2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Southfield jut is discordant to me. I preferred your prior chop of Oakland. But here is another version that you might consider, bearing in mind that Waterford Township is more than anything else a working and lower middle class suburb of Pontiac. I also prefer to keep Southfield and Pontiac together to make the CD one with more of a black influence. I think that your map overall however has a lot of merit to it. Well done. I have seen a lot of worthy maps actually. You guys are the best I have seen as a map drawing group overall. I am quite impressed.

I would find the first, second, and your one to be all acceptable. But the 1st is comparatively not as good generally, on the edges, so I guess I rule out going back to it. Second is better from a partisan representation perspective as well as a competitiveness perspective, creating two D+1 seats (it marks the likely # of Dem seats at 6.45). Your one on the other hand is better for compactness, while having a likely # of Dem seats at 6.20.
The two options also emphasize different CoIs. Second one creates a CD quite centered on the built-up eastern and immediately northern parts of Detroit metro and areas farther east and north as needed for population. It also unifies the north of Oakland. However, your option unifies the Eastern parts of Oakland on a mostly straight north-to-south line.
I'm fine with either.
Thanks for the kind words btw.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Made this MI state senate map. It was aimed at gerrymandering to combat the Dem geographic disadvantage to the extent needed to reduce proportionality advantage, as measured by DRA, to less than 2% for either party.
There are 19 Clinton districts and 19 Trump districts. Regardless, disproportionality as measured by DRA is 1.74% (positive number thus GOP favoring) using 2012/2016 PVIs, and using the 2012-2018 Composite makes that -1.64% (negative number thus Dem favoring).
https://davesredistricting.org/join/29574965-fa9f-470b-9298-e724cee576e7

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Did something similar but for State House of Representatives.
There are 44 Clinton districts and 66 Trump districts. Disproportionality as measured by DRA is 3.98% (positive number thus GOP favoring) using 2012/2016 PVIs, and using the 2012-2018 Composite makes that 1.45%.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/09e21e00-9ec9-433b-b138-e3e3798235ba

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If this is legit - It seems like the commission is going forward with the Flint+Thumb configuration.   Also Ann Arbor is separated from the Detroit districts.   Lansing almost certainly gets it's own district too.  

The "West" region is kinda vague on what will happen there though.

Looks like Kildee is screwed.

https://twitter.com/umichvoter/status/1423374855324454913
Edit - It's on their website under the August 5th meeting notes, so I guess it's real.

https://www.michigan.gov/micrc/0,10083,7-418-106525---,00.html

2019 population figures, DRA: (# of CDs each gets)
UP 301,863 (0.394) 57-41 Trump
NE 202,846 (0.265) 66-33 Trump
NW 304,272 (0.397) 57-42 Trump
E 849,061 (1.108) 56-43 Trump
EC 561,913 (0.724) 55-44 Trump
W 1,594,515 (2.080) 55-44 Trump
SC 478,430 (0.624) 57-41 Biden
Metro Detroit 3,880,770 (5.063) 59-40 Biden
SE 1,009,286 (1.317) 51-48 Biden
SW 782,309 (1.021) 51-47 Trump

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5eb62e67-4615-4085-8c67-aee19bc41ed8

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9e84208-7e5e-4fd1-b1fb-23230a1c58fc
Map I made on basis of these regions.
5 seats nested entirely within Detroit. Lines were drawn to be compact. 11th becomes white plurality but remains black performing, shifting more into Oakland. The bulk of Detroit forms the core of the new MI-12. There is a clear Lansing CD, and a CD in Michiana that has land borders that are two perfect straight lines. 4 Clinton districts, 10 Whitmer districts, 6 Stabenow districts, 5 Peters districts, and 7 Biden districts.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9e84208-7e5e-4fd1-b1fb-23230a1c58fc
Map I made on basis of these regions.
5 seats nested entirely within Detroit. Lines were drawn to be compact. 11th becomes white plurality but remains black performing, shifting more into Oakland. The bulk of Detroit forms the core of the new MI-12. There is a clear Lansing CD, and a CD in Michiana that has land borders that are two perfect straight lines. 4 Clinton districts, 10 Whitmer districts, 6 Stabenow districts, 5 Peters districts, and 7 Biden districts.

A shame my MI-06 doesn't work under the actual 2020 numbers...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The basis for this map was 2 black seats entirely within Wayne and seeing how it influenced the map overall. I also designed the map to have 7 Biden districts.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/294fb031-bfd7-4fce-8a28-1c004b2ce17b
This was the result.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That 1st is awful.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Eid proposes an all-around better map, though I personally never like Ottawa-Grand Rapids.

Seems to be a vocal contingent in the committee that is not a fan of this map, which is concerning. Saying that Eid's map doesn't respect the Bangladeshi COI.

What is even the "Bangladeshi CoI"?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Eid proposes an all-around better map, though I personally never like Ottawa-Grand Rapids.

Seems to be a vocal contingent in the committee that is not a fan of this map, which is concerning. Saying that Eid's map doesn't respect the Bangladeshi COI.

What is even the "Bangladeshi CoI"?

A seat winnable by Tlaib that gets Muslins from the Dearborns, Hamtramck, and a few suburbs to their west all together.

I see.
How likely is it we see Debbie Dingell and Tliab forced into a primary?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Map 4 is the least bad.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Hello, and welcome to Amateur Hour with the Michigan Independent Commission!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Rather than this stuff, why don't we just all switch to the Iowa system? Put in some parameters and the computer will spit out a map. Legislature votes yes or no. If no, try again and keep trying until you get one the legislature likes. (IA only tries three times before the lege can draw their own, but just make it keep going until you agree with the computer).

I'm growing unsatisfied with human amateurs on redistricting commissions.

