Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[Biden his time]

MAP

5 and 7's cuts into Jefferson seem pointless, any real reason for them both?  You can just push 8 more into Douglas and remove 5 and 7 from Jefferson entirely.

I created CO-1, CO-2, CO-3, and CO-8 before I made any of the districts surrounding the Denver metro, and when I started making CO-4, it didn't have space for any more people in Jefferson. Interesting idea though pushing CO-8 into Douglas, but I tried to keep the entire Denver urban area outside of CO-8 and there really wasn't any more room in CO-8 for adding more parts of Douglas.

Also, it worked quite well for population balancing.

[Storr]

They're going to release the preliminary maps at (some point during) a meeting starting at 2pm Mountain time (4pm Eastern) that the public can virtually attend (or in person for Coloradans at some place called SCR 354):
https://redistricting.colorado.gov/

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/JustinWingerter/status/1407791929669033988?s=20

[Nyvin]

Looks like 5D-3R

Jefferson district might be close I guess.

[Devils30]

How much of Boulder is in CO-3? Hard to tell with this map. Off top of my head it looks 5-3 but I need to know more about Boulder. The writing obscures it a bit.

[Oryxslayer]

Okay, so Pueblo-Weld is in. No Denver minority access seat, unless Aurora has enough on its own under the new numbers.

Functionally, I'm not sure what it the up or downsides just from glancing. 6 gets much safer for Ds. 7 is the new seat, 8 replaces the old 7. New 7 is probably more Dem than most hypthetical outcomes that kept the emphasis on Douglass. I suspect the Adams-Weld weirdness will get cleaned up through citizen input.

I'm not quite sure about the new 3. Gets more blue ski turf, but also the red counties to the east of the Rockies but west of Colorado Springs.

It seems like their guiding light is keeping the cross-county cities like Westminster and Aurora intact.

[Brittain33]

How much of Boulder is in CO-3? Hard to tell with this map. Off top of my head it looks 5-3 but I need to know more about Boulder. The writing obscures it a bit.

Almost all of Boulder’s population is in the eastern half of the county. I doubt there’s much in this district.

[Gass3268]

Looks like it was a 4-4 map based on 2018 data.

https://twitter.com/Elections_Daily/status/1407794083070873605?s=20

[Nyvin]

How much of Boulder is in CO-3? Hard to tell with this map. Off top of my head it looks 5-3 but I need to know more about Boulder. The writing obscures it a bit.

The CO-3 looks like it's safe enough for Boebert

[Oryxslayer]

Looks like it was a 4-4 map based on 2018 data.

So 5-3 based on 2020 data. That race was much closer than the Pres or even the senate election.

[Devils30]

And the new 7th almost certainly went Biden by 5+ I would think?

[Gass3268]

Looks like it was a 4-4 map based on 2018 data.

So 5-3 based on 2020 data. That race was much closer than the Pres or even the senate election.

Yeah, only question would be is the leftward swing in northern Douglas County gonna stick. Also I would be interested to see what the 2020 numbers in CO-5 look like.

[Nyvin]

Almost all the Douglas portion of CO-7 is in Highlands Ranch, which is zooming left.   

CO-7 seems like a real heavy lift for R's, but not totally impossible.   Likely D IMO

[Gass3268]

Some more data. Hillary lost the new 7th by 1 point, Polis won it by 3.

https://twitter.com/mattmxhn/status/1407796499115823110?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Apparently the new 8 (old 7) is an attempt to get a Hispanic Rep using Greeley and Adams to get a seat >30% Hispanic under the current data. Honestly, may be a better option than the Aurora-Denver minority seat some proposed, but probably less effective than the Adam-Denver one.

https://twitter.com/Nickyg113/status/1407796458275934213?s=20

Boeberts seat got bluer.

[Devils30]

I would estimate CO-7 is around 53-46 Biden. Both 7 and 3 are trending D so it could be 4-4 in a good GOP year, 5-3 in a 2020 type year and 6-2 in a 2018.

[Meatball Ron]

So basically: 4 Safe D (maybe CO-08 could flip in the most epic of waves, but it's still closer to safe than likely), 1 Lean D (which will probably be likely soon enough), 1 Likely R, and 2 Safe R. Notably, Boebert's seat gets a little safer for Republicans.

This feels like

a) not a huge win for either side - partisan Dems were hoping for 5 safe seats and a competitive 6th seat; partisan GOPers were hoping for 4 R-favored seats

b) more or less fair given the partisanship of CO, maybe with a very very slight R bias as the matt mohn tweet describes. Ultimately it'll manifest as 5-3 in the vast majority of years which is the closest possible representation of statewide partisanship.

EDIT: new replies were posted, seems I was clearly wrong about Boebert's district. Post probably still stands otherwise but I need to review the new posts.

EDIT again: Looks like Trump won the new CO-03 by 7 points, not 3 points, as the Georgia Election Geek tweet says...so original post stands

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/ECaliberSeven/status/1407799392153833472?s=20

[Devils30]

7 will start out close ish but by 2026 won't be competitive.

[It’s so Joever]

So is it Trump+3 or Trump+7 for Boebert’s district?

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ECaliberSeven/status/1407799392153833472?s=20

There seems to be some confusion over the Boebert numbers in 3, which is what I expected when the map was revealed. Takeaway should be 7 is around +9 Biden. Hard to see that electing a Republican.

[Storr]

And the new 7th almost certainly went Biden by 5+ I would think?

That seems likely. I doubt Republicans would be happy with this map. I'm guessing, but the new 8th probably was closer in the 2020 Presidential than the new 7th. The commission so far only shared the preliminary new districts performances in the 2018 Colorado Attorney General Election results, which was closer than 2018 Governor and 2020 races. At least they did include voter registration statistics, the 8th looks to be even more unfavorable for Republicans than the new 7th:

https://redistricting.colorado.gov/content/2021-redistricting-maps

new 7th: Republicans: 33.5% - 153,821
              Democrats:  29.7% - 136,430
              Other Party: 1.9% -   8,825
              Unaffiliated: 51.1% - 234,905
              Total: 533,981

new 8th: Republicans: 23.1% - 107,153
              Democrats:  30.2% - 140,362
              Other Party: 1.9%  -   8,733
              Unaffiliated  44.9% - 208,595
              Total: 464,843

[Devils30]

Given the trends of Jefferson and Douglas it's hard to feel that 7 should be anything other than Tilt D in a neutral environment.

[Meatball Ron]

So is it Trump+3 or Trump+7 for Boebert’s district?

I think Ethan C7 is right and Georgia Election Geek is wrong. +7 Trump in Boebert's seat.

[Devils30]

Given trends the GOP might have to worry more about 5 than 3 later on. 5 is Dem trending but might not be competitive until 2028.