Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[lfromnj]

Cooked up what I think is a decent CO map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f71e059f-65da-4c98-bad9-274d526e5ae4

Kept Denver besides a small part in the SW whole.
Aurora is also whole

4 Safe D with yellow being the closest of them and then 1 tossup which is red at Trump +3/Polis +1 so I assume Biden won it by a decent margin.
Also the city of Aurora is whole.
All outstate districts should be safe for the GOP. I can't see anyway to realistically get a swing outstate district besides putting Larimer with outstate and dumping Weld with Boulder which I really don't like.Boulder + Larimer are a pretty decent COI.

Outstate really can only be one CO springs district which will not be touched in any circumstance whatsoever and then the Eastern district has to expand to Take Pueblo either due to the loss of Douglass or Weld which removes any chance for a swing Boebert district.

[lfromnj]

Its merely a few thousand people and I estimate with 2020 pop Teller won't even be needed and I guess a precinct or 2 will be taken from El Paso.

Thanks anyway. Although I find county lines generally important to follow in most areas, I found it extremely hard and pointless to follow in the Denver metro and attempting to follow them would merely mess up other options so I just decided to do a rotation of them with 3 districts. Obviously Denver can and should easily be kept whole atleast IMO.

Also If I do a rotation between the 3 outstate districts to do what you say, I would have to split the Hispano area. Although obviously not even close to VRA/minority influence district they are a pretty reasonable COI I tried to keep together.

[lfromnj]

Obviously Denver can and should easily be kept whole at least IMO.

I actually disagree on that. The area out towards the airport really belongs in the Araphoe/Adams district in exchange for some of Aurora. It makes for a much cleaner map. I also disagree with a Douglas/Jefferson district. Jefferson+Clear Creek+Gilpin is almost a whole district (and those two counties very obviously belong with suburban Denver, not the Western Slope). I think cutting the Hispano area is okay considering the clear geographic separation between the Alamosa Valley and I-25 corridor. This is what I have:



I'm also going to draw a map with a Fort Collins-Greeley district, pairing Boulder with the Denver area instead. Arguably that better reflects urbanization patterns along the Front Range.

I thought of the Fort Collins Greeley district but  that pushes Douglass to the eastern slope when it's clearly a Denver suburb/exurb Meanwhile at least Greeley is its own area. Also arguably Boulder and Fort Collins are both college towns so I kept them together .Although generally the state can be categorized into 3 parts

El Paso/Colorado Springs. Pretty clear and the easiest district to draw with only some minor quibbles about Teller county.

The 2 outstate districts, which should be split East and West generally. And then the Greeley- Fort Collins to Douglass Corridor. The population of around 5.5 districts the main question is which of these counties should be paired with outstate
Douglass/Boulder/Larimer/Weld.

[lfromnj]

Cooked up what I think is a decent CO map that is closer. I also now am more seeing the reason why El Paso should be the cut county and not Teller considering how rural Eastern El Paso county is. However I did like my current configuration.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f71e059f-65da-4c98-bad9-274d526e5ae4

Kept Denver besides a small part in the SW whole.
Aurora is also whole

4 Safe D with yellow being the closest of them and then 1 tossup which is red at Trump +3/Polis +1 so I assume Biden won it by a decent margin.
Also the city of Aurora is whole.
All outstate districts should be safe for the GOP. I can't see anyway to realistically get a swing outstate district besides putting Larimer with outstate and dumping Weld with Boulder which I really don't like.Boulder + Larimer are a pretty decent COI.

Outstate really can only be one CO springs district which will not be touched in any circumstance whatsoever and then the Eastern district has to expand to Take Pueblo either due to the loss of Douglass or Weld which removes any chance for a swing Boebert district.

This map is a bona fide fair map. I also like the compact shapes and the overall end result. Only real quibble for me is the shape of the El Paso County CD. The county is just right in size that it can be a CD to itself. If you want smaller deviation, then it's better taking a precinct with a less jagged shape.

Yes I changed up and took a smaller precinct



Although El Paso has grown slightly faster than the state as a whole so its more likely one will have to take a precinct from the county itself with 2020 pop.

[lfromnj]

https://www.coloradopols.com/diary/155780/redistricting-chair-is-an-election-fraud-truther

The chair probably doesn't matter as much here though compared to AZ or NJ.

Iirc the indys are fairly left leaning

[lfromnj]

https://coloradosun.com/2021/05/12/jason-crow-moves-centennial-congressional-redistricting/

Fairly minor news although any district with Aurora will be Safe D but Centennial on the other hand could be placed with Douglas in a swing district.

