Illinois Redistricting Megathread

[Pericles]

What a stupid map. Next year I could see it electing only 12 or 11 Democrats, but it is still a lot better for Democrats than a fair map. If they're going to do a disgusting gerrymander though, they should do a good job of it.

[CookieDamage]

Considering this is only a first draft, I can see several Dem seats being made bluer, like 3, 14, and 17.

[GALeftist]

Statement from Newman:  

While our team continues to review the draft congressional map that was released earlier today, it is abundantly apparent that what has currently been proposed for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District is not only retrogressive but substantially diminishes the diverse and progressive voices of Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs. I know that IL-03’s constituents will ensure their voices are heard loud and clear at these public hearings over the coming days.”

I look forward to continuing to represent the constituents of Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

I bet they make changes to this. Wonder if this was a bit of a warning shot because she was being uncooperative.

Inshallah. IL Dems are petty, but I doubt they'd cut off their nose to spite their face on this.

A bunch of people have commented that it's possible to make a better gerrymander that looks better than this; what are the chances they do some minor changes that make it look better to the layman but actually shore up the gerrymander, say they listened to criticism or whatever, and call it a day?

[Idaho Conservative]

Interesting to see Dems complain about such an extreme gerrymander for not being extreme enough

[Mr. Illini]

Statement from Newman:  

While our team continues to review the draft congressional map that was released earlier today, it is abundantly apparent that what has currently been proposed for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District is not only retrogressive but substantially diminishes the diverse and progressive voices of Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs. I know that IL-03’s constituents will ensure their voices are heard loud and clear at these public hearings over the coming days.”

I look forward to continuing to represent the constituents of Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

I bet they make changes to this. Wonder if this was a bit of a warning shot because she was being uncooperative.

Inshallah. IL Dems are petty, but I doubt they'd cut off their nose to spite their face on this.

A bunch of people have commented that it's possible to make a better gerrymander that looks better than this; what are the chances they do some minor changes that make it look better to the layman but actually shore up the gerrymander, say they listened to criticism or whatever, and call it a day?

I don't get the impression that IL Dems particularly care how much people are upset that it is a messy map. They know that the chances of that having electoral consequences are very low.

I expect that they'll make adjustments to make 03 and 17 safer and call it a day.

Of course, I am just speculating. My days of knowing people in politics here are in the past.

[Mr. Illini]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

[GALeftist]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

[patzer]

The obvious question is, while they're making that teal district have such a convoluted shape, wouldn't it have been easier just to turn it dem? Give the northwest lobe of it to the Chicago districts. Keep the southern lobe, but instead of going northwest, just have it go straight up the Indiana border to grab a chunk of the Chicago area and flip blue.

Surely that'd be an easy 15-2

[Tekken_Guy]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

[Donerail]

The obvious question is, while they're making that teal district have such a convoluted shape, wouldn't it have been easier just to turn it dem? Give the northwest lobe of it to the Chicago districts. Keep the southern lobe, but instead of going northwest, just have it go straight up the Indiana border to grab a chunk of the Chicago area and flip blue.

Surely that'd be an easy 15-2

That would almost surely dilute the South Side black seats below 50% so it is, unfortunately, impossible.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I think I’m in the new 13, it’s hard to tell.

But, it does bring a little tear to my eye that the traditional Southern Illinois Democratic seat is dead. Not that one could have been drawn anymore.

[ChineseConservative]

What an idiotic map. Between Texas Republicans and Illinois Democrats, I can't decide which state party is more incompetent at gerrymandering. Even if democrats hold all three competitive Chicagoland districts, they will have to spend quite a bit of resources to do so that otherwise would have been used in more competitive races nationwide. A decent number of Republicans would prefer this map over a 4 R sink map.

