Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[Minnesota Mike]

This is an interesting map. I'm not sure why they gave part of El Paso County to Buck's district, rather than keeping the whole county intact as its own congressional district. But otherwise, the map makes sense, and pretty closely correlates with what I expected. This would be a 5 D-3 R map in most years, assuming that Republicans don't reverse the Democratic rise in Douglas County.

Congressional Districts have to be as close to equal population as possible. There is only a variation of 2 people between any of the districts.

BTW the portion of El Paso county in CO-04 may be quite a bit of land but it only contains 2,156 people.

[Minnesota Mike]

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:

That's nice but it is very likely we only get minor tweaks to the plan that was revealed today.  I would be stunned if after putting a plan out today, holding meetings across the state on it they would just start over with something completely different.

[Minnesota Mike]

New Preliminary maps have been dropped.

https://redistricting.colorado.gov/content/staff-congressional-1

Bad news for Lauren Boebert as she has been drawn into a very heavily Democratic district. She will need to pack up the moving van if she wants to remain in Congress.

[Minnesota Mike]

Looks like 3 Safe D districts, 1 likely D district, 2 safe R districts, 1 likely R district, and 1 tossup (maybe tilt D).

[Minnesota Mike]

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

[Minnesota Mike]

Not getting all hate Democrats are giving this map on Twitter. It's a 4D-3R-1 lean D map and that seems about right to me. As long as Denver is kept as whole as possible (as it should under a commission map IMO) the median district is going to be to the right of the state as a whole. If Democrats can't win a Biden +4.6 district in a state that is likely to keep moving left then they have big problems.

[Minnesota Mike]

Not getting all hate Democrats are giving this map on Twitter. It's a 4D-3R-1 lean D map and that seems about right to me. As long as Denver is kept as whole as possible (as it should under a commission map IMO) the median district is going to be to the right of the state as a whole. If Democrats can't win a Biden +4.6 district in a state that is likely to keep moving left then they have big problems.

Dems are mad because without the commission we'd get a 7-1 map and even this proportionally partisan map makes a lot of weird choices that deviate from COI.

Not an expert on CO communities of interest but it is tough to please everybody when redistricting. As for being mad about not getting a 7-1 map (6-2 more realistically) you can blame that on the voters who approved approved the commission. This map is fine for the system they have.

[Minnesota Mike]

Given that the CO Supreme Court is unanimous Dem appointees, I do wonder if they will order some modifications to CO-08 and/or CO-03.  The legal justification would likely involve maximizing Hispanic opportunity districts.

Oh FFS let it go. Just because Democrats do not like the map is not a reason for the Courts to overturn the commission on very tenuous grounds. Democrats will have to work a bit harder but this is still a 5-3 map.

[Minnesota Mike]

Given that the CO Supreme Court is unanimous Dem appointees, I do wonder if they will order some modifications to CO-08 and/or CO-03.  The legal justification would likely involve maximizing Hispanic opportunity districts.

Oh FFS let it go. Just because Democrats do not like the map is not a reason for the Courts to overturn the commission on very tenuous grounds. Democrats will have to work a bit harder but this is still a 5-3 map.

Of course not, the court won't tell reject the commission. They legally have three months to accept the commissions findings or find the product in places unsatisfactory and recommend changes that they would accept in accordance with the law. I think it's very likely they do this - not because of partisanship - but because it's very hard to justify a few of the COIs - which is part of the commissions legal mandate. The Hispanic seat has white parts of Weld that could be dropped to increase minority access, CD7 is a Rurban seat, and the strict language of Colorado constitutional minority opportunity could require massive changes to the Denver area if so desired.

Like I said many times, last night was not the end of things. It's legally prescribed that the court and the commission can bounce maps back if the court finds it unsatisfactory, similar to the Iowa legislature and it's commission only approaching it from a nonpartisan direction.

Like I said, courts are not going to overturn a commission map unless there are major major problems with it and this did not come close to that.