Illinois Redistricting Megathread

[Zaybay]

Its very likely that IL-03 is cut due Newman's victory, but the reconfiguration likely wouldnt create another Hispanic-majority seat. An additional Hispanic seat doesnt appear to be physically feasible, especially with the depopulation of the African American seats. I spent a rather long time on DRA trying to get two majority seats, but the best I could do was two plurality seats, which I can bet Chuy and the other IL representatives would not be happy with.

What I could see is the seat divided among a multitude of representatives, with Chuy, Foster, Quigley and Casten taking a slice.

[Zaybay]

Bustos retiring should make this interesting!

Does it really? The Dems don't really benefit from trying a new combination than the combination already used. Underwood can be shored up easily without using Rockford, and none of the other Chicago area Dems need to take in land half-way across the state. The Dems still largely have the incentive to draw a Rock Island/Rockford/Peoria district, just like they have right now. Otherwise, the Dems are losing out, since instead of a tossup/tilt D district, an R sink is made when there does not need to be.

[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.

[Zaybay]

Yeah, I don't get the point of this new map. It makes all the marginal D seats a bit closer, while not improving COI representation in any meaningful way. Why the changes?

The reason that changes are made to begin with; an incumbent wanted some neighborhood or a piece of territory for their own (arbitrary) reasons.

It's important to remember that, while we're focused on partisanship and COIs, the folks drawing this map have to take into account their very loud allies and congressmembers. If they have demands, they have to be addressed. We can see this with the IL drafts, where Newman was making such outrageous and unhelpful demands that she had to be threatened in the initial draft (which ironically, her demand of having a white suburban seat that voted D enough were largely met in the end), or how Garcia's demand of a second Hispanic seat was actually met in the current draft.

[Zaybay]

Yeah, I don't get the point of this new map. It makes all the marginal D seats a bit closer, while not improving COI representation in any meaningful way. Why the changes?

The reason that changes are made to begin with; an incumbent wanted some neighborhood or a piece of territory for their own (arbitrary) reasons.

It's important to remember that, while we're focused on partisanship and COIs, the folks drawing this map have to take into account their very loud allies and congressmembers. If they have demands, they have to be addressed. We can see this with the IL drafts, where Newman was making such outrageous and unhelpful demands that she had to be threatened in the initial draft (which ironically, her demand of having a white suburban seat that voted D enough were largely met in the end), or how Garcia's demand of a second Hispanic seat was actually met in the current draft.

Yeah, but most of those are just tinkering around the margins. It doesn't explain why they changed IL-17, which doesn't share any Democratic territory with any other district that needs it. All they did was pull IL-16 a bit to the left for some reason.

Well, its not just incumbents who can making demands, and said demands aren't always "make district more blue". It could be a well-connected challenger making the demands so that a crucial base is kept in the seat, a state legislator looking out for their future political career by including parts of their district in the CD, or even some random political donor who'd rather be put in the D seat than the R seat. Could be a multitude of folks making these arbitrary decisions. But, of course, these decisions aren't made for no reason.

[Zaybay]

https://twitter.com/Uncrewed/status/1453876391666241536

Haha, is it not abundantly obvious now that the machine is going after Newman? They must have heard our feedback that she could be favored over Casten in the previous draft, so they put her with a Hispanic incumbent in a district that contains Hispanic parts of Chicago.

According to the leaks about the process, Casten was throwing huge fit (and I mean a literal screaming fit) about the map and the fact that he'd be in huge trouble against Newman, so they recalibrated the districts to be a much fairer fight between the two. Also Garcia was apparently cool with the double-bunk.

Though its important to note, the 6th is still plurality Newman's old seat (and base), and she lives on the literal border of the 4th and 6th, so its not like Newman is screwed or even the underdog.

[Zaybay]

Newman declares she will run for reelection in IL-6. I wonder how hard the IL machine will have its thumb on the scale for the Casten vs Newman primary battle, it could get ugly.

https://twitter.com/capitolfax/status/1454107770429448198

I find it kind of bizarre how they seems so strongly tied to Carsten even though he’s one term Newman’s seniors and both have been running for congress Ed’s just as long. Only because Newman took down Lipinski

I was not getting that impression at all. It's important to remember that the previous draft was one that Casten took extreme issue with, and he and his allies had to fight tooth and nail for...very little change overall. Both Newman and Casten seemed to have been treated pretty poorly by the rest of the IL Dems, largely due to a lack of allies and seniority. Newman and Casten also, according to rumors, did not make things easy for themselves during negotiations, with both reportedly being rude, standoffish, and uncooperative (Newman had to be threatened in the intial draft and Casten apparently screamed at suburban legislators to get the map changed).

As for the actual primary, its hard to say who'd win. Newman has way more of a structural advantage (the 6th is a plurality her seat, something around 45% compared to Casten's 20%), and she'd likely receive more support from women's groups and progressive groups. Casten meanwhile could have an advantage due to a potential geographic base in DuPage, which is rich in D primary voters.

As for a potential thumb, I doubt the IL Dems really interfere. This whole romanization of Lipinski that some users have brought up contradicts most evidence about what the actual ILDEMs have cared about, and with the only guy who liked Lipinski gone (Madigan), there's no real reason for them to go against Newman. Hell, if anything, Newman has had the thumb on her scale during redistricting; Casten was basically thrown into her seat, not the other way around. The most likely scenario is a machine largely standing out and letting the two kill each other.