2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Missouri

[reagente]

Since we don't have a thread yet

[lfromnj]

Yeah I don't see a reason to not go for 7-1 if Incumbents remain happy, I guess the GOP might be forced to make MO 4th more safe while making MO 5 a bit more D to make Hartzler happy but I don't see anything worse than 6-2 happening in the decade which is what would have happened with a fair map.

[Roronoa D. Law]

Republicans have unified control now so this will likely be a 7-1 map. I think what most Democrats are interested in is how they draw the districts in the KCMO and St. Louis suburbs. Since Clay, Platte, and maybe St Charles are likely to flip this decade.

[lfromnj]

Republicans have unified control now so this will likely be a 7-1 map. I think what most Democrats are interested in is how they draw the districts in the KCMO and St. Louis suburbs. Since Clay, Platte, and maybe St Charles are likely to flip this decade.

MUH suburb TRENDING D FOREVER. Platte is incredibly small and barely swung D and Clay/St Charles swung R by a decent amount, along with Jefferson county MO where Trump got 65% of the vote, anyone educated in the Kansas city side will live in Johnson county Kansas.

[Roronoa D. Law]

Republicans have unified control now so this will likely be a 7-1 map. I think what most Democrats are interested in is how they draw the districts in the KCMO and St. Louis suburbs. Since Clay, Platte, and maybe St Charles are likely to flip this decade.

MUH suburb TRENDING D FOREVER. Platte is incredibly small and barely swung D and Clay/St Charles swung R by a decent amount, along with Jefferson county MO where Trump got 65% of the vote, anyone educated in the Kansas city side will live in Johnson county Kansas.

Platte and Clay are much more educated than Jefferson. They are also located in metro area that is growing and performing relatively well economically. I have stated on this forum before that the biggest divide on which counties will trend D and which will trend R is similar to the dynamics of the Greater Detroit area. Counties that are diverse and prosperous like Oakland will trend D and counties like Macomb will trend R. Platte and Clay are good communities and much cheaper than Johnson county which is attractive to college-educated people so yes I believe it will trend D. I think them trending towards Trump in 2016 is likely due Obama overperformance and the country at large trending R.

[morgieb]

Hmmm KC easier to crack than I expected.

[lfromnj]

Hmmm KC easier to crack than I expected.

Well I mean its only Clinton +15 and even the suburbs are R leaning.

[Former President tack50]

Would the remaining Dem district in St. Louis be VRA protected? Because an 8-0 map is not exactly impossible if you can cut that remaining district, although it is not the safest of maps:



Also including 2016-Senate results because why not

MO-01: R+12 (Trump 59-36; Blunt 52-43)
MO-02: R+7 (Trump 56-39; Kander 47.6-47.3)
MO-03: R+6 (Trump 56-39; Kander 48-47.
MO-04: R+10 (Trump 56-38; Kander 48-47)
MO-05: R+7 (Trump 55-40; Blunt 48.1-47.9)
MO-06: R+6 (Trump 55-40; Kander 49-46)
MO-07: R+8 (Trump 57-38; Blunt 50-46)
MO-08: R+13 (Trump 60-35; Blunt 54-42)

So basically you get all 8 Trump districts with him winning by no less than 15 points. In a "perfect storm" like the 2016 Senate race the map does break, with 4 districts voting for Kander, though even there 4 districts end up in essencially statistical ties and are decided by less than 1 point.

Of course with trends and what not I imagine at least one of these districts would break?

[lfromnj]

That likely pisses of too many incumbents, and it really isn't worth risking making that map when a clean sink that shifts missouri to Oklahoma levels is possible.

[MarkD]

You're right, reagente, District 1 is a VRA-protected district so it can't be split. But part of me wonders whether the MO GOP would really have the stones to try to split up Kansas City in your suggested way too. Even though the current District 5 is not technically a VRA-protected district, some civil rights attorneys might threaten a lawsuit anyway, calling District 5 a "minority-influence district." Despite the lack of precedent for that approach, such a threat of a lawsuit might intimidate the MO GOP, and that together with some reluctance of suburban KC Republican legislators to see their region split up might result in some inertia to using a map like yours.

[Hope For A New Era]

MUH suburb TRENDING D FOREVER. Platte is incredibly small and barely swung D and Clay/St Charles swung R by a decent amount, along with Jefferson county MO where Trump got 65% of the vote, anyone educated in the Kansas city side will live in Johnson county Kansas.

You're living in 2005 still. The age of infinite growth in Johnson County is over. The area along the north side of MO-152 from I-29 eastward in Platte and Clay is the new supergrowth area.

Platte and Clay are much more educated than Jefferson. They are also located in metro area that is growing and performing relatively well economically. I have stated on this forum before that the biggest divide on which counties will trend D and which will trend R is similar to the dynamics of the Greater Detroit area. Counties that are diverse and prosperous like Oakland will trend D and counties like Macomb will trend R. Platte and Clay are good communities and much cheaper than Johnson county which is attractive to college-educated people so yes I believe it will trend D. I think them trending towards Trump in 2016 is likely due Obama overperformance and the country at large trending R.

Platte's affordability is diminishing, but Clay is still cheap. Lots of educated young people moving to both still.

Hmmm KC easier to crack than I expected.

Well I mean its only Clinton +15 and even the suburbs are R leaning.

Yes, suburban realignment is lagging here. It showed some strength in Johnson County KS in 2016, and probably will advance further there this year, but realignment on the Missouri side is just beginning. Still very R out there in the suburbs. Liberty in particular is pretty much the only thing holding Clay County back from flipping at this point.

At least we're not Wichita. No realignment at all out there.

