2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Indiana

[Devils30]

IN-1 at Biden +8 could trend R and eventually flip. Problem is that by the time this happens, it's possible some of the new Trump +12 Texas suburban seats are D+5 and cancels it out. Who knows if maybe we have some backdoor deals like keeping an IN-1, MO-5 in exchange for a redder NM-2, MD-1.

I think a big factor in minimal change maps is incumbents not wanting  40% of constituents to be new as this invites MAGA challengers. 

The commentariot are the only ones who believe that there are deals between mappers across states. Spoilers, this is a state-by-state process, with an infinite number of local variables - the desire for nation partisan gain being only one. The national party has very limited power to influence the lines. As you note, its probably a case of incumbents liking their current seats, as is usual during this process. I did not at the start of this thread that no Republican would want Gary in their seat, just for cultural reasons and that they would have to open an office for constituent outreach reasons in such a populous area.

The only people who actually can influence maps across state lines are us - those who submit maps to mappers for multiple states - and the mapping firms/lawyers who draw the lines and can be contracted by multiple clients. Like the GOPs unscrupulous snake from 2010 who died recently.

It's state by state but ones like NY there's no doubt the national party is talking about just because of the stakes involved.

[MT Treasurer]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

[BoiseBoy]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

[dpmapper]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

There are obvious constitutional reasons to oppose such a bill, not just partisan reasons. 

[Nyvin]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

There are obvious constitutional reasons to oppose such a bill, not just partisan reasons. 

What?!?

[Devils30]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

The KS Supreme Court might strike down a 4-0 map, 5 of 7 were appointed by Dem Governors. I think KS-3 has a pretty strong chance of sticking. Seems like KY-3 probably does as well, biggest risk for Dems is TN with MO looking iffy. Rs will absolutely go at least 19-9 in FL and 25-13 in TX though.

NJ with the commission being D leaning and NY look like 10-2 and 23-3 at least from the get-go. CA who knows what happens, I would say anything from 44-8 to 47-5 could, I doubt Dems can get any higher than that and Rs are limited by poor geography. 14-3 in IL seems the consensus.

I can see the PA supreme court helping Ds somewhat (maybe cracking Pittsburgh to allow PA-17 to remain blue and shoring up PA-7) but I doubt we get anything that is more than 10-7 Biden at most. It's hard to help Cartwright and Wild at the same time and Fitzpatrick will still be favored in his Dem leaning seat. Only way GOP would get screwed is the court cracking Philly and while I would try it, highly doubt they go for it.

[MT Treasurer]

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

Ah yes, if only they would get on board to support MT-style "independent" commissions endorsed by Senate Democrats in every state — what could possibly go wrong with that?

But yes, fair point on the KS map/Court (they’d be dumb to gerrymander that state anyway).

[Skill and Chance]

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

Ah yes, if only they would get on board to support MT-style "independent" commissions endorsed by Senate Democrats in every state — what could possibly go wrong with that?

But yes, fair point on the KS map/Court (they’d be dumb to gerrymander that state anyway).

1. They are making really dumb choices about where to take risks in the states where they have control (drawing a nasty-looking map with NE-02 only 1% less Biden and putting the excess Biden voters in NE-01 instead of NE-03, leaving IN-01 alone while apparently targeting TN-05, super aggressive stuff being considered in NC and maybe TX, etc.).  Even stuff like leaving AR-02 with all of Little Rock seems somewhat dumb.   

2. Dems are generally playing the commission/court game better (MI, PA, CO, NJ, MT, AK legislative, probably CA given several independent and Republican commissioners wrote essays that sound very woke).  However, the AZ tiebreaker this time donated to Ducey and R's could still game the new VA commission and hope the conservative-leaning state supreme court picks the R map.

[ProgressiveModerate]

So glad we actually may get a fair-ish and clean looking map. Honestly keeping IN-1 is pretty good for Dems; not exactly sure why the GOP didn't go 8-1 as it's not hard to eliminate IN-1. My guess is Wolarzorki didn't want to take in any blue areas.

[Oryxslayer]

BTW, something I didn't realize until now when I'm looking at it but the proposed IN-07 is plurality white/majority minority coalition. That I think settles our discussion from earlier whether the GOP could ever get away with slicing up the city like a pizza - they can't cause the data is there for minority access.

[S019]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

I'd be very, very shocked if Republicans didn't pick up at least one seat in Florida (Murphy is very easy to get rid of even if you follow the amendment (literally just change the county that Seminole is paired with from Orange to Volusia)). As for New York, I think Democratic parochial concerns, such as concerns about splitting Albany or Buffalo make the bare maximum 22-4, and parochial concerns in Long Island may prevent Dems for taking a Long Island seat, bring us down to 21-5. CA is pretty close to maxed out for the Dems, Issa can probably get bluer by dropping Temecula/Murrieta and Kim, Steele, and Garcia are going to be in close races no matter what, in fact Democrats might actually be on the losing end in places like CA-07, where Matsui's seat likely has to expand, eating up blue territory and forcing Bera to be sent into redder territory. PA will be mostly fair, and Democrats need to lose at least one seat in anything other than a total gerrymander (bye Cartwright), Lamb's seat probably doesn't look too hot for them either, though it's theoretically salvageable depending on the Allegheny split. NJ will likely be 9-3, and Democrats have basically all but confirmed that they intend to throw Malinowski to the wolves, because they are close to maxed out in the state and 11-1 or 10-2 would be a risky proposition that could lead to a dummymander. Also in TX, what more can the Republicans do? Their current gerrymander almost fell apart for being too aggressive, at this point do they have any choice, but to cede seats to the Democrats? They're more than welcome to try to crack Austin if they'd like. Missouri and Tennessee seem more unpredictable, though Tennessee has a higher chance of cracking its "blue island" than Missouri does, I think both states ultimately do it, but there are good arguments for both sides, right now. IL will likely be 14-3, though trends for Dems will likely be awful in the Quad Cities/Rockford (currently held by Bustos, who is retiring) seat

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/40b399a9-1f24-4ea7-98c9-a7f178526dab

Here's the GOP's proposed map if anyone is curious.

