2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Right. But I don't like either of those options so I cut Monroe and Downriver Wayne instead. Very early in the map-making process you have to choose whether to:

1. Do the ugly Thumb/Huron shore thing
2. Cut Midland/Bay City from Saginaw/Flint
3. Pair Washtenaw with Western Michigan
4. Pair Monroe/Downriver Wayne with Western Michigan.

I think 2 and 4 are the best options, and I picked the latter.

Also, I'm somewhat curious why you prefer 4 as well. Monroe I get since it's sort of its own thing (IIRC not in the Detroit metro?) but downriver Wayne is still pretty close to the heart of metro Detroit.

Mostly because of what it borders. Downriver Wayne is very white and to its north are the two AA VRA seats separating it from the rest of the metro. The less white territory these seats take in the better, especially since they already have to deal with Dearborn and Western Wayne. Thus, Downriver has to go somewhere else. It's also sort of a cohesive cultural area with Monroe--the urban and suburban equivalent of NE Philly and Lower Bucks. It also allows for 48%+ VRA seats without a tentacle to Pontiac.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Downriver Split:



Midland Split:



Flint/Ann Arbor Split:

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does this look good? (the two black seats are 45% and 45.3% black respectively)
https://davesredistricting.org/join/ca7bbf36-9aab-4ebb-8b09-46346f60fd15

[Idaho Conservative]

Does this look good? (the two black seats are 45% and 45.3% black respectively)
https://davesredistricting.org/join/ca7bbf36-9aab-4ebb-8b09-46346f60fd15

Oakland county looks weird

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does this look good? (the two black seats are 45% and 45.3% black respectively)
https://davesredistricting.org/join/ca7bbf36-9aab-4ebb-8b09-46346f60fd15

Oakland county looks weird

the Pontiac CD looks wonky but this is mainly to have a cleaner Oakland-Wayne leftovers district.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Would this be preferable in Oakland?

[Torie]

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.

[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.

[Torie]

At the margins, I fiddled around with Mr. Turner's map with which I find great favor in so many ways, to equalize populations a bit more precisely, and make it a more pleasing to my eye.

[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

[jimrtex]

Has anyone been following the Michigan redistricting commission?

I watched the lottery to choose the commissioners, but haven't watched any of the actual meetings.

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Here's a 7 Biden - 6 Trump MI map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c34d72ab-9b73-429a-a227-249b6f45ff4a

[ProgressiveModerate]

The big questions around MI will be if Grand Rapids gets it's own district and if Ann Arbor is placed with Detroit and rurals.

My guess is the commission tries to create a lot of competative districts, something which is very doable in MI. MI geography sucks for Ds so I hope Ann Arbor isn't packed with downtown Detroit.



Here's my attempt. I think 7-6 Biden is prolly the most fair map, but I really hope we'll see a lot of competative districts are gerrymandering elsewhere will likely make for a small House battleground

[Nyvin]

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

[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.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Ok this is interesting.

I feel like there's upsides for both sides. The upside for the GOP is it seems pretty unlikely MI-5 is going to be protected and at worst will be an R-leaning swing district but at best safe R. Furthermore, it seems like MI-6 is going to be protected which eliminates any chance of a Grand Rapids - Kalamazoo district to help things be partisansly proportionate.

The good news for Dems is that Ann-Arbor isn't packed into Detroit, meaning there's a very good chance MI-7 or it's equivalent went to Biden by a handy amount

I think people forget that MI-8 in it's current for is already kinda Lansing based district, albiet not the most objective one. A Lansing based district does not automatically mean a Biden district; this district will likely be marginal either way.

As another user pointed out "West" is kinda vague and leaves open to interpretation what will happen with Grand Rapids. However, with that being said, I don't think it's a coincidence that the "West" region is almost exactly the population for 2 districts.

Simillar to Lansing, a Grand Rapids based district doesn't automatically mean a Biden district; it's likely to be pretty marginal either way but with a good chance to become a more reliable district for Dems over the decade.

So in conclusion, seems like Dems will prolly get 4 Detroit area districts (1 of the 5 will prolly be an R-leaning one based in Macomb), and another Ann-Arbor district. Lansing and Grand Rapids will probably be swing districts. 6 will probably lean R, alongside whatever happens to MI-5 and the pandhandle, and the rest will; be pretty safe R.

[Nyvin]

MI-6 (southwest Kalamazoo area) likely loses Allegan county based on this, which is heavily conservative. 

It will probably be fine for the GOP in 2022, but in 2024 onward it could become a swing district, particularly if Fred Upton retires.

[Pericles]

How about this map?
2020 President

2020 Senate


It's not fair proportionally, but it follows the regions and does reasonably well in keeping communities together. By the way, the 8th district in this map is Trump +0.1% and the 11th is Trump +0.0% (212 votes), so Slotkin would have won by slightly more while Stevens would have lost.

[Nyvin]

Here's what I came up with -

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4ab8ca07-c90a-48cc-9910-c1f6905b8a6e





Northeast and East Central actually make a near perfect district but then the map ends up in a weird spot with Northwest going south and crunching West and Southwest.  

I opted to combine the northern three into MI-1 and give the slight excess to East Central.  

Giving the South Central region Livingston is a no-brainer really, all you need then is some of Jackson and it's good.

I didn't bother with the five Detroit districts, don't see much point.   Two VRA seats, Oakland and Macomb seats, and then a remainder of Wayne (maybe part of Oakland, depending) for the fifth, the end.

[S019]

As other have said in this thread it seems quite likely that the parties could trade Wahlberg's and Kildee's seat if the geographic divisions are followed, imo, these divisions are a good thing for Democrats since a. Kildee's seat is probably on borrowed time anyways, b. the chance for a competitive Lansing and Grand Rapids district is preserved and c. Democrats can get an extra seat by pairing Ann Arbor with its red neighbors and still hold onto most of their metro Detroit seats.

[S019]

I guess the way things work is you get one bad tea leaf for every good one :

https://twitter.com/davedaley3/status/1424494872224882690?s=21
Hopefully this doesn't mean too much 😬

[Zaybay]

I guess the way things work is you get one bad tea leaf for every good one :

https://twitter.com/davedaley3/status/1424494872224882690?s=21
Hopefully this doesn't mean too much 😬

This means almost nothing, the law firm hired has no impact on how the lines are drawn. All these guys are supposed to do is defend whatever map the commission draws. Now, if these folks were the consulting firm hired, then we'd have a story.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Considering it was a random lottery and that often "Independents" aren't really Independent, the commission could easily lean a bit left or right, though it's hard to tell if this is the case rn based on available info.