US with Indian constituencies

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Lookie here, it's South Carolina in whole counties and a whopping deviation of fifteen!



District 1: LOWCOUNTRY.  O 52.6%, D 49.0%.  33.6% Black VAP.  I wasn't even trying for an Obama district, honest officer!  Tossup.
District 2: UPCOUNTRY.  O 37.1%, D 35.5%.  Safe R, duh.

Of course I don't see the Republicans going for this (not that they'd go for a lot of the other fair maps, but they might even be able to convince an independent panel on this one), and it does have the legitimate disadvantage of slicing right through the heart of the Columbia metro.  So here's an alternate:



Deviations 2,437.

Lowcountry is now 48.6% Obama/44.8% Dem, 30% black VAP, and let's say lean R.  Upcountry is 41.1% O/39.6% D, less black, and safe R still.  The Columbia metro is still technically split, but the central urbanized area is whole at least.

If the GOP is drawing the districts, they'll go for an East-West split that splits the upstate in two.  I did a GOP gerrymander of all seven current districts for fun once.  Got seven districts that were fairly safe GOP (a few might have gone Dem if they were open in 2008) with the most obnoxious one being one that went from Greenville down into northern Richland.

I haven't bothered to upload the map, but a north-south split that keeps the Columbia, Charleston, Beaufort and CSRA areas in one district and the Upstate, Charlotte metro, and the Pee Dee in the other is doable with a deviation of under 1000 and with demographics roughly in-between the two maps you have. (South South Carolina was marginally R but went marginally Obama in 2008.

[Miles]

Penn's Woods.

How much would it change things if you moved Cambria and Somerset Counties into CD5?

[muon2]

I wouldn't think that Indian constituencies would worry about equality as much as the US does. The likely consequence on these maps would be no split counties at all.

[traininthedistance]

Penn's Woods.

How much would it change things if you moved Cambria and Somerset Counties into CD5?

As far as partisan impact, I would assume that 5 would become more Dem at the expense of pushing 4 further out of reach (since 3 would then likely have to reach up and take State College, while 4 takes Republican areas along the north of 5).  Probably not *that* much change, though, since these are monster districts. 

[Хahar 🤔]

I wouldn't think that Indian constituencies would worry about equality as much as the US does. The likely consequence on these maps would be no split counties at all.

As Lewis mentioned, Indian constituencies are also made of several state constituencies grouped together, which would produce interesting results in America.

[Miles]

For SC, how bout putting Columbia with the rest of the upstate area?

[traininthedistance]

For SC, how bout putting Columbia with the rest of the upstate area?

Yeah, that's much better than both of my maps.  Unless of course you really need a deviation of only 15.

[traininthedistance]

Tixas.



Texas is, incredibly, min-maj by VAP.  But the SSVR number, which is a better measure of the Hispanic voter base than the 33-plus percent Hispanic VAP population, is a mere 21.6 percent.  So two SSVR-maj districts seems like a good ideal here, and that is exactly what we have.  Max deviation is merely 560.

District 1: EL PASO-BIG BEND-LAREDO-BEXAR WEST.  O 58.5%, D 55.9%.  71% Hispanic, 60% SSVR.  Districts 1 and 2 together make up Hispanic South Texas, and are both SSVR-majority.  Splitting San Antonio between them, while somewhat unfortunate, balances the numbers and keeps the lines clean.  Anyway, this is sure to be the most Hispanic district in the nation.  Safe(ish) D.

District 2: RIO GRANDE VALLEY-CORPUS CHRISTI-BEXAR EAST. O 55.2%, D 53.6%.  68% Hispanic, 57% SSVR.  A little less secure, vulnerable to a Blake Farenthold-type upset in waves.  Lean D.

District 3: AUSTIN-CENTRAL TEXAS.  O 50.4%,  D 44.9%.  The rest of the San Antonio metro, all of the Austin and Killeen-Temple metros, a couple rural counties for population.  Yes, Obama won this in '08, but even as blue as Austin is this district is still Lean R because it remains surrounded by Texas.  It's on the verge of competitiveness, though, which is good because there should be something up for grabs in a state this large (well, District 2 is about as competitive, also).

District 4: WEST TEXAS.  O 24.8%, D 28.0%.  Yeah, about that.  Encroaches on the fringes of the Metroplex, too.  Safe R.



