Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[Stuart98]

Experimental plan I came up with in response to the commission's new plan:



6th is made into a maj-min with substantial Hispanic and black populations, 4th is a Hispanic opportunity district that's majority minority by total population, 8th is one quarter hispanic and has weaker trends than most of the state.

[Calthrina950]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

yep, she did

And not only did Mitsch-Bush win it, but she got a majority there. Certainly a humiliating result for Boebert to lose her home county, although she obviously carried her hometown of Rifle (Mitsch-Bush won thanks to a strong performance in Glenwood Springs). Mitsch-Bush did the best of the three major Democratic candidates in Garfield County, as Biden won it with a plurality and Hickenlooper lost it to Cory Gardner.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

yep, she did

And not only did Mitsch-Bush win it, but she got a majority there. Certainly a humiliating result for Boebert to lose her home county, although she obviously carried her hometown of Rifle (Mitsch-Bush won thanks to a strong performance in Glenwood Springs). Mitsch-Bush did the best of the three major Democratic candidates in Garfield County, as Biden won it with a plurality and Hickenlooper lost it to Cory Gardner.

Interesting.
Two things as an aside.
I don't think someone losing their home county necessarily means too much, especially in this era of polarization up and increasingly farther down the ballot.
The other is, it's ironic that the gun rights activist who rises to the fore due to something related to Beto O'Rouke lives in a place called...Rifle. Lol.
I wonder how that place got its name.

[Stuart98]

Does she actually live in Rifle, or does she live in Silt (a town just east of Rifle)? Different Wikipedia pages disagree on this.

[lfromnj]

I think Ken Buck actually lives in the new 8th but I would guess he runs in the 4th.

Either way from a non-partisan perspective it's absolutely abominable that Greeley ends up somehow in a Denver metro district while Fort Collins gets lumped in to a district with the plains. For that matter lumping in Loveland with Boulder and the NW quarter of the state is also pretty bad.

What's wrong with Loveland and Boulder? Most normal maps have a Larimer +Boulder district which would include Loveland?

[Coastal Elitist]

Wouldn't be surprised if this new version gets another big change next time. There are hundreds of comments on the commission website by people upset about slicing Fort Collins out of Larimer and sticking it with the rurals.

[Oryxslayer]

Wouldn't be surprised if this new version gets another big change next time. There are hundreds of comments on the commission website by people upset about slicing Fort Collins out of Larimer and sticking it with the rurals.

Yeah that was a decision that just raised more questions then it answers. The simple solution would be to just cut Boulder instead and put more turf with the metro seats, but given how drastic  map a -> map b was, map b -> map c will likely be similar.

[Calthrina950]

Neguse is already fundraising off of it:

https://twitter.com/joeneguse/status/1433941758170128385?s=21

Boebert lost Garfield County to Diane Mitsch-Bush last year, if I'm not mistaken.

yep, she did

And not only did Mitsch-Bush win it, but she got a majority there. Certainly a humiliating result for Boebert to lose her home county, although she obviously carried her hometown of Rifle (Mitsch-Bush won thanks to a strong performance in Glenwood Springs). Mitsch-Bush did the best of the three major Democratic candidates in Garfield County, as Biden won it with a plurality and Hickenlooper lost it to Cory Gardner.

Interesting.
Two things as an aside.
I don't think someone losing their home county necessarily means too much, especially in this era of polarization up and increasingly farther down the ballot.
The other is, it's ironic that the gun rights activist who rises to the fore due to something related to Beto O'Rouke lives in a place called...Rifle. Lol.
I wonder how that place got its name.

You do have a point. It doesn't necessarily mean much, but I think it does mean something that Boebert did worse in her home county than either Trump or Gardner. As for the second, you're right about that also. It's been about two years since Boebert first gained prominence by confronting O'Rourke at his rally in Denver.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I think Ken Buck actually lives in the new 8th but I would guess he runs in the 4th.

Either way from a non-partisan perspective it's absolutely abominable that Greeley ends up somehow in a Denver metro district while Fort Collins gets lumped in to a district with the plains. For that matter lumping in Loveland with Boulder and the NW quarter of the state is also pretty bad.

What's wrong with Loveland and Boulder? Most normal maps have a Larimer +Boulder district which would include Loveland?

The more offensive part is splitting Fort Collins and Loveland. Loveland is basically a less wealthy sister city to the neighboring destination/college town (think: Springfield Oregon). I get that there's a continuity issue that means that if you split Loveland and FoCo, Loveland has to go in with Boulder (although given that we've seen maps that give portions of western Boulder County to the third apparently this isn't a major priority) but culturally it's an awful fit, just as Fort Collins is for a district that includes the Northeast corner of the state (and Douglas County, somehow).

Oh well, I don't particularly care because this won't be the final map and if it was it would benefit my party. But it's pretty blatant to anyone who knows the Northern Front Range.

[Skill and Chance]

The new map basically looks like an R dummymander where they are assuming Biden's #'s were a one-off and trying for a majority of the seats.