If trends go nuts it's possible IN-5 falls by the end of the deacde, but by that point a lot of gerrymanders will have probably backfired anyways, and that's certainly not a given, especially since the district does still have quite a lot of rurals.

[Pericles]

Indeed IN-01 has been trending R quite strongly too, it was Obama+24%, Clinton+13% and Biden +9%, and it looks pretty much unchanged under this map. It's not very good for Democrats demographically either, this site says only 23.5% have a degree there (but I'm not sure whether this is out of total population or voting age population or something else). So if trends just continue it could flip by the end of the decade.

[StateBoiler]

I wonder which districts Rainwater came in second and which one was his best in the 2020 Governors race?

3, 4, 5, 6. Not sure which is best. He did not do comparatively well in Ohio River country.

[StateBoiler]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nickroberts317/status/1437949265188425730/photo/1

Allen County where Fort Wayne is was made incredibly cleaner. Where there used to be 9 House districts all or part of the county it's now 5 fully inside with 1 going outside the county. Fort Wayne has 3 districts while rest of county has two in full and majority of a third. This as he posts will net 1 for Democrats. There's an outer Bloomington seat that contains Indiana University that will be a battleground.

Outside of Marion County and the 1st district he counts 11 Democratic seats (2 Fort Wayne, 2 Bloomington, 2 South Bend, 2 Lafayette, Evansville, Jeffersonville, Muncie). Republicans have 56 seats he rates safe (+15 points), so how they ever gain the legislature back if Democrats keep not giving a flying f#ck about everyone not living in a big city is a damn good question.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Tbf, the GOP is at no risk of loosing the state legistlature or even coming close so while fair maps are appreicated, they mean very little in the long term. 56 GOP seats are considered "safe" on 2020 numbers and it's really hared to see which of those Dems could crack into unless they start outright winning back rural areas.

[Devils30]

Indeed IN-01 has been trending R quite strongly too, it was Obama+24%, Clinton+13% and Biden +9%, and it looks pretty much unchanged under this map. It's not very good for Democrats demographically either, this site says only 23.5% have a degree there (but I'm not sure whether this is out of total population or voting age population or something else). So if trends just continue it could flip by the end of the decade.

I can see it flipping in the 2026 midterms but do some of the Trump +11 incoming TX seats flip the other way by that point.

[StateBoiler]

Indeed IN-01 has been trending R quite strongly too, it was Obama+24%, Clinton+13% and Biden +9%, and it looks pretty much unchanged under this map. It's not very good for Democrats demographically either, this site says only 23.5% have a degree there (but I'm not sure whether this is out of total population or voting age population or something else). So if trends just continue it could flip by the end of the decade.

I can see it flipping in the 2026 midterms but do some of the Trump +11 incoming TX seats flip the other way by that point.

One thing to remember about the 1st is it's never had a serious Republican candidate put in effort to win the race. Mark Leyva is not a serious candidate and in 2020 he got sbove 40%.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

Yea the NY/CA slaughter can be easily prevented but Republicans won't get around back to being against Gerrymandering like they used to be (especially here in NC in the early 2000s after "100 years of Dem gerrymandering") until it is a net negative for them.

[Vosem]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

The new PA map will almost certainly significantly help the GOP, and I wouldn't expect very big differences in CA or NJ.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ah yes, if only they would get on board to support MT-style "independent" commissions endorsed by Senate Democrats in every state — what could possibly go wrong with that?

This is not in a vacuum. How you do the membership selection and how you do the drawing rules matters obviously, and Republicans should insist on those being stronger/different before supporting it.

[Florida Man for Crime]

If this wasn’t part of some shady deal with some D-trifecta state(s) (and I agree that these deals are highly unlikely in general), Republicans are even more incompetent than I thought they were, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. They’re essentially letting themselves get gerrymandered into oblivion this cycle.

Watch them create some insanely ridiculous gerrymander in KS and TN while leaving MO/IN/TX/FL largely intact.

My impression has been that the GOP genuinely has zero idea of what kind of slaughter awaits them in IL/PA/NY/CA/NJ/etc.

If only Senate Republicans would get on board with a gerrymandering ban and mandated independent commissions.

Yea the NY/CA slaughter can be easily prevented but Republicans won't get around back to being against Gerrymandering like they used to be (especially here in NC in the early 2000s after "100 years of Dem gerrymandering") until it is a net negative for them.

This is absolutely correct, which is why Dems need to pass maps with 0 (no, not 1, not 2, and certainly not 3) Republican seats in states like NY and CA. Unfortunately, the only path to reform lies in first making things even worse.

[Pollster]

Not cracking IN-01 is probably best for GOP in the long run. Walorski's district already got a bit bluer without a crack, and IN-01 under the current/proposed lines is racing to the right regardless.

Not impossible to see IN-01 becoming a tossup if 2022 goes particularly south for Dems and/or becoming seat 218 in a Dem majority later in the decade. This would certainly be welcome news for the district's residents, who have been politically ignored for a wide variety of reasons for decades despite increasing economic hardship and a quick decline in quality of life.

[lfromnj]

Indiana Republicans have come with a new map for the state house


Actually the Democrats proposal, just felt like posting it

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Indiana Republicans have come with a new map for the state house


Actually the Democrats proposal, just felt like posting it

Cracking Monroe County in 4? This is ridicolous.