District 5: INNER METROPLEX.  O 61.7%, D 56.6%.  Only 35% White VAP; 24% Black and 35% Hispanic (plurality, but only 16% SSVR).  There are a zillion ways to draw the lines in DFW, and if you want to keep two districts entirely within the four core counties then two splits are necessary.  Making 5 Hispanic-plurality may not actually be necessary, and many alternatives would decrease the Obama margin here (I might come back and map a couple of them at some point), but it's hard to imagine a map that passes VRA muster where the DFW core- or at least Dallas County and remnants- district isn't Safe D or at least with a Dem lean.

District 6: COLLIN-DENTON-OUTER TARRANT.  O 37.1%, D 30.6%.  Safe R of course for the Metroplex burbs.

District 7: NORTHEAST-PINEYWOODS-WACO-REST OF METROPLEX.  O 33.4%, D 34.9%.  The (too-wordy) name says it all.  Safe R.



District 8: SOUTHEAST-BEAUMONT-HOUSTON FRINGE.  O 31.6%, D 34.9%.  Another giant and super-safe R district.  Like 7, it has to go into a major metro area that is too big for two whole districts, so it takes the whitest parts.

District 9: GALVESTON-BRAZORIA-FORT BEND-VILLAGES.  O 40.0%, D 36.1%.  A bit of Harris, bust mostly the southern bits of the Houston metro.  Amazingly, this district is min-maj by total population (only 52% White VAP) despite still being Safe R.

District 10: HOUSTON.  O 64.1%, D 61.7%.  Entirely within Harris, the Houston core and minority-heavy suburbs.  Majority-Hispanic by total population and 46% VAP (25% White and 23% Black).  Safe D.

With districts these size, and hewing to an ideal of "otherwise non-partisan map with VRA considerations", Texas comes out as… rather favorable for the Dems, actually. 

[Miles]

For SC, how bout putting Columbia with the rest of the upstate area?

Yeah, that's much better than both of my maps.  Unless of course you really need a deviation of only 15.

The 15 deviation would have been nice! I don't know what Ernest's take is, but living in Charlotte, I always associated Columbia more with the upstate/Charlotte region as opposed to Charleston, so that was my starting point.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I remember drawing a 5 district Ohio a couple months ago for whatever reason, and it basically came out just like TJ's. The state actually divides into 5 regions fairly well.

[Sbane]

Can anyone get California to work? I wonder if a East LA/Gateway cities based district would be more Hispanic than the ones drawn in Texas.

[traininthedistance]

Indiana.



Max deviation 533.

District 1- NORTH INDIANA.  O 52.3%.  The Obama-in-2008 numbers are hilarious, of course- Indiana is a Safe R state despite them.  With Gary and South Bend, this district should be competitive, but it's a tossup at best and probably actually deserves to be called Lean R. 

District 2- INDIANAPOLIS-CENTRAL.  O 50.1%.  I'd have loved to put the Indy metro all in one district, but the lines would be pretty awkward that way (too much population north of the metro, not enough south of it); getting the entire ring of counties around Marion should be good enough (and as long as I'm drawing the lines there will be an Indy-plus-ring district in the center).  I hesitate to call an Obama district Safe R... but I think this one is pretty close.

District 3- WABASH-EASTCENTRAL-SOUTH.  O 47.6%.  And the rest.  Safe R.

Or, alternatively, if you really hate the U-shape of 3, there's this one, with max deviation skyrocketing up to 773:



District 1 (NORTHWEST-WABASH) is now 55.5% Obama and might even legitimately be ranked Tossup.  2 remains 50.1% O yet solid for the Pubs, and 3 (EAST AND SOUTH) is now 44.5% Obama, even safer Pub than before. 

[traininthedistance]

Oregon.



Obviously you need to split it into a Safe D Portland Metro district (1) and a Lean R everywhere else (2).  I couldn't find a reasonable whole-county grouping with low deviation, so I just split Marion.  Better than crossing the Cascades.  No, I'm not going to go hunting for an even split that throws Portland in with Eastern Oregon, hilarious as that would undoubtedly be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For SC, how bout putting Columbia with the rest of the upstate area?

Yeah, that's much better than both of my maps.  Unless of course you really need a deviation of only 15.

The 15 deviation would have been nice! I don't know what Ernest's take is, but living in Charlotte, I always associated Columbia more with the upstate/Charlotte region as opposed to Charleston, so that was my starting point.

Charleston is pretty much a world of its own, but a district that consists of only Charleston, or even Charleston and Beaufort, just isn't large enough to be half the population.  You map s somewhat better than the one I merely described but did not post in many respects, but it Separates Greenwood and Abbeville from the upstate which they definitely are a part of.