You're right, reagente, District 1 is a VRA-protected district so it can't be split. But part of me wonders whether the MO GOP would really have the stones to try to split up Kansas City in your suggested way too. Even though the current District 5 is not technically a VRA-protected district, some civil rights attorneys might threaten a lawsuit anyway, calling District 5 a "minority-influence district." Despite the lack of precedent for that approach, such a threat of a lawsuit might intimidate the MO GOP, and that together with some reluctance of suburban KC Republican legislators to see their region split up might result in some inertia to using a map like yours.

I think it's likely that they try and then back down after criticism.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I guess here and in several other states there's a basic conflict of interests between the national Republican Party's interest in making it easier to retake the house, and the state Republican Party's interest in not stirring up trouble for little direct benefit to them. The tiebreaker is whether the current incumbents are willing to put up with awkward lines, districts that are harder to represent and slightly more competitive elections, and whether there are sufficient ambitious politicians in the legislature living in the right bits of the state who want to represent new gerrymandered districts.

Pretty sure Tennessee passes that test, whereas I suspect Indiana doesn't. Missouri is somewhere in the middle, I guess?

[Sol]

I guess here and in several other states there's a basic conflict of interests between the national Republican Party's interest in making it easier to retake the house, and the state Republican Party's interest in not stirring up trouble for little direct benefit to them. The tiebreaker is whether the current incumbents are willing to put up with awkward lines, districts that are harder to represent and slightly more competitive elections, and whether there are sufficient ambitious politicians in the legislature living in the right bits of the state who want to represent new gerrymandered districts.

Pretty sure Tennessee passes that test, whereas I suspect Indiana doesn't. Missouri is somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Agreed. There's also I think sometimes a bit of a political culture between states; certain states in 2010 (I'm thinking of NC and Texas here in particular) have a very national-GOP extremist mindset and would do anything to keep power, while other states were more cautious.

[lfromnj]

I guess here and in several other states there's a basic conflict of interests between the national Republican Party's interest in making it easier to retake the house, and the state Republican Party's interest in not stirring up trouble for little direct benefit to them. The tiebreaker is whether the current incumbents are willing to put up with awkward lines, districts that are harder to represent and slightly more competitive elections, and whether there are sufficient ambitious politicians in the legislature living in the right bits of the state who want to represent new gerrymandered districts.

Pretty sure Tennessee passes that test, whereas I suspect Indiana doesn't. Missouri is somewhere in the middle, I guess?

The state senate leader has a very high interest in pushing this map.

[S019]

I did a three way split of KC and preserved incumbent homes, all but two seats above 59% Trump, one seat is 54% Trump and the other seat is the STL VRA seat. Even Kander only won two seats on this map

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7bad6f2-5ee8-45b8-883d-c06c29b84835

Cleaver's old seat is the most vulnerable R seat but it voted R for Governor in 2016, as well. Also Clinton did not break 40 in any of the 6 R seats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I did a three way split of KC and preserved incumbent homes, all but two seats above 59% Trump, one seat is 54% Trump and the other seat is the STL VRA seat. Even Kander only won two seats on this map

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7bad6f2-5ee8-45b8-883d-c06c29b84835

Cleaver's old seat is the most vulnerable R seat but it voted R for Governor in 2016, as well. Also Clinton did not break 40 in any of the 6 R seats.

When I looked at your map I thought "Oh, that far northern MO is the weakest Trump district".
Turns out I was wrong. Looks can be deceiving.
This is a pretty ingenious gerrymander.

[Hope For A New Era]

I did a three way split of KC and preserved incumbent homes, all but two seats above 59% Trump, one seat is 54% Trump and the other seat is the STL VRA seat. Even Kander only won two seats on this map

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7bad6f2-5ee8-45b8-883d-c06c29b84835

Cleaver's old seat is the most vulnerable R seat but it voted R for Governor in 2016, as well. Also Clinton did not break 40 in any of the 6 R seats.

That's nightmarish.

[dpmapper]

If I were the MO GOP I would settle for making lines that don't look bad, but still get Cleaver's district to Trump+6 or so.  That should be enough most years. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If I were the MO GOP I would settle for making lines that don't look bad, but still get Cleaver's district to Trump+6 or so.  That should be enough most years. 

By throwing Cleaver in with Sam Graves and splitting Jackson County in two?

[dpmapper]

Cleaver's district already has a 3-county eastern arm; just extend and thicken it, and have MO-4 eat the southern half of KC. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fbe4a480-1270-4595-a12a-89729156bea4
this is my 7R-1D map.

[Idaho Conservative]

Here's another option the GOP has, keeping Columbia outside of 3 Kansas City based districts.





So each GOP district voted 4 points to the right of the state for President, and Kander didn't win any districts besides the Democrat sink in St. Louis (for those wondering, neither did Obama).

Wow, that's amazing.  All red districts to the right of the state AND it looks clean.  The key was utilizing every rural seat except 1.

[Idaho Conservative]

7-1, every Trump district at least 60% Trump.  Wagner is shored up and no incumbent Republican is drawn out of their district, though some will have a lot of new constituents.  I doubt Cleaver even runs with this map,  MO-5 is now Trump+27, an astounding 40 point move to the right.  Even if 2022 is a blue wave he would be a severe underdog. 

[I’m not Stu]

Perfectly legal 8R-0D map. Every seat is at least Trump +14. Jason Kander lost every seat. I used water contiguity with no bridges for the purple district. I had the red district block all the bridges.

1: Trump +22, 2: Trump +22, 3: Trump +26, 4: Trump +18, 5: Trump +14, 6: Trump +18, 7: Trump +16, 8: Trump +22

[I’m not Stu]

Is it illegal? I thought federal courts could not decide partisan gerrymandering issues.