309 House districts

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Paint, using megameow's stupendous templates. The average population of a House district is 999,176. Deviation is -/+ 5% in most cases, but can reach 10% if necessary, to avoid some county splits in states like FL.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=238714.0

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=238714.0

So most of it is you working from scratch?

Most of it. I copied and pasted from some earlier projects.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think this map is better because the water/international colors are removed, and it is higher detail.

What's the resolution on that one?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think this map is better because the water/international colors are removed, and it is higher detail.

What's the resolution on that one?

4068x2420

A bit big for me then.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The ID-NV-UT split seems very awkward, especially the ID-NV connection and the double chop of ID. I would split it this way:

Idaho west: add Owyhee = 981 K
Idaho east: ID parts not in Idaho west plus UT Box Elder, Weber, Cache, Rich = 983 K
Salt Lake county = 1030 K
Utah central: Summit, Morgan, Davis, Tooele, Juab, Utah, Wasatch, Duchesne, Uintah, Daggett = 1013 K
Vegas (2 dists): add Nye, Esmeralda, Mineral = 2001 K
Deseret: remainders of NV and UT = 1025 K

Another obvious change would be to split the Dakotas into east and west halves. Use the Missouri river in SD and follow it into ND but split north to keep Bottineau on the west side. That gives a fairly even split of the population.

One of my objectives here was to have districts wholly contained in counties that, by themselves, are near either the quota or have close to multiple ones. The rest of the ID+NV+UT seats would have to gobble Esmeralda, Nye, and Mineral.
I also wanted to keep a state whole if I could help it, and that ruled out a split of ND. Though that isn't as sacred as keeping counties whole - see Missouri as an example of that, or my Charlotte seat, which crosses state lines.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Any way I could get a more logical split of SD though?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Any way I could get a more logical split of SD though?

Connect it to Iowa

What happens to Wyoming though? And isn't Nebraska a more reasonable pairing than Iowa?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The ID-NV-UT split seems very awkward, especially the ID-NV connection and the double chop of ID. I would split it this way:

Idaho west: add Owyhee = 981 K
Idaho east: ID parts not in Idaho west plus UT Box Elder, Weber, Cache, Rich = 983 K
Salt Lake county = 1030 K
Utah central: Summit, Morgan, Davis, Tooele, Juab, Utah, Wasatch, Duchesne, Uintah, Daggett = 1013 K
Vegas (2 dists): add Nye, Esmeralda, Mineral = 2001 K
Deseret: remainders of NV and UT = 1025 K

Another obvious change would be to split the Dakotas into east and west halves. Use the Missouri river in SD and follow it into ND but split north to keep Bottineau on the west side. That gives a fairly even split of the population.

One of my objectives here was to have districts wholly contained in counties that, by themselves, are near either the quota or have close to multiple ones. The rest of the ID+NV+UT seats would have to gobble Esmeralda, Nye, and Mineral.

The problem with NV is that the bulk of the population of Nye is in Pahrump at the southern end, and it's basically an exurb of Las Vegas providing housing for people who work in Vegas. It's even in the same CSA as Clark. I understand your rationale, but shouldn't connected populations count for something, especially when they reduce the deviation?

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Any way I could get a more logical split of SD though?

I've answered that by using the east-west Dakota split. There is a strong sense of the Missouri river as the natural and political divide in SD. Any other split of SD is artificial. In both ND and SD there's a distinct change in the topography and economy driving along I-94 or I-90 when you cross the big river. Plus western ND is oil country like WY.

How does this work out?
Does this look sensible, overall?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I am not splitting ND, period. I would sooner split a metro than split a state. Who cares about Sioux Falls metro being chopped if that keeps ND united.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I am not splitting ND, period. I would sooner split a metro than split a state. Who cares about Sioux Falls metro being chopped if that keeps ND united.

....I do...

If metro areas were as sacred as state lines were, then I might have detached Lake County and united it with most of Will County - allowing me to have Dupage to be a seat by itself. But I didn't.