[Oryxslayer]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

There seems to be this fallacious assumption that "more marginal seat = better for Lipinski." This is wrong because the areas Lipinski enjoyed crossover support did not vote for him in the primaries. Those ethnic white suburbs backed Newman. The crossover voters are Republicans, and the voters who participate in the Dem primary are analogous to suburban whites in more Liberal parts of the collar. Lipinski won the madigan machine neighborhoods and Hispanics. Exhuming the Hispanic areas and adding in areas he never represented hurts Lipinski's odds at a comeback.

Which was likely her goal. Apparently she leveled a lot of demands and the commission could only follow a handful, especially since she's a freshman. We saw this before in Maryland, where Donna Edwards demanded a lot of the mappers, and they ignored almost all of her wishes in favor of the senior members of the delegation. She likely wanted to remove the Hispanics and add in as much white suburbs the Lipinski never repped as possible. Unable to follow this in full, she gets a weaker seat.

The resulting product though appears to have "taught some sense" as it were, since she criticized the map for removing Hispanic areas from her seat. Probably will change, ironically in a way that makes it more possible for primary battle round 3.

[Tekken_Guy]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

There seems to be this fallacious assumption that "more marginal seat = better for Lipinski." This is wrong because the areas Lipinski enjoyed crossover support did not vote for him in the primaries. Those ethnic white suburbs backed Newman. The crossover voters are Republicans, and the voters who participate in the Dem primary are analogous to suburban whites in more Liberal parts of the collar. Lipinski won the madigan machine neighborhoods and Hispanics. Exhuming the Hispanic areas and adding in areas he never represented hurts Lipinski's odds at a comeback.

Which was likely her goal. Apparently she leveled a lot of demands and the commission could only follow a handful, especially since she's a freshman. We saw this before in Maryland, where Donna Edwards demanded a lot of the mappers, and they ignored almost all of her wishes in favor of the senior members of the delegation. She likely wanted to remove the Hispanics and add in as much white suburbs the Lipinski never repped as possible. Unable to follow this in full, she gets a weaker seat.

The resulting product though appears to have "taught some sense" as it were, since she criticized the map for removing Hispanic areas from her seat. Probably will change, ironically in a way that makes it more possible for primary battle round 3.

I wonder if Lipinski would plan on pulling a Van Drew and switch parties.

[lfromnj]

What an idiotic map. Between Texas Republicans and Illinois Democrats, I can't decide which state party is more incompetent at gerrymandering. Even if democrats hold all three competitive Chicagoland districts, they will have to spend quite a bit of resources to do so that otherwise would have been used in more competitive races nationwide. A decent number of Republicans would prefer this map over a 4 R sink map.

The TX GOP was not very aggressive and they probably could take the risk on going more aggressive with TX 15th. However their map is very effective at their packing and takes almost the correct precincts every single time in order to achieve its goal .The Illinois map as of now is sloppy in that regard.  I am specifically speaking about IL 17th which seems a bit weak and could be shored up by 2 points. There isn't even any incumbency demands to worry about here and they just took random areas that were redder for no reason.


However the Texas GOP did play much more as a team group. The TX 13th to Denton was one such example. Meanwhile of the Chicago Democrats the only ones who think any serious hits to their partisanship were  Bill Foster, Robin Kelly(Chair of the IL Democrats by the way), and Newman who as we know is extremely angry about the current map. Obviously IL democrats don't have to go as far but you would think double digit Biden for all 14 wouldn't be that crazy.

Krishnamoorti/Dold/Quigley/Schakowsky so far have not taken any major changes.

[compucomp]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

There seems to be this fallacious assumption that "more marginal seat = better for Lipinski." This is wrong because the areas Lipinski enjoyed crossover support did not vote for him in the primaries. Those ethnic white suburbs backed Newman. The crossover voters are Republicans, and the voters who participate in the Dem primary are analogous to suburban whites in more Liberal parts of the collar. Lipinski won the madigan machine neighborhoods and Hispanics. Exhuming the Hispanic areas and adding in areas he never represented hurts Lipinski's odds at a comeback.

