2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Maryland

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a great map. Elegant, reduces county splits, and does the job well. The seats all make sense too.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Has anyone made an 8-0 map?

Many have.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/2fe11b07-a9ac-402d-b397-d80a35b7fa6f

Here's something I made after the census data. It's a lot neater than the current map, which isn't hard to do.

There are two strong R seats - one based on the Eastern Shore and one in Western Maryland that also includes the outer part of MoCo. In 2016, Trump won the former by 21 and the latter by 18, so they should be alright. There's also a swing district in the Baltimore suburbs that Hillary only won by less than 2 points. Though it likely shifted to Biden substantially, Hogan got nearly 70% there.

This works pretty well as a proportional-fair map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/199bfc96-abb9-4fd0-8954-60196f67d36b
thoughts on this quick and dirty 8D-0R?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/199bfc96-abb9-4fd0-8954-60196f67d36b
thoughts on this quick and dirty 8R-0D?

Not 8R-0D in gov 2018, I feel lied to.

oof sorry for the typo

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Edit: Made a new 8-0 D map

Here is a better 8-0 MD map, all seats are safe D with the new 2020 Prez data.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5729535a-39ad-4eba-a1ef-a4e9099335f0

Imagine standing on the hill across the Potomac from Hancock, looking north, and being able to see four congressional districts in a space of just two miles in front of you.

Still cleaner and less messy than the current map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The current map has districts that violate road contiguity, fly in the face of county integrity, and leave the GOP with less seats than a natural map would provide them.
That has been remedied. My map has a majority of counties (specifically Allegany, Garrett, Charles, St. Mary's, Worcester, Wicomico, Somerset, Dorchester, Caroline, Talbot, Queen Anne's, Kent, Calvert, and Cecil) whole within a congressional district and produces a swing district in form of the 2nd, while keeping the 1st as a Republican leaning district. The 1st voted Trump by 21 points. The competitive 2nd district voted Trump by 1, but it is winnable for Democrats, very winnable, because Democrats tend to do better downballot. Unfortunately, to create these two districts, I had to split Hagerstown in 3, meaning it could not be wholly within the 3rd (which unifies the community of interest that is the DC border). I know, you are asking me, how could I possibly have kept that CoI together? It's because I'm good at what I do.

This map has other elements to it. For example I create a new black majority district taking in black precincts in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Montgomery, Prince George's and Howard counties and Baltimore city. I also maintain the other two districts.

All seats on this map are road contigous. 6 lean Democratic, 1 leans Republican, and 1 is too even to really be considered a Republican district.
I feel glad that I have been able to make such a fair and cohesive map, with a total deviation of 249. This is what peak performance looks like.

What, you thought I was serious?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/26ca9d45-71f0-43ee-8578-5e85cf8e0d26

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The commission map is remarkably nice and fair. In an ideal world, it should be approved. Unfortunately, conceding two seats to the GOP is hard to swallow given what they are doing in other states.

There is some VRA issues with this map. I’m going pretty sure I read MD-04 is a African American pack and MD-06 dilutes the African American vote by what it grabs outside of Baltimore City.

I don't think there's a problem with MD-06's territory here? It's still clearly majority or very strongly plurality black...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I made MD-01 as black as possible, to the point it's genuinely a black influence seat. There are three black majority districts (7, 3, and 4). County splits have been limited to the minimum, with the exception of the efforts taken to make  MD-01 D-leaning. Every district voted Biden by at least 9.6 points.
Here's the DRA link

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The MD-1 on map 3 is Biden+7.7%,  Harris might be able to survive in that for 2022, but 2024 he'd be gone.

Map 2 has it at like Biden+0.3%

Nope, Harris is doomed. He's too right wing and too infamous to be elected in a Biden district. Another republican could win those but it won't be him

Eh, it's possible that the national environment saves him in 2022 if it's a narrow Biden district. But he'd be done in 2024 for sure.

Yeah, we don't know what the climate will be like for the 2022 elections at all. We probably won't know for good until the final five or so months before Election Day.
Harris might still make it. We'll see.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Harris would probably lose in 2024. He's way too far right for a swing district.

I could see him rather easily losing in 2022 under these lines if he has a Dem opponent who is good enough. Eyeballing it - that district goes into PG County, doesn't it?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a DRA reproduction of that MD-01
It voted for Biden by 1,604 votes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a DRA reproduction of that MD-01
It voted for Biden by 1,604 votes.

