2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Maryland

[cvparty]

According to 538's Atlas of Redistricting, the most pro-D gerrymander would have all 8 districts favor Democrats, while the most pro-R gerrymander would have 4 Republican-leaning districts. If the map were drawn to be proportionally partisan and keep as many counties intact as possible, it would have 5 D-leaning districts and 3 R-leaning districts (with one of them being a swing district).

I personally would take the 5D-3R map in exchange for other states squeezing in more D-leaning districts.

FPTP voting doesn't go with proportional representation. a fair maryland map would be 6-2 not 5-3

[cvparty]

According to 538's Atlas of Redistricting, the most pro-D gerrymander would have all 8 districts favor Democrats, while the most pro-R gerrymander would have 4 Republican-leaning districts. If the map were drawn to be proportionally partisan and keep as many counties intact as possible, it would have 5 D-leaning districts and 3 R-leaning districts (with one of them being a swing district).

I personally would take the 5D-3R map in exchange for other states squeezing in more D-leaning districts.

FPTP voting doesn't go with proportional representation. a fair maryland map would be 6-2 not 5-3

Uh what? St Mary's, Calvert, And most of Anne Arrundel gets a very clean Trump +4 district.

To be fair, there's an argument that the panhandle district should go into Montgomery rather than suburban Baltimore in a fair map. Not one I necessarily agree with but it's not an illegitimate opinion.

If rural Frederick is added thats pretty fair if its mostly exurban Montgomery



Keeps COI's etc together and is quite compact, main problems are splits of Baltimore county and the green district is way too black but if needed one could just make it more ugly with the Purple district to create 2 black majority districts and it wouldn't really be breaking up COI's besides college park as its mostly just traveling around the DC beltway.

having republicans doesn't make a COI
if you shift your district populations counterclockwise then you can get districts that conform to metro areas

[cvparty]

According to 538's Atlas of Redistricting, the most pro-D gerrymander would have all 8 districts favor Democrats, while the most pro-R gerrymander would have 4 Republican-leaning districts. If the map were drawn to be proportionally partisan and keep as many counties intact as possible, it would have 5 D-leaning districts and 3 R-leaning districts (with one of them being a swing district).

I personally would take the 5D-3R map in exchange for other states squeezing in more D-leaning districts.

FPTP voting doesn't go with proportional representation. a fair maryland map would be 6-2 not 5-3

Uh what? St Mary's, Calvert, And most of Anne Arrundel gets a very clean Trump +4 district.

To be fair, there's an argument that the panhandle district should go into Montgomery rather than suburban Baltimore in a fair map. Not one I necessarily agree with but it's not an illegitimate opinion.

If rural Frederick is added thats pretty fair if its mostly exurban Montgomery



Keeps COI's etc together and is quite compact, main problems are splits of Baltimore county and the green district is way too black but if needed one could just make it more ugly with the Purple district to create 2 black majority districts and it wouldn't really be breaking up COI's besides college park as its mostly just traveling around the DC beltway.

having republicans doesn't make a COI
if you shift your district populations counterclockwise then you can get districts that conform to metro areas

Isn't the non DC/non Baltimore parts of the eastern shore a reasonable COI?, tbf I think everyone can agree that a 6-2 map is fair and a 5-2-1 isn't neccesary but it could definitely work within COI. Whats your opinion of my map that crosses the Eastern shore(it only takes around 100k people from Anne Arrundel but I think it could take St charles instead?

um 90% of MD is in either the baltimore or washington area, it’s impossible to make a non-metro district. anne arundel belongs to the former and calvert the latter. the map you have is just a strange configuration and comes with many issues. if the green district is too black why not have it take in calvert/st. mary’s, which would represent an actual COI (southern MD). I for one have never seen a montgomery-howard-anne arundel district in a fair map

[cvparty]

here’s my fair map drawn without partisan data, i tried to balance preserving metro areas, COIs and compactness. my map happens to be similar to sol's once again lol...we must be doing something right

MD-01: McCain +16 | Romney +16 | Trump +22
MD-02: Obama +20 | Obama +20 | Clinton +27
MD-03: Obama +9 | Obama +11 | Clinton +16
MD-04: Obama +71 | Obama +74 | Clinton +75
MD-05: Obama +41 | Obama +43 | Clinton +36
MD-06: McCain +9 | Romney +12 | Trump +14
MD-07: Obama +57 | Obama +61 | Clinton +52
MD-08: Obama +43 | Obama +43 | Clinton +55

[cvparty]

what's the logic with linking bmore with Dundalk and Towson? Feel like going West and South is more COI.

towson isn't in the baltimore district. unless you're talking about north baltimore going in CD2; that was done for demographic reasons (income, education levels are similar to the suburbs)
dundalk/essex are relatively blue collar, so putting those suburbs with baltimore also makes sense from an income/education standpoint. putting baltimore with woodlawn/randallstown would kind of be packing black voters, and it would force CD2 to encircle baltimore (which would be awkward and not compact) or CD3 to cross the patapsco river (also awkward, and only contiguous by bridge).