The Iowa system works only because Iowa's demography is very simple from a redistricting perspective. It would be much harder to implement the Iowa system in almost any other state, and you might churn out maps that looked insane from a human perspective.

I could see an Iowa style system creating a CD taking in all of Detroit, which is a bad idea in Michigan for...obvious reasons.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The latest NC state senate map is literally better than this insanity.(obviously the NC congressional map is a pretty brutal gerrymander)

Bad comparison, half the NC senate map is decided by multi-county groupings and everything is nested. Of course it looks nice at a glace.

Imagine if MI had county clusters like NC did. What would the map look like?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/14274625-6937-4b41-a5b6-0a290d161505
MI state senate map with a 0.00% efficiency gap, but good county integrity. If need be, Washtenaw can be unified, with the Adrian SD taking in Jackson instead of southern Ann Arbor.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Of course, I still like my map (https://districtr.org/plan/96349) more than any of these. That said, these final options are far superior to some of the absolutely hideous options that the commission was pondering earlier on. (It was also quite predictable that they would rather go for 2 majority-minority districts than take my approach, even though mine should still be totally VRA-compliant, so I'm not surprised about that.) I wouldn't be too upset with any of them, even though the Kalamazoo-GR district in the Apple plan really is quite dubious and Wahlberg's district reaching both Lake Michigan and Lake Erie is not really ideal as far as compactness goes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/75dcd34d-39e2-4ff4-b049-bcc9d3284f42
thoughts on this map?
It's inspired by your map (which solves some problems I have had difficulty with), while also avoiding a whole-Detroit CD. It takes a less dogmatic approach to county splits than I usually do.
It also keeps Battle Creek and Kalamazoo together (not sure how much of a positive that is).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Of course, I still like my map (https://districtr.org/plan/96349) more than any of these. That said, these final options are far superior to some of the absolutely hideous options that the commission was pondering earlier on. (It was also quite predictable that they would rather go for 2 majority-minority districts than take my approach, even though mine should still be totally VRA-compliant, so I'm not surprised about that.) I wouldn't be too upset with any of them, even though the Kalamazoo-GR district in the Apple plan really is quite dubious and Wahlberg's district reaching both Lake Michigan and Lake Erie is not really ideal as far as compactness goes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/75dcd34d-39e2-4ff4-b049-bcc9d3284f42
thoughts on this map?
It's inspired by your map (which solves some problems I have had difficulty with), while also avoiding a whole-Detroit CD. It takes a less dogmatic approach to county splits than I usually do.
It also keeps Battle Creek and Kalamazoo together (not sure how much of a positive that is).

Looks really good! I had personally gone into the drawing process with the idea of keeping every single municipality, including the city of Detroit, undivided, which was not at all a criterium that I actually would expect the commission to abide by but I was curious to see if I could make it work given that it was mathematically possible (and I ended up being pretty happy with the final result).

Keeping Battle Creek and Kalamazoo together is definitely a positive, as is keeping Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland together.

It's really quite remarkable how Genesee, Bay, Saginaw, and Midland, combined, creates a district less than 10,000 away from quota.
Also, that 8th I drew is very much a district that PVI makes look vulnerable, but is solider than expected when you look at Biden numbers.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Andy Levin's re-election hopes are very much still alive. And so are Meijer's.
I could see them both hold on in 2022.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Andy Levin's re-election hopes are very much still alive. And so are Meijer's.
I could see them both hold on in 2022.

Levin's new seat is Trump +0.9, down from Trump +5.3 in 2016. Possibly winnable, but unlikely for 2022. He could try to win it back in 2024.

"Unlikely for 2022" is reliant on a lot of factors, such as national environment (this is an elastic area), the R opponent he gets, and other things.
Incumbency is also on his side (though it counts for less than usual in election cycles immediately after redistricting).
Ultimately I'd wait a bit before writing his political obituary.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There's also a chance  Levin goes for the Oakland seat. Incumbents always run to the safe seat. I think Joe Walsh is one of the few in 2010 who didn't.

Stevens already in the past minutes announced their intention to run for the Oakland seat and Slotkin for the Lansing one, so Levin would be announcing a primary campaign.

Does the new MI-11 have more of Stevens' territory or Levin's? Because it looks like she has more of her turf in the seat than he does...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There's also a chance  Levin goes for the Oakland seat. Incumbents always run to the safe seat. I think Joe Walsh is one of the few in 2010 who didn't.

Stevens already in the past minutes announced their intention to run for the Oakland seat and Slotkin for the Lansing one, so Levin would be announcing a primary campaign.

Does the new MI-11 have more of Stevens' territory or Levin's? Because it looks like she has more of her turf in the seat than he does...

More of Stevens of course but the Levin name will even it out. After that Levin gets a safe district for the decade rather than having to run a campaign every 2 years.

If Levin stays put in the 10th I could see him become a sort of Brian Fitzpatrick, who stubbornly holds on to a strong district with a slight lean towards the other party.
But as you said, he has a good chance of winning a primary in MI-11 as well.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/CraigDMauger/status/1475940345544335368

Boom

Whelp.
I'm moving MI-10 to Likely R. It's now open.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

According to this report, there are now quite a few GOP names looking at the Macomb seat, including John James. That said, the majority are from Oakland. Now they have greater incentives.

I expect a crowded field. There's nothing that gets more attention from ambitions pols than a new congressional open seat.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1475941295067648001?s=20

Rooting for Levin here

Same.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I placed a new district on DRA, taking into account the boundaries of the former districts. That's what I got as a result

The new 11th district includes
349,572 people from the former 11th district (Stevens)
233,676 people from the former 14th district (Lawrence)
192,254 people from the former 9th district (Levin)

I forgot how heavily Lawrence's seat went into Oakland. I certainly didn't expect her seat to have more territory within the new 11th than Levin's did.