Hmmm...

If that's the case, almost wonder why they are bothering?

1,604 Biden vote margin in 2020 is probably enough to knock off someone like Harris even in a Dem midterm in a majority of scenarios. But it's still Dem trending, so I could see a close 2024 race here regardless of Harris wins in 2022 or not, followed by a slow hardening of the Democratic advantage in the district. But that could just be the optimist in me talking. No one knows for sure.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Maryland Democrats when they see a Freedom Caucus wingnut across the bridge from Annapolis: "I'm too weak"

Tennessee Republicans when they see a Blue Dog in Nashville: "UNLIMITED POWER"

Only Illinois Democrats have the drive to gerrymander a map where a party that got 38% of the vote gets only 20% of seats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Just a reminder this map is just a starting point and it’s still very possible MD-1 becomes safer D. A lot a states have started with base maps that are relatively weak gerrymanders and shored them up (IL, GA, OH, just to name a few).

If this map passes as is I’d be very disappointed because it’s not a fair map nor an effective gerrymander, and puts individual politicians wants above everyone else.

I could see territory being exchanged between the 2nd, 1st, and other Baltimore area districts. There's a lot of heavily Dem precincts in the areas between the 2nd and Howard County that could be placed in the 1st, turning it Biden+5.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I was able to draw a clean 5 safe D seats - 2 lean R seats and 1 pure toss-up seat.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bbe673b4-9931-4639-9771-9622241e4001

Nice! Did Hogan win five or six seats in this map?

He won 4 in my map. Though he was very close in winning the Montgomery County district.

That Baltimore district looks like a black pack.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I was able to draw a clean 5 safe D seats - 2 lean R seats and 1 pure toss-up seat.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bbe673b4-9931-4639-9771-9622241e4001

Nice! Did Hogan win five or six seats in this map?

That Baltimore district looks like a black pack.

The Baltimore district is 61% Black. My map has 3 Black districts which is more than the required 2

Does the Baltimore district have to be 61% black? It'd be a lot like creating a whole PG County CD tbh. You don't need to have it be over 60%.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I was able to draw a clean 5 safe D seats - 2 lean R seats and 1 pure toss-up seat.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bbe673b4-9931-4639-9771-9622241e4001

Nice! Did Hogan win five or six seats in this map?

That Baltimore district looks like a black pack.

The Baltimore district is 61% Black. My map has 3 Black districts which is more than the required 2

Does the Baltimore district have to be 61% black? It'd be a lot like creating a whole PG County CD tbh. You don't need to have it be over 60%.

I wanted to make a clean map with several competitive seats.

In which case, I suppose you have some justification then. I'm just "allergic", for lack of a better word, to an uber-packed Baltimore district.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/94f0d1e1-6099-4d5e-bd9c-253bbc47e9e9
this is a MD non-partisan map I just made, geared towards showing how a non-partisan map can easily elect 7 Democrats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a hot take to some (I had an involved debate with Antonio about it on Discord a few days ago), but it's my belief that Baltimore should be split east/west in a nonpartisan map to avoid the Black vote being either packed (whole of the city + western Baltimore County) or diluted by a completely unrelated constituency (whites in southeastern Baltimore County or northern Anne Arundel County) and preserve better COI elsewhere.

In my nonpartisan map, Baltimore west of the "White L", but crossing it slightly at its narrowest and most cloudy point around Mount Vernon, is grouped in with western Baltimore County and adjacent parts of Howard (producing a 53% Black VAP seat), while the remainder is grouped with parts of Baltimore County to the east and north and the Edgewood-Aberdeen-Havre de Grace corridor of Harford. These configurations somewhat resemble the current 7th and 2nd respectively. I'm heavily reconfiguring the map right now after my discussion with Antonio and a few other decisions I've made since then, but I should be able to post it here soon.

A compact district taking in all of Baltimore and parts of SE Baltimore County is almost guaranteed to be majority black. I don't think the black vote is being diluted in that scenario.

