Here in Hennepin County we're about two points more D and have seven county commissioner districts, and if the elections were partisan one seat would be safe R, and another somewhere between lean R and tossup. Massachusetts would require a pretty epic gerrymander to get any seat below Lean D.

I was also going to mention Iowa and Colorado, but those are actually basically even.

Yeah, you're right about Massachusetts- though it doesn't quite take an "epic gerrymander" to get an R-leaning district: attach Cape Cod to the South Coast and then do Plymouth to the Blackstone Valley above it. 

Colorado definitely has a slight R tilt, though perhaps not as bad as the country-at-large.  Iowa is indeed even, which feels like a bonanza for Dems.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Montana might be slightly beneficial to the Democrats, at worst even. It's kind of tricky to judge and depends a lot on the election.

[Sol]

North Carolina actually has reasonably neutral/pro-democratic population distribution. A fair redistricting scheme probably would have actually created a 8-5 map in favor of the Democrats. Some of this is due to incumbent strength, but there are some other factors.

The Southeast NC is too big to pack into one district and D-leaning. With two districts, it almost inevitably wastes Republican votes, although exactly how you draw the map affects things. Additionally, a lot of the urban areas occur in something of a belt, and most of them are too big for one district, so they swallow right-wing suburbs, wasting votes.

[Miles]

Montana might be slightly beneficial to the Democrats, at worst even. It's kind of tricky to judge and depends a lot on the election.

I got one seat for either party with the third being slightly Republican:

MT:



There wasn't pre-loaded election data in DRA, so I crunched the numbers myself.

CD1:
P- 60.5/36.7 Romney
S- 48.2/45.0 Rehberg
G- 51.8/44.6 Hill

CD2
P- 48.8/48.1 Romney
S- 53.9/40.0 Tester
G- 53.7/42.5 Bullock

CD3
P- 57.5/39.7 Romney
S- 46.9/46.3 Rehberg
G- 48.3/47.9 Hill

Basically, CD1 would be Safe R, CD2 would be Likely/Safe D and CD3 would be swingy, but tilting more R than the state.

I'm sure the green district could be 'unpacked' so that the the purple one would move to the left.