Which was likely her goal. Apparently she leveled a lot of demands and the commission could only follow a handful, especially since she's a freshman. We saw this before in Maryland, where Donna Edwards demanded a lot of the mappers, and they ignored almost all of her wishes in favor of the senior members of the delegation. She likely wanted to remove the Hispanics and add in as much white suburbs the Lipinski never repped as possible. Unable to follow this in full, she gets a weaker seat.

The resulting product though appears to have "taught some sense" as it were, since she criticized the map for removing Hispanic areas from her seat. Probably will change, ironically in a way that makes it more possible for primary battle round 3.

Good analysis. She think she's safe from Lipinski... but now she might lose to Kinzinger. I think she definitely pissed off the machine and they're going after her, even if Mike Madigan is not running it anymore.

I wonder if Lipinski would plan on pulling a Van Drew and switch parties.

That would be an entertaining Republican primary, the honorable Trump-hating conservative Kinzinger versus the former Democratic turncoat likely turned Trumpist (like Van Drew and Rod Blagojevich).

[Devils30]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

There seems to be this fallacious assumption that "more marginal seat = better for Lipinski." This is wrong because the areas Lipinski enjoyed crossover support did not vote for him in the primaries. Those ethnic white suburbs backed Newman. The crossover voters are Republicans, and the voters who participate in the Dem primary are analogous to suburban whites in more Liberal parts of the collar. Lipinski won the madigan machine neighborhoods and Hispanics. Exhuming the Hispanic areas and adding in areas he never represented hurts Lipinski's odds at a comeback.

Which was likely her goal. Apparently she leveled a lot of demands and the commission could only follow a handful, especially since she's a freshman. We saw this before in Maryland, where Donna Edwards demanded a lot of the mappers, and they ignored almost all of her wishes in favor of the senior members of the delegation. She likely wanted to remove the Hispanics and add in as much white suburbs the Lipinski never repped as possible. Unable to follow this in full, she gets a weaker seat.

The resulting product though appears to have "taught some sense" as it were, since she criticized the map for removing Hispanic areas from her seat. Probably will change, ironically in a way that makes it more possible for primary battle round 3.

Good analysis. She think she's safe from Lipinski... but now she might lose to Kinzinger. I think she definitely pissed off the machine and they're going after her, even if Mike Madigan is not running it anymore.

I wonder if Lipinski would plan on pulling a Van Drew and switch parties.

That would be an entertaining Republican primary, the honorable Trump-hating conservative Kinzinger versus the former Democratic turncoat likely turned Trumpist (like Van Drew and Rod Blagojevich).

Kinzinger could beat Newman by 12 in this seat. Newman is basically part of the far left which doesn't work in seats like this. Dems really should think twice before approving this map and go back to the drawing board.

[TJ in Oregon]

Lipinski vs Kinzinger is the general election the people of IL-3 and America together need.

[HAnnA MArin County]

DINO Lipinski must be stopped at all costs. The last thing we need right now is another SineMAnchin in the other chamber of Congress.

[Brittain33]

Do people think Kinzinger can survive a primary anywhere in the country?

[MaxQue]

Lipinski says he's thinking of running

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/former-illinois-us-rep-dan-lipinski-considers-running-house-again

Lmao, drama already. Who said Illinois politics are stiff and boring?

He will get crushed without incumbency advantage lol

He’s probably considered a quasi-incumbent like David Valadao or Rick Scott.

There seems to be this fallacious assumption that "more marginal seat = better for Lipinski." This is wrong because the areas Lipinski enjoyed crossover support did not vote for him in the primaries. Those ethnic white suburbs backed Newman. The crossover voters are Republicans, and the voters who participate in the Dem primary are analogous to suburban whites in more Liberal parts of the collar. Lipinski won the madigan machine neighborhoods and Hispanics. Exhuming the Hispanic areas and adding in areas he never represented hurts Lipinski's odds at a comeback.