MD-07 on the map I just posted is:
Total 772,381 100.0%
White 260,385 33.7%
Hispanic 63,522 8.2%
Black 404,115 52.3%
Asian 34,870 4.5%
Native 13,934 1.8%
Pacific 933 0.1%

A district like this is not diluting the black vote. It's making the seat only barely black  majority, but surely that doesn't count as "diluting"?
Also, the Baltimore County part of the seat is some 75% of the seat. That's dominated by Baltimore by default. It's dominated by Baltimore even more when you consider that the heavily R areas in the far SE part of the County will not be voting in the D primary in proportion to their numbers. Perhaps it would be a 5/1 or even a 6/1 ratio between the City and County.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I tried to make an all-Baltimore City district as white as possible. This is the best I could do. Even under these lines it would likely be a performing black district. Those R voting white rurals would not see high turnout in Dem primaries. Even if they did they'd have to consistently deny the preferred black candidate the nomination in racially polarized contests.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a hot take to some (I had an involved debate with Antonio about it on Discord a few days ago), but it's my belief that Baltimore should be split east/west in a nonpartisan map to avoid the Black vote being either packed (whole of the city + western Baltimore County) or diluted by a completely unrelated constituency (whites in southeastern Baltimore County or northern Anne Arundel County) and preserve better COI elsewhere.

In my nonpartisan map, Baltimore west of the "White L", but crossing it slightly at its narrowest and most cloudy point around Mount Vernon, is grouped in with western Baltimore County and adjacent parts of Howard (producing a 53% Black VAP seat), while the remainder is grouped with parts of Baltimore County to the east and north and the Edgewood-Aberdeen-Havre de Grace corridor of Harford. These configurations somewhat resemble the current 7th and 2nd respectively. I'm heavily reconfiguring the map right now after my discussion with Antonio and a few other decisions I've made since then, but I should be able to post it here soon.

A compact district taking in all of Baltimore and parts of SE Baltimore County is almost guaranteed to be majority black. I don't think the black vote is being diluted in that scenario.

MD-07 on the map I just posted is:
Total 772,381 100.0%
White 260,385 33.7%
Hispanic 63,522 8.2%
Black 404,115 52.3%
Asian 34,870 4.5%
Native 13,934 1.8%
Pacific 933 0.1%

A district like this is not diluting the black vote. It's making the seat only barely black  majority, but surely that doesn't count as "diluting"?
Also, the Baltimore County part of the seat is some 75% of the seat. That's dominated by Baltimore by default. It's dominated by Baltimore even more when you consider that the heavily R areas in the far SE part of the County will not be voting in the D primary in proportion to their numbers. Perhaps it would be a 5/1 or even a 6/1 ratio between the City and County.

It's been customary since the 80s map to have a seat that combines western Baltimore with the Black communities in adjacent parts of Baltimore County, so this is in part a choice of custom. In addition, though, I feel that the resulting three-way split of Baltimore County (although three-way county splits typically make one recoil for good reason) are a better reflection of COI for a county with a disjointed identity, in the same way that most Minnesota maps worth their salt will group the southern "tongue" of Anoka County with one of the Twin Cities, or the astute Virginia mapper will cleave Prince William County in twain along an east-west axis. The post-industrial Dundalk-Sparrows Point simply has nothing in common with Randallstown or Reisterstown, which have far closer cultural ties to and hold less antagonism regarding the City of Baltimore, and trying to keep most of Baltimore County whole will produce an awkward crescent-shaped seat unless one is willing, as you were, to group it with much more Republican areas. The southeast does, though, have much in common with coastal Harford County, and that's where the present division of that area emerges.

Ok, there is history backing up the idea of splitting Baltimore and making that an acceptable choice, I  agree one can opt for that - I just was disputing the idea that Baltimore whole means a dilution of the black character of MD-07.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'd prefer a stronger gerrymander than this that banishes R hopes of getting a Representative elected in the Old Line State to Davy Jone's Locker, but this map is still a net improvement from the current map, in both compactness and partisan composition.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wonderful news.
Great map.
God bless the Maryland Democrats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

DRA Map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5a707bb-33d7-4696-b80a-ecfbcb7fb506

2016/2020 PVIs:
1 R+4
2 D+6
3 D+9
4 D+34
5 D+19
6 D+8
7 D+27
8 D+14

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

DRA Map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5a707bb-33d7-4696-b80a-ecfbcb7fb506

2016/2020 PVIs:
1 R+4
2 D+6
3 D+9
4 D+34
5 D+19
6 D+8
7 D+27
8 D+14

Aren’t those PVIs skewed by Hogan 2018?

I don't think DRA includes that in the calculations?