[traininthedistance]

Wisconsin.



Deviations 452.  Both the 2008 Obama and the "partisan average" numbers strike me as pretty far away from what a 50/50 nationwide election would bring.  They're closer to outer bounds than anything else.

District 1: Milwaukee-Madison.  O 58.1%, D 50.8%.  A pretty strong Lean D, getting close to safe despite Waukesha and friends.  Basically the more urban and less elastic southeast of the state; the Madison metro is technically split but virtually all the built-up area is in Dane anyway, and whole counties don't really work well if the Milwaukee district goes north instead, so I'm not going to sweat it that much.
District 2: Rest o'state.  O 54.3%, D 43.6%.  I can't tell whether this is a Tossup or a Lean R; in any case it is very swingy.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Shame we don't have Bush/Kerry 2004 numbers, those would be PERFECT for gauging it. We can estimate though I guess.

[Miles]

Shame we don't have Bush/Kerry 2004 numbers, those would be PERFECT for gauging it. We can estimate though I guess.

For traininthedistance's WI?

CD1: 52.3/46.8 Kerry
CD2: 51.8/47.1 Bush


Gass will have to confirm this, but I'd say CD1 is Lean D (except in a 2010 year) while CD2 is Tilt R and trending further in that direction.

[Gass3268]

2012 for traininthedistance's Wisconsin:

CD1: 56.03/42.82 Obama
CD2: 49.45/49.13 Obama

I would say that CD1 is more Likely Dem then Lean Dem and CD2 is probably Lean Rep.

[minionofmidas]

You can't put Minneapolis and St. Paul in the same district!

I agree. And that Nova district needs a pointless rural tail. And 40 divides by 3 by creating districts with a 14:13:13 relation, the 14 preferentially where growth is to be expected.

These are not, otherwise, Indian constituencies.

[traininthedistance]

Michigan.



Max deviation is 1780, for District 3.

District 1: UP-NORTH-THUMB-LANSING-SAGINAW.  O 52.7%, D 45.2%.  The northern district, has to encroach south to take the entirety of the Lansing-Owosso CSA and some far Detroit fringe.  I guess it's more Tossup than Lean R, but the Pubs probably have an advantage here. 
District 2: GRAND RAPIDS-SOUTH AND WEST.  O 50.1%, D 39.8%.  GR, Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, all of those sorts of places.  While the Obama-in-'08 number is not much less than in District 1, the baseline expectation is far more Republican (you don't have much in the way of ancestral Dem areas like the UP, or solid liberal parts like Lansing) and Obama's win should be considered quite the fluke.  Sort of like the Indianapolis district, probably deserves Safe R.
District 3: OAKLAND-MACOMB-GENESSEE.  O 57.1%, D 48.0%.  Yep, those three huge Detroit CSA counties, exactly.  Pretty nice to have two entirely Detroit-area districts, only one county cut, and preserve 8 Mile as a boundary.  Lean D I guess.
District 4: DETROIT-ANN ARBOR-DOWRIVER.  O 68.1%, D 58.2%.  No, there are not enough blacks in Michigan to even get a min-maj district; this district is 30% black.  Safe D.

[traininthedistance]

Come on feel the Illinoise.  





Max deviation 807.

District 1: SOUTH & WEST SIDE CHICAGO-JOLIET-KANAKEE.  O 78.5%.  42% White VAP, 44% Black VAP, 10% Hispanic.  No, a black-majority district is not possible in Illinois.  But black-plurality is, and I assume is necessary.  Since majority is impossible, I decided to make a map that splits no townships outside of Chicago rather than maxing out the numbers.  (The voting precincts line up with [square] townships rather than cities and villages, so I obviously used them as building blocks instead.)  Safe D.
District 2: DEKALB-WEST COOK.  O 63.2%.  55% White VAP, 31% Hispanic.  (36% by total population).  Yeah, a Hispanic-influence district.  These lines are a bit Dem-favoring, OK, but Cook needs to be split again anyway, it's just that big, and given the shape of 2 and 3 together this is just about as compact as you can get.  Safe D.
District 3: LAKE-NORTH SHORE.  O 64.8%.  70% White VAP, 13% Hispanic, 10% Asian.  And the last of our inner Chicagoland districts.  I suspect that all three of them are mostly in the suburbs rather than in Chicago proper; 1 might be majority-Chicago though.  Gotta split something else too, McHenry seemed easiest.  (I tried giving Kanakee to 5, to see if that would obviate the need for this county split, but no dice.)  Safe D.
District 4: AURORA-ROCKFORD-PEORIA-ROCK ISLAND-NORTHWEST.  O 53.7%.  82% White VAP, 10% Hispanic.  The rest of Chicagoland and the northern non-Chicago parts.  A couple outlying counties in the Peoria and Springfield MSAs are in the wrong district, fixing that would up the deviation to about 2K and not really change the partisan numbers much.  Anyway, despite the Obama numbers this is clearly Lean R.  
District 5: DOWNSTATE.  O 49.3%.  Obama won this by the thinnest of margins in 2008, which means it's obviously Safe R.