Which was likely her goal. Apparently she leveled a lot of demands and the commission could only follow a handful, especially since she's a freshman. We saw this before in Maryland, where Donna Edwards demanded a lot of the mappers, and they ignored almost all of her wishes in favor of the senior members of the delegation. She likely wanted to remove the Hispanics and add in as much white suburbs the Lipinski never repped as possible. Unable to follow this in full, she gets a weaker seat.

The resulting product though appears to have "taught some sense" as it were, since she criticized the map for removing Hispanic areas from her seat. Probably will change, ironically in a way that makes it more possible for primary battle round 3.

Good analysis. She think she's safe from Lipinski... but now she might lose to Kinzinger. I think she definitely pissed off the machine and they're going after her, even if Mike Madigan is not running it anymore.

I wonder if Lipinski would plan on pulling a Van Drew and switch parties.

That would be an entertaining Republican primary, the honorable Trump-hating conservative Kinzinger versus the former Democratic turncoat likely turned Trumpist (like Van Drew and Rod Blagojevich).

Kinzinger could beat Newman by 12 in this seat. Newman is basically part of the far left which doesn't work in seats like this. Dems really should think twice before approving this map and go back to the drawing board.

Well, Kinzinger is not winning any Republican primary, so that's irrelevent.

[patzer]

I wonder how a three way general election would go. Newman (D) vs Kinzinger (I) vs some trumpist (R)

[Zaybay]

The IL Democrats have a similar problem as the TX Republicans, though it manifests differently; having too many mouths to feed.

For the TX GOP, the state has moved rapidly against them, but they haven't lost many of their members in these tossup/Biden-leaning seats. This creates the issue of having to satisfy everyone's partisan demands. They're forced to play things safe, to cede some safe seats, and to try to shore up everyone as much as possible. Luckily for them, many of their incumbents are understanding of this and are willing to give up some of their own safeness for the benefit of the map (a highly publicized example being Rep Jackson). Still, the map created has many weak spots due to how many mouths have had to be satisfied.

The IL Dems, on the other hand, are not especially threatened by partisan interests. In fact, they can go heavily on the offensive. The issue is their own incumbents and their parochial concerns. Everyone has demands, many of which conflict with each other, and the IL Dems are left trying to appease everyone. But that, in turn, appeased no one, and some reps whose demands were increasingly unreasonable (Newman) had to be shown what would happen if they decided to barely cooperate. Still, even if Newman changes her tune, it will still be incredibly difficult to give everyone what they want.

It'll be interesting to see how the IL Dems move on from here, but its clear that they have an extremely difficult task in front of them.

[ElectionsGuy]

Live shot of Kizinger looking at the proposed map:

[politicallefty]

The IL Dems, on the other hand, are not especially threatened by partisan interests. In fact, they can go heavily on the offensive. The issue is their own incumbents and their parochial concerns. Everyone has demands, many of which conflict with each other, and the IL Dems are left trying to appease everyone. But that, in turn, appeased no one, and some reps whose demands were increasingly unreasonable (Newman) had to be shown what would happen if they decided to barely cooperate. Still, even if Newman changes her tune, it will still be incredibly difficult to give everyone what they want.

It'll be interesting to see how the IL Dems move on from here, but its clear that they have an extremely difficult task in front of them.

I don't their task to fixing this proposal is that difficult. If Newman is the issue, she needs to get it together and accept a tougher primary in exchange for a safe general election. Put the work in and you'll crush your primary challengers. Steve Cohen, a white Jew, holds the 66% black Memphis seat. He holds that seat because he's an extraordinary Member of Congress that serves his constituents well.

If Democrats cannot hold that downstate snake district at Biden+11, they have some serious troubles. IL-17 should be cleaned up a bit and that can easily be a double-digit Biden district without affecting any incumbents. Those in need of shoring up in Chicagoland are Casten, Underwood, and Newman. Schakowsky and Quigley can afford to give up a few points each. Kelly may also be able to sacrifice a bit, depending on how the VRA districts look (which I haven't looked at yet). There's absolutely no reason why there can't be 14 double-digit Biden districts.