2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Maryland

[SevenEleven]

Anyone want to explain to me what's wrong with my map? It's far cleaner than any of these other fair maps and actually keeps COIs intact. 3 AA districts as well.

Remember, Silver Spring and Bethesda are at opposite ends of the red line. In DC terms, these areas are not close at all.

Just saying wouldnt it be better to split Howard county NE/SW as its kind of a mixed county between DC and Baltimore?

You could maybe exchange a few precincts, although it really wouldn't have any impact on the numbers. I mostly tried to keep townships whole here.

[cvparty]

Anyone want to explain to me what's wrong with my map? It's far cleaner than any of these other fair maps and actually keeps COIs intact. 3 AA districts as well.

Remember, Silver Spring and Bethesda are at opposite ends of the red line. In DC terms, these areas are not close at all.

maybe it’s a matter of personal preference, but i’d shift 6-2-8 clockwise. carroll county is technically in the baltimore area but it’s relatively rural and remote and consists of a lot of farmland, so i think it’s a better fit with frederick county than the baltimore suburbs. a good chunk of CD6 isn’t even in the washington area (hagerstown and westward) so it’s fairly reasonable to include carroll. this would also shift howard out of CD8 and keep moco more intact; i think that‘s more desirable if we’re concerned about separating the washington and baltimore metro areas

if you do that our maps are virtually the same lol

[SevenEleven]

Anyone want to explain to me what's wrong with my map? It's far cleaner than any of these other fair maps and actually keeps COIs intact. 3 AA districts as well.

Remember, Silver Spring and Bethesda are at opposite ends of the red line. In DC terms, these areas are not close at all.

maybe it’s a matter of personal preference, but i’d shift 6-2-8 clockwise. carroll county is technically in the baltimore area but it’s relatively rural and remote and consists of a lot of farmland, so i think it’s a better fit with frederick county than the baltimore suburbs. a good chunk of CD6 isn’t even in the washington area (hagerstown and westward) so it’s fairly reasonable to include carroll. this would also shift howard out of CD8 and keep moco more intact; i think that‘s more desirable if we’re concerned about separating the washington and baltimore metro areas

if you do that our maps are virtually the same lol

I put Frederick with Germantown because they are pretty closely tied and basically for the same reasons as Blairite's map below your post. I don't consider "rural whites" to be a COI that necessitates crossing metropolitan lines. Also, what that does to Howard is pretty messy. I'll take a look at your map.

[lfromnj]

Btw Ik Annapolis and Dundalk are both heavily based of a ship industry.  I just wanted to see what happens if we divided the Baltimore metro based on one Baltimore main seat, one inland suburban and one more coastal suburban.

However the split of Baltimore city itself does not look very nice and I am not a big fan of this because of that. What does everyone think of that method.(Oh also ignore the border gore between the last 2 districts in DC)

[cvparty]

Anyone want to explain to me what's wrong with my map? It's far cleaner than any of these other fair maps and actually keeps COIs intact. 3 AA districts as well.

Remember, Silver Spring and Bethesda are at opposite ends of the red line. In DC terms, these areas are not close at all.

maybe it’s a matter of personal preference, but i’d shift 6-2-8 clockwise. carroll county is technically in the baltimore area but it’s relatively rural and remote and consists of a lot of farmland, so i think it’s a better fit with frederick county than the baltimore suburbs. a good chunk of CD6 isn’t even in the washington area (hagerstown and westward) so it’s fairly reasonable to include carroll. this would also shift howard out of CD8 and keep moco more intact; i think that‘s more desirable if we’re concerned about separating the washington and baltimore metro areas

if you do that our maps are virtually the same lol

I put Frederick with Germantown because they are pretty closely tied and basically for the same reasons as Blairite's map below your post. I don't consider "rural whites" to be a COI that necessitates crossing metropolitan lines. Also, what that does to Howard is pretty messy. I'll take a look at your map.

well i actually think urban vs. rural is a significant dichotomy! especially since lots of gerrymandering is based in putting those two types of communities together. but my main point is that it's not really possible to keep all baltimore and washington communities separate. my take is that crossing those lines in a relatively rural county is better than doing it in an urban area i.e. putting moco and hoco together (i think your 8th district stretches from bethesda to ellicott city, each of which is unequivocally in their respective metro areas)

[lfromnj]

Anyone want to explain to me what's wrong with my map? It's far cleaner than any of these other fair maps and actually keeps COIs intact. 3 AA districts as well.