[traininthedistance]

Show me...Missouri.



Deviations 246.  No metros are split, and only the Columbia-Jeff City TV market is split.  Yes, I know that splitting north-south allows one to make a "Missouri" and a "Missourah" district... but a St.Louis and a KC district is obviously better anyway.

District 1- ST. LOUIS-COLUMBIA-SOUTHEAST is 53.6% Obama and 57.1% Dem.  Lean D I guess?  Not by much tho.
District 2- KANSAS CITY-SPRINGFIELD-JOPLIN-NORTH is 44.7% Obama, 48.4% Dem, and presumably pretty much Safe R, unless you get another Todd Akin or something.

[traininthedistance]

Washington.





Max deviation 584.  The geography of Washington does not work well with three districts; you don't want to cross the Cascades up north, and Eastern WA plus the Vancouver area is just a bit too small, and of course there's the Stevens Pass bit in King that doesn't connect to the rest of the county, and all those islands and ferries... and screw it, I'm just tri-chopping King and throwing the empty bits of Pierce in with 1 because the mountains ought to be together.  Can't say I'm happy about any of it, though.  Alternative maps welcome.

District 1- EASTERN WASHINGTON-VANCOUVER is 46.1% Obama, 40.8% Dem (the Gregoire-Rossi race in 2010), and Safe R.
District 2- TACOMA-OLYMPI(C/A)-SOUTH KING is 57.9% O, 52.9% Dem, and a very strong Lean D.
District 3- SEATTLE-BELLEVUE-EVERETT-NORTH is 67.2% O, 61.7% Dem, and Safe D.

[traininthedistance]

Massachusetts.



Max deviation 878.  Much like Washington, three districts is not a great number for a sensible division- the MetroWest area gets sliced and diced, and Boston is at the edge of its district, and I'm not sure there's anything I can do about either of those things.  Counties don't really matter in MA, but I tried to mostly keep them together anyway- basically Middlesex County is home to all of the choppage.

District 1: WESTERN AND CENTRAL.  O 60.5%, D 48.8%.  The town of Blackstone is taken from Worcester County and given to 2 to keep MA's portion of the Providence NECTA together.  Other than that... it's all of the west and central bits, and heading pretty deep into Greater Boston.  Safe D.
District 2: SOUTH.  O 58.6%, D 46.7%.  South Coast, South Shore, southern burbs, etc.  The least-safe district in the state, for what that's worth.
District 3: BOSTON AND NORTH.  O 67.7%, D 57.2%.  Boston, Essex County (the North Shore), and the inner suburbs in between.  Safe D.

[muon2]

Washington.





Max deviation 584.  The geography of Washington does not work well with three districts; you don't want to cross the Cascades up north, and Eastern WA plus the Vancouver area is just a bit too small, and of course there's the Stevens Pass bit in King that doesn't connect to the rest of the county, and all those islands and ferries... and screw it, I'm just tri-chopping King and throwing the empty bits of Pierce in with 1 because the mountains ought to be together.  Can't say I'm happy about any of it, though.  Alternative maps welcome.

District 1- EASTERN WASHINGTON-VANCOUVER is 46.1% Obama, 40.8% Dem (the Gregoire-Rossi race in 2010), and Safe R.
District 2- TACOMA-OLYMPI(C/A)-SOUTH KING is 57.9% O, 52.9% Dem, and a very strong Lean D.
District 3- SEATTLE-BELLEVUE-EVERETT-NORTH is 67.2% O, 61.7% Dem, and Safe D.

Here's what I would change. Take Island, the Olympic peninsula, Kitsap, Pierce, and the Vancouver area including Skamania as District 2. It's less than 10K over the limit. District 1 is everything east of the Cascades and eastern King all the way to Lake Washington. District 3 is the NW counties plus western King all the way down to Federal Way and Auburn.