in a vacuum, yes going west of baltimore wouldn't be wrong, but in a congressional map it's about balancing all 8 CDs because population equality forces you to balance many factors and make compromises

[cvparty]

there's no good reason to cross the bay. it's one of the most obvious natural barriers in the whole country
and there is no "demographics" argument to link the western and eastern shores lol. except maybe the republican demographic

[cvparty]

there's no good reason to cross the bay. it's one of the most obvious natural barriers in the whole country
and there is no "demographics" argument to link the western and eastern shores lol. except maybe the republican demographic

Its not a GOP argument, I genuinely think both of these maps are acceptable but I thought crossing the bay there might be better. The only difference here is crossing the bay creates a swing district in Baltimore while this creates a swing Western shore district.( The weird yellow arm in Montgomery keeps Georgetown whole.) The actual partisan effect in either map is neglible. What a partisan decision! I made a Trump +3.5 instead of Trump +2 district.

i was talking specifically about coastal elitist's map with the claim of "demographic reasons" to cross the bay. and i don't think the western shore district you have is a strong COI because the western shore
1) is not analogous to the eastern shore. it goes all the way through baltimore and up to harford county and thus contains many rural, exurban, suburban and urban areas while the eastern shore is pretty uniform in its rural nature, has a clear extent and cultural identity and can be contained wholly in one district. also, "western shore" often refers to all of maryland west of the susquehanna, so it's pretty ambiguous
2) spans different metro areas, and causes other districts to encompass different metros
3) isn't compact and lacks strong road connections

southern maryland is a stronger COI that would actually preserve metro areas and better represent the settlement patterns of the state. calvert is a washington exurb that fits with charles county. anne arundel is way more connected to howard county and baltimore than calvert/st mary's

also, not totally related but i don't think a beltway district is the best idea. if i'm not mistaken i think you favor concentric-type districts right? but they're not compact, and bethesda is not similar to the eastern suburbs of washington at all

[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

[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)

[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

[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

[cvparty]

Here's a Republican court-drawn fair map, in the vein of PA.



link

Is pretty much a 5-3 map, though MD-02 is maybe on the edge of competitiveness, and MD-08 could maybe move Dem considering it has a nonzero chunk of Montgomery.

Don't actually think this is the optimal map--rather it's intended as a hypothetical court map.

biden would have carried CD2 and come within about a point of CD8, so it's more like a 5-2-1 map

[cvparty]

Here's a Republican court-drawn fair map, in the vein of PA.



link

Is pretty much a 5-3 map, though MD-02 is maybe on the edge of competitiveness, and MD-08 could maybe move Dem considering it has a nonzero chunk of Montgomery.

Don't actually think this is the optimal map--rather it's intended as a hypothetical court map.

biden would have carried CD2 and come within about a point of CD8, so it's more like a 5-2-1 map

Ah that's good to know--curious where you got your data?

I might post a revised version with that in mind which shores up the 8th.

I've drawn hypothetical fair maps for 2022 and individually calculated the Trump vs. Biden numbers from precinct results (going to post a map series soon) but for my MD map, my panhandle district is about 90% the same as yours and went from Trump +13 to Trump +4; if you extrapolate, then your district would have gone from Trump +11 to about Trump +2

p.s. shoring up that district is going to require staying out of moco entirely, taking in all of carroll, and taking in northern baltimore co., at which point it's straying a bit out of "fair map" territory

[cvparty]

2nd still would have voted for biden by a few points. there's just not enough republican turf anymore to create three R-leaning districts, unless you're willing to take in st. mary's and/or cross the chesapeake (at which point it's just an outright hardcore R gerrymander)

[cvparty]

With Charles having joined Prince George's county in becoming majority African-American, I expect Anne Arundel (given current trends) to be the next county in southern Maryland to become at least majority-minority by the time of the 2040 census, if not earlier:

Charles County Surpasses Prince George's as Wealthiest Black County in US: Post

AACo is not "southern Maryland", lol. Or at least not the parts that are diversifying, and Hispanic growth there is on par with Black growth (and roughly on par with Hispanic growth in Charles, actually, but of course far less than the never-ending PG spillover that made it one of only two Dole-Gore counties nationwide).

Like the 'South', the definition of what constitutes 'southern Maryland' depends on who you ask.  According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for instance, all of Anne Arundel County is considered part of this region:

 
source

I will take their word over yours, thanks.

As to Anne Arundel becoming minority-majority, the trend is clear to anyone:

2000 census

White: 81.2%
Black: 13.6%
Asian: 2.3%
Hispanic: 2.63%
Two or more races: 1.7%

2010 census

White:  75.4%
Black: 15.5%
Asian: 3.4%
Hispanic: 6.1%
Two or more races: 2.9%

2020 census

White: 65.2%
Black: 17.4%
Asian: 4.3%
Hispanic: 9.65%
Two or more races: 5.3%
----------------------------------------

So it looks like the 2030 census will be the last time whites will have a majority in the county.  

They’re just using whole counties, but only the southernmost portion of Anne Arundel is actually southern Maryland. At its most generous definition, everything south of Annapolis?