[lfromnj]

https://coloradosun.com/2021/05/12/jason-crow-moves-centennial-congressional-redistricting/

Fairly minor news although any district with Aurora will be Safe D but Centennial on the other hand could be placed with Douglas in a swing district.

A district running from Douglas to areas directing bordering Denver is likely to be a fair-fight district. Every congressional map this century in CO has had one of those.

Yes and I am guessing Democrats would slightly prefer to have an incumbent already in said district. Its still a fair fight district but I would say incumbency is still worth at least half a point?

[lfromnj]

https://gazette.com/colorado_politics/redistricting-commissioners-clash-over-prisoner-reallocation/article_b413575a-c182-11eb-bc65-77fec0bce485.html

Is Danny Moore a dem plant?

Commissioner Moore and Democratic commissioner Lisa Wilkes said the practice of counting prisoners is in some ways reminiscent of American slavery, which commissioner Leone said was an unfair comparison.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440

WTF?

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

[lfromnj]

Does anybody else think that CO-3 could potentially become competitive down the line considering trends in Western Colorado?

After all, CO-3 only was won by Trump with a margin of 7%, but if you look at this map, you'll see that Western Colorado massively trended D from 2016 to 2020 on the presidential level. If these trends continue, I'd think that this could make Boebert (who is notoriously extreme) vulnerable in her own district, no?

Calm down a touch, Biden and Obama still had fairly similar margins for this district. Relatively similar to NC11/Western Montana IMO. Wait and watch here.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

Is a fair Kentucky map now supposed to use Beshear 2019 numbers?You know as well as I do, that this is an absurd idea.

Criteria for Drawing Congressional District Map
 
Districts must:
 
Have equal population, justifying each variance, no matter how small, as required by the U.S. Constitution;
Be composed of contiguous geographic areas;
Comply with the federal "Voting Rights Act of 1965," as amended;
Preserve whole communities of interest and whole political subdivisions, such as counties, cities, and towns;
Be as compact as is reasonably possible; and
Maximize the number of politically competitive districts.

Only competitive districts are mentioned, matching partisanship is not. Using some weird downballot race is completely absurd for this purpose. If the goal in creating CO7th did include partisan data then it was flawed.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1407828715690770440
WTF?

tweet and pdf were deleted?

And? I don't see the problem. They picked a race closest to 50-50 and used it when aiming for competitive districts, since these districts would then come closest to matching the state's median. There's an argument of course that Colorado is not as competitive anymore as that race suggests - which is why CO07 is a Dem district and not a swingy one - but the point wasn't competition. It was to equitably match the state's partisanship.

Is a fair Kentucky map now supposed to use Beshear 2019 numbers?You know as well as I do, that this is an absurd idea.

It doesn't matter what race you pick to draw from if your goal is to equitably match the state's overall partisanship rather than competitiveness. State's don't move in a bubble. If say they used 2020 partisanship, a district similar to CO07's electoral data would still appear going by their guidelines. Colorado is a Dem state, so 5-3 Dem, but Colorado isn't 100% committed to Dems so neither should the seat. Drawing a marginal seat based on a marginal result therefore fulfills these goals, since the state won't normally be as competitive as said race, and said seat therefore won't be marginal in most circumstances.

If your goal was competitiveness, then yes, you should use the most modern and all-encompassing data available.

Except the commission isn't even supposed to consider matching partisanship. They can use partisan data for competitive purposes and in that scenario the most obvious data set would be either Cook PVI,75/25 PVI or composite score.

[lfromnj]

Dems should pick a Manchin type in CO-3, give in on the gun issue and run against Boebert as a traitor to this country based on her behavior 1/6.

Lol, ski resistance liberals would never let that happen .  The San Luis Valley had the better chance of nominating a more moderate candidate

[lfromnj]

It seems as if the original Hispanic Buisness plan was just a ploy by some Democrats to get 5 solid seats.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/colorado-in-dc/hispanic-business-group-calls-for-new-congressional-district-north-of-denver/article_b7f5a43c-c960-11eb-9701-430145d1eb54.html

The original map would have just had 5 purely Safe D districts. Its unlikely its a genuine hispanic play as a better Hispanic district would be South Adams and Aurora which is around 37% instead of 30% Hispanic like this. It seems as if most of said attempt worked although the commission did push for some form of competition in said district?






https://coleg.app.box.com/s/x3o93nl58p1usyyoqn82twxy4x26avs2/file/820269746866

Here is the original Hispanic Chamber of commerce map.

[lfromnj]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/redistricting-colorado-map-perlmutter-495830
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1407897994314366980

Colorado Democrats are trying to act a bit disappointed .