Remember, Silver Spring and Bethesda are at opposite ends of the red line. In DC terms, these areas are not close at all.

maybe it’s a matter of personal preference, but i’d shift 6-2-8 clockwise. carroll county is technically in the baltimore area but it’s relatively rural and remote and consists of a lot of farmland, so i think it’s a better fit with frederick county than the baltimore suburbs. a good chunk of CD6 isn’t even in the washington area (hagerstown and westward) so it’s fairly reasonable to include carroll. this would also shift howard out of CD8 and keep moco more intact; i think that‘s more desirable if we’re concerned about separating the washington and baltimore metro areas

if you do that our maps are virtually the same lol

I put Frederick with Germantown because they are pretty closely tied and basically for the same reasons as Blairite's map below your post. I don't consider "rural whites" to be a COI that necessitates crossing metropolitan lines. Also, what that does to Howard is pretty messy. I'll take a look at your map.

well i actually think urban vs. rural is a significant dichotomy! especially since lots of gerrymandering is based in putting those two types of communities together. but my main point is that it's not really possible to not keep all baltimore and washington communities separate. my take is that crossing those lines in a relatively rural county is better than doing it in an urban area i.e. putting moco and hoco together (i think your 8th district stretches from bethesda to ellicott city, each of which is unequivocally in their respective metro areas)

yeah lol at rural areas not being a COI especially within a compact area!

Tbh I now agree that a southern MD district makes more sense by doing some research. The western MD district should go to Carrol due to the more ruralness(All that district does is create a dicotohomy between some suburban Democrat from George town or a Rural Republican From Oakland both of which have nothing in common and one area of the district would be neglected. Anyway any comments on my coastal suburban Baltimore district vs inland one?

[SevenEleven]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

[lfromnj]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

Sure but 1/3 of Frederick is still pretty rural and the whole western 3 counties are definitely rural which fits in better with Carrol.

[SevenEleven]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

Sure but 1/3 of Frederick is still pretty rural and the whole western 3 counties are definitely rural which fits in better with Carrol.

Rural is not a community of interest!! Agrarian would be, but rural by itself it's not.

[lfromnj]

Anyway whats your opinion of the coastal Baltimore district?

[cvparty]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

Sure but 1/3 of Frederick is still pretty rural and the whole western 3 counties are definitely rural which fits in better with Carrol.

Rural is not a community of interest!! Agrarian would be, but rural by itself it's not.

frederick and carroll both have a significant agricultural presence. there’s a lot of farmland and far more agricultural workers compared to moco or baltimore co. also, frederick has some important differences from moco; it’s geographically separated from the highly dense corridor running from germantown through PG, and it has significantly less professional workers. similar difference with carroll and baltimore

[SevenEleven]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

Sure but 1/3 of Frederick is still pretty rural and the whole western 3 counties are definitely rural which fits in better with Carrol.

Rural is not a community of interest!! Agrarian would be, but rural by itself it's not.

frederick and carroll both have a significant agricultural presence. there’s a lot of farmland and far more agricultural workers compared to moco or baltimore co. also, frederick has some important differences from moco; it’s geographically separated from the highly dense corridor running from germantown through PG, and it has significantly less professional workers. similar difference with carroll and baltimore

Carroll is much more tied to Baltimore if you consider where people go to shop or work, etc. I believe you had a strange Carroll cut on your map that didn't need to be there.

[SevenEleven]

Anyway whats your opinion of the coastal Baltimore district?

I don't hate it at all. It's a decent map tbh. I think the 8th could run more cleanly and I'd like to see the ethnic breakdown.

[cvparty]

You can plainly see the Germantown-Frederick-Hagerstown corridor. How does Carroll tie into that? It really doesn't.

Sure but 1/3 of Frederick is still pretty rural and the whole western 3 counties are definitely rural which fits in better with Carrol.