[patzer]

So I thought I'd have a go at making another map, inspired by the latest commission one and trying to fix its flaws. Points to note here:

1) The obvious issue of the inclusion of Fort Collins in the eastern plains district: I thought the best solution to this would be to have a single district for all the northern towns, as a community of interest. Except Greeley, which needs to be in the Hispanic district.

2) The northern Hispanic district (numbered 8th on my map) is 44% Hispanic, reaching round to take in a few mostly-Hispanic precincts of Aurora. Southern Hispanic district is 26% Hispanic.

3) The data here is 2016 presidential. I didn't look at the partisan data until the map was finished, then had a look, and of course it turned out to be 7-1 in 2020 for Biden. However, when discussing competitiveness the Republicans are bound to be ambitious and look to reverse some of those trends. From this viewpoint, when looking at the 2016 data (2 Dem, 1 Rep, 5 swing) it seems fair and maximizes competitiveness. (Of course it could very easily go 8-0 in reality, but if it does do so that's indicative that the Republicans in the state have failed anyway)

4) One slight disadvantage of this map is how different many of the districts on it are to their current configurations. Boebert's pretty evenly split between the 3rd and 4th; Neguse between the 2nd and 3rd; Buck between the 2nd, 8th, 6th, and 7th; and Perlmutter between the 3rd, 7th, and 8th.

[Skill and Chance]

So I thought I'd have a go at making another map, inspired by the latest commission one and trying to fix its flaws. Points to note here:

1) The obvious issue of the inclusion of Fort Collins in the eastern plains district: I thought the best solution to this would be to have a single district for all the northern towns, as a community of interest. Except Greeley, which needs to be in the Hispanic district.

2) The northern Hispanic district (numbered 8th on my map) is 44% Hispanic, reaching round to take in a few mostly-Hispanic precincts of Aurora. Southern Hispanic district is 26% Hispanic.

3) The data here is 2016 presidential. I didn't look at the partisan data until the map was finished, then had a look, and of course it turned out to be 7-1 in 2020 for Biden. However, when discussing competitiveness the Republicans are bound to be ambitious and look to reverse some of those trends. From this viewpoint, when looking at the 2016 data (2 Dem, 1 Rep, 5 swing) it seems fair and maximizes competitiveness. (Of course it could very easily go 8-0 in reality, but if it does do so that's indicative that the Republicans in the state have failed anyway)

4) One slight disadvantage of this map is how different many of the districts on it are to their current configurations. Boebert's pretty evenly split between the 3rd and 4th; Neguse between the 2nd and 3rd; Buck between the 2nd, 8th, 6th, and 7th; and Perlmutter between the 3rd, 7th, and 8th.

This map just looks like a gerrymander with the spokes into Denver/Boulder metro.  Weirdly, it works out to be something closer to an R gerrymander despite the look, because they hold their 3 and can contest both 8 and 6 (depending on how much weight you put on Biden #'s of course).

[patzer]

This map just looks like a gerrymander with the spokes into Denver/Boulder metro.  Weirdly, it works out to be something closer to an R gerrymander despite the look, because they hold their 3 and can contest both 8 and 6 (depending on how much weight you put on Biden #'s of course).

Weird thing is that I put no thought of gerrymandering at all into it- it just ended up being a natural result of having one southern Hispanic district, one northern cities district, and one northern Hispanic district, in addition to the existing east and west ones.

Five districts with a border on the edge of Colorado and more inevitably go into the Denver area.

And yeah, I wouldn't really call it a gerrymander until we know how much trends stick. It's just volatile.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would a hardcore 5R-3D under 2020 figures look like?

[patzer]

What would a hardcore 5R-3D under 2020 figures look like?

Best you can do is a dummymander. Each red district is at least Trump +5:



(you could get it up to Trump +6 by carving into El Paso County, but not beyond)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would a hardcore 5R-3D under 2020 figures look like?

Best you can do is a dummymander. Each red district is at least Trump +5:



(you could get it up to Trump +6 by carving into El Paso County, but not beyond)

Lol, at least this map would hold up better than the map GA Dems passed in 1992.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1435033207628521476?s=20

Munching on popcorn.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1435033207628521476?s=20

Munching on popcorn.

Best reality show ever from the Rockies. Change my mind.

[OBD]

https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1435033207628521476?s=20

Munching on popcorn.

Please don't switch districts lmao

[BoiseBoy]

State house and senate maps are due to be released today.

[BoiseBoy]

UPDATE: Here are the state senate and house maps as proposed by redistricting staff

Senate
https://coleg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=6ccdcadefab24cd38999c94b12255e2f

House
https://coleg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=7162477c2fa64ecab17a61aa35daf896

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wow, Senate Districts 3 and 8 together have a majority of the state's land area.

[BoiseBoy]

Here are the maps, colored by 2020 numbers:

Senate


House

[Roll Roons]

Wow, geography sucks for Colorado Republicans.

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

I made a hardcore 7-1 D Dem mander map with 1 GOP sink.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d47137cb-c186-43cd-a074-7d7b4655311f

I made a new 7-1 D map with the new 2020 census data. (2020 Prez data)

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5d1c62e-ec17-4241-8e42-fd05a35573ea