I guess even though I say Colorado Democrats did get a slightly better end at least from the preliminary map from a partisan perspective, all 3 Colorado GOP incumbents get to stay calm .

[lfromnj]

Took another stab at Colorado:


Pretty unorthodox since it splits El Paso, but I think it makes sense?

* 3 districts that are at least 30% hispanic by total population, 2 districts that are at least 25% hispanic by CVAP.
* A majmin district by cvap in metro Denver
* 4-4 in 2020 (and probably every other election in the past decade), like my previous map, though with a bit more dummymander risk.

President 2020 numbers:

Not sure what COI's are being kept together at the expense of El Paso and the Eastern Plains. Doesn't really work well.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/Elections_Daily/status/1409883109240279047

Legislative out.  Looks ok, Pueblo could be a bit better but at least they were consistent with the relation between the SLV/Pueblo congressionally and legislatively. HD 41 doesn't even seem contiguous

[lfromnj]

Very similar to the previous round in what occured. A lot of feedback etc but in the end some Democratic group masquerading as a Latino interest group just proposed a gerrymander.  . Then the commission took the base of that gerrymander which is overall not very good on COI's but made it stop being an extreme gerrymander.



Notice the similarities.
Changes were giving CO03 4 points of R and evening out CO04 and CO8.

[lfromnj]

One thing to note about CO08 is that it may have had a moderate D trend in 2020 from Trump +2.3 to Biden +4.9 it was actually Obama +7.7 in 2012. Unlike a Douglas + Arapahoe + South Jefferson rich district it did vote for Hickenlooper by 1.5 though.

[lfromnj]

I'm reading this is actually a staff map that was presented to the commission, not a commission drawn map.

Yeah that's what happened last time. Still interesting to note in how it was heavily influenced by an obvious Democratic gerrymander proposal yet somehow managed to be not a major Democratic gerrymander. Its quite weird what the staff is doing.

[lfromnj]

I'm reading this is actually a staff map that was presented to the commission, not a commission drawn map.

Yeah that's what happened last time. Still interesting to note in how it was heavily influenced by an obvious Democratic gerrymander proposal yet somehow managed to be not a major Democratic gerrymander. Its quite weird what the staff is doing.

This map is probably better for Republicans in the short run though, the median seat is now Biden+5 rather than Biden+9, there is potential long term benefit from the Democrats, but other than the Col. Springs seat, idk if any of the other GOP seats (i.e. the two slope ones) will trend D long term in a significant way.

CO03 was Romney +4 and Trump +4.4 . CO04 on the other hand is zooming left pretty hard thanks to Fort Collins being back in and keeping Douglas County also being half the district. CO08 trended left in 2020 but had overall a moderate R trend from 2012  to 2020. It could theoretically go 8-0 if 2016 > 2020 trends continue in CO.

[lfromnj]

I'm reading this is actually a staff map that was presented to the commission, not a commission drawn map.

Yeah that's what happened last time. Still interesting to note in how it was heavily influenced by an obvious Democratic gerrymander proposal yet somehow managed to be not a major Democratic gerrymander. Its quite weird what the staff is doing.

This map is probably better for Republicans in the short run though, the median seat is now Biden+5 rather than Biden+9, there is potential long term benefit from the Democrats, but other than the Col. Springs seat, idk if any of the other GOP seats (i.e. the two slope ones) will trend D long term in a significant way.

CO03 was Romney +4 and Trump +4.4 . CO04 on the other hand is zooming left pretty hard thanks to Fort Collins being back in and keeping Douglas County also being half the district. CO08 trended left in 2020 but had overall a moderate R trend from 2012  to 2020.

*Trump 4.4 in 2020 after being Trump +10.2 in '16.

Who knows what happens there long term but given Colorado's overall swing plus Boebert...well, being Boebert, there could be some possibilities medium-term here. Buck seat is an obvious longterm play and overall this map seems like they're trying to squeeze longterm potential out of the map if they continue making gains across the state.

Agree if  2016>2020 trends continue its def going 8-0 by 2028 or something.  I just felt it was important to point out the 2012>2020 trend in this case.

[lfromnj]

Maybe nationally the Democrats realize they'll lose the House in 2022 and are planning redistricting for 2024 and beyond...?

Then why not just go with an  8-0 or 7-1 now that is more likely to hold into 2024 instead of relying on trends.

I mean, for a commission-made map that looks fair you’ve got to at least make it seem fair in current numbers. That’s what the commission is for. You’ve got to leave three currently-R districts really, the commission surely wouldn’t sign off on a 7-1.

So all you can do is try to make a map that advantages you on trends.

The thing is that Latino map had like 5 Biden Districts that were all solidly safe and 1 Trump +0 district.

[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?