Rural is not a community of interest!! Agrarian would be, but rural by itself it's not.

frederick and carroll both have a significant agricultural presence. there’s a lot of farmland and far more agricultural workers compared to moco or baltimore co. also, frederick has some important differences from moco; it’s geographically separated from the highly dense corridor running from germantown through PG, and it has significantly less professional workers. similar difference with carroll and baltimore

Carroll is much more tied to Baltimore if you consider where people go to shop or work, etc. I believe you had a strange Carroll cut on your map that didn't need to be there.

it’s not perfect, but like i said before you can’t completely separate baltimore/washington areas. anyway it doesn’t really make sense to laser-focus on this county in a vacuum because the context is optimizing district boundaries, i.e. CD6 affects CD8 and CD2 lines. if we move back toward the original topic, i honestly don’t think ellicott city residents shop/commute to the same place as moco residents. if you look at population distribution they aren’t really connected either. so provided the other districts stay the same, it’s either frederick-carroll or moco-hoco. i just think the former is better (for reasons i stated)

regarding the cut you’re referring to, eldersburg is relatively dense and fits in with the upscale baltimore suburbs so i think it’s fine to separate it from the rest of carroll. plus the shapes of the other districts force that cut anyway, it makes CD2 more compact, and keeps CD6 from going too far into the baltimore area

[Idaho Conservative]

Here is 5 D - 2 R - 1 battleground district that leaned R based on the 2016 Presidential election results. Though Anna Arundel County has heavily swung to the left since 2016 as Biden has won that county by nearly 15% in 2020 thus making district 7 partisan lean much more uncertain.

could MD-3 be more compact?

[kwabbit]

Hopefully I'm not spamming these Redistricting Threads, but I'm on Winter Break now and I'm gonna be doing every state hopefully.

Maryland is a fun state to redistrict. It's so easy to make an elegant map, with 3 easy majority AA districts, but incumbent demands have rendered it so ugly. However, if you make the 3 AA districts in Prince George and Baltimore, then it leaves a district size space of Toss-up land. Or formerly tossup, Biden probably won it by 10 after Trump narrowly won in 2016. I think the obvious Delmarva and Appalachia + Frederick + Carroll districts should be made. So it comes out to 5-2-1 or more likely 6-2.

[It’s so Joever]

Inner City Baltimore belongs with the Eastern district (DelMarVa peninsula)
The two have a lot of similari use and to separate them from eachother is an egregious gerrymander that serves no purpose.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

This is my attempt at a 4/4 Maryland map, likely the most republicans could theoretically get while keeping their seats safe but even then this map is in the R+5-7 range so almost all could possibly flip. Ben Cardin won every district in 2018, albeit narrowly. If republicans somehow took control of the process they should make 3 safe ones (east shore, Annapolis, Panhandle) and 1 swing in the Baltimore suburbs





4 is contiguous, there is a bridge near Berkley, MD it's just how the precincts are.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1347202814003568640
How easy is it for the Democrats to go in for the kill while also fulfilling the various inane requirements by the incumbents ?( and would it be politically possible to tell them to go F*** themselves and just draw 8 nice-looking VRA compliant safe democrati districts. ?)

[Sol]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

Why would he want that ? just seems like a way to make it massively more expensive to campagin.

[Mr.Phips]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

Hoyer is very likely retiring in 2022.

[Tintrlvr]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

Why would he want that ? just seems like a way to make it massively more expensive to campagin.

He doesn't have to campaign; it's a safe seat. What it means is that local news in DC, Baltimore and Annapolis all have to report on him and things that happen related to him because he's a local representative in all three places, so he in theory gets more statewide exposure to set him up for future statewide races.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

Why would he want that ? just seems like a way to make it massively more expensive to campagin.

He doesn't have to campaign; it's a safe seat. What it means is that local news in DC, Baltimore and Annapolis all have to report on him and things that happen related to him because he's a local representative in all three places, so he in theory gets more statewide exposure to set him up for future statewide races.

That's pretty greedy and selfish.

[DC Al Fine]

I think there's a decent shot that Sarbanes might give up his bizarre "I want to be in all media markets" fixation; can't speak to the others. The hardest to ignore will be Steny Hoyer of course.

Why would he want that ? just seems like a way to make it massively more expensive to campagin.

He doesn't have to campaign; it's a safe seat. What it means is that local news in DC, Baltimore and Annapolis all have to report on him and things that happen related to him because he's a local representative in all three places, so he in theory gets more statewide exposure to set him up for future statewide races.

That's pretty greedy and selfish.

Well yes, congresscritters tend to be greedy and selfish *shrug*