Illinois Redistricting Megathread

[EastAnglianLefty]

If you drew it in DRA, the easiest way is to click the 'Share' link in the app, copy the link it gives you and paste it into here.

I've also been playing around with Illinois. I haven't got a complete map, but it looks like it's theoretically possible with 2016 numbers to get 3 seats that are 50%+ black. That would actually be an improvement for IL-7, which according to Wikipedia is currently only 46% black.

There's definitely sufficient Hispanics for a Southside Mexican-American district for Garcia, but I'm not sure this does screw Newman. I managed to draw an effective enough district for her in the whiter bits of Southwest Cook and the north-west of Will County. It's a bit more competitive (52 Clinton - 42 Trump) but still ought to be securely Democratic and looks to be trending leftwards.

That then leaves the question of what to do with the Hispanic population on the Northside. A VRA district isn't possible, but if you're willing to dilute IL-7 a bit then you could probably reduce the white share of the Northside seat enough to increase the chances of it performing. However, if you are trying to create a new Hispanic seat there, that means one of the existing white Democratic representatives is out of a job. I presume the machine will want to protect Quigley, but I guess if Schakowsky is willing to stand down then it might be possible to merge the eastern ends of IL-5 and IL-9 to make room for the new Hispanic seat?

For Bustos, a lot depends upon how Democratic performance holds up in northwest Illinois. Most of the counties were Democratic by a healthy margin in 2012, so if the numbers rebound from 2016 then she ought to be able to cope with a reasonably compact Rock Island-Peoria district.

Where is Underwood's base? It looks like she and Foster both live in Napierville, which may make drawing IL-14 a bit more awkward.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is there any reason to believe Madigan would particularly want to take revenge on Newman? He backed Lipinski, but it's not like Newman explicitly ran against Madigan or like Madigan has any objection to working with relatively liberal politicians.

On the other hand, Schakowsky is going to be 78 by election day 2022. I don't think it's terribly unlikely she chooses to stand down anyway, which makes creating an opportunity district on the Northside easy to do.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is there any reason to believe Madigan would particularly want to take revenge on Newman? He backed Lipinski, but it's not like Newman explicitly ran against Madigan or like Madigan has any objection to working with relatively liberal politicians.

(Image cred: Madigan circulator(?))

The thing about Chicago is that all politics are hyper-local. Madigan does not particularly care about what people on the North Shore get up to or whatever kind of progressive freaks they promote, so long as they can be reliably defeated when it comes to the important things in life (witness the political disappearance of Scott Drury, the only Democratic state rep to vote against Madigan for Speaker, as well as the utter failure of the Dan Biss 4 Gov campaign). But having an independent in Congress representing the 13th Ward?? Not acceptable!

Yes, but that shows Madigan campaigned against Newman. It doesn't suggest Newman made opposing Madigan an important part of her campaign (talking about defeating 'the machine' is pretty generic.) The machine doesn't bear grudges when it's not worthwhile - Rush challenged Daley in the mayoral election, but that hasn't harmed Rush's relationship with the machine since, because it hasn't been worth expending political capital trying to do it.

Trying to get revenge on Newman just seems like a waste of time when you can just give her a district consisting of areas outside Cook and the bits of Cook where the machine has least reach, then forget about her.