2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Missouri

[Minnesota Mike]

https://twitter.com/Missouri_Mapper/status/1476666405512781829

[GALeftist]

Seems like a fair map! MO-01 needs more people so it's pretty much inevitable that MO-02 moved right. Nevertheless, could be competitive starting in 2024 or 2026.

[Oryxslayer]

Other individual images can be found here.   Which therefore puts it around Trump+4.5, Hawley+1.2.

[Tekken_Guy]

MO-02 is probably competative in a Republican midterm.

It's somewhere from Trump+5 to +8 with close to 50-50 in the 2018 senate race, we would need a zoom to get the exact numbers. Obviously as people noted Wagner wouldn't have wanted a tentacle into rurals, but it feels like there is opportunity left on the table given how other uber-R south suburban counties are still in MO-03. Luetkemeyer appears to have done an inverse of the MD Dems and used his influence to ensure no parts of St. Louis county got added.

Not Luetkemeyer from what I've heard. This is apparently Sen. Dan Shaul (from Jefferson County) wanting to keep his county intact for a possible congressional run in the future.

Even if Luetkemeyer didn’t want it, why not have Jason Smith take in those areas instead?

[BoiseBoy]

Pretty excellent map.

[BoiseBoy]

PDF of the individual districts:

https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/22/8e/8d51ffe5410bb3557a352714a51f/joint-proposed-districts.pdf

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b497f085-4830-42e5-810c-3da8e9a642ed
This is an effort at a competitive MO-05 map.
Sam Graves' seat is most altered, but he still keeps the bulk of his territory. He does pick up a notable amount of white liberals in Kansas City, but he should be fine.
MO-05 has been turned into a Trump plurality district that borders Illinois and Iowa. Far from safe, but much more winnable than the current MO-05.
Wagner gets an MO-02 that is about 3 points more R than currently. About 63% of R voters in MO-02 would be in St. Louis County under these lines.

That MO-02 very much resembles the MO-02 on this map I drew a few days ago.

[BoiseBoy]

https://twitter.com/BasedLoudermilk/status/1476689473295503364?s=20

[BoiseBoy]

Also, there aren't shapefiles available as of right now, but the bill text as found HERE lists the precincts and blocks for each district if anyone wants to go ahead and recreate the map.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

https://twitter.com/BasedLoudermilk/status/1476689473295503364?s=20

That may be Mark Green's stated reason, but his real reason for opposing 8-1 is likely that he wouldn't represent Williamson County anymore (his home is up in Clarksville).  As for why he would want to represent WillCo, he has major statewide ambitions, so he wants to represent the major GOP donors that live there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This map looks excellent, honestly. Good on the MO GOP.

[Skill and Chance]

Democrats: We're going to gerrymander every place we can and infiltrate commissions to get back at those evil Republicans for their past gerrymandering.

Republicans: We can't be too impolite and raucous. We better take the L lying down instead of using the limited power we have.

I guess UT, NC, OH, WA and AZ don't exist?

I would say congressional commissions have been fair overall:

AZ- very fair map, unanimous agreement on a 5 Biden/4 Trump map in a Biden by <1 state

CA- clearly D leaning map, the commission selection process in CA seems almost designed to find as many culturally woke R's and I's as possible

CO- mildly R leaning map with 4 safe D seats and a 5th seat that went for Biden but by much less than statewide, this happened mainly because a couple of D commissioners dug in on a 6D/2R map that the I's thought was ridiculous.

IA-  fair map vs. statewide results, R's respected the process and didn't try to take power back

ID- no drama, both districts are Safe R no matter what, this will get a lot more interesting once there's an ID-03 and it fits in Boise

MI- mildly D leaning map because they prioritized minimizing the efficiency gap over all else, but not totally out of line with the state, 2 of the I commissioners were quite culturally liberal

MT- the sole independent broke the tie for the R map, but the R's agreed to draw a map honoring the historical E/W divide.  The D commissioners were extremely aggressive and basically trying to create a Biden district.  The R commissioners offered a Trump +7 western district and looked reasonable by comparison.  See CO.

NJ-  the sole independent broke the tie for the D map, the D map does give up one of the seats they currently hold, but makes 9/12 seats totally safe D, which is out of line with the statewide results

OH- clearly R leaning map, the commission structure essentially created a backdoor for this, but state courts are likely to demand changes

UT- clearly R leaning map, legislature gave itself the authority to overrule the commission and did so, unfortunate but the law there allows it

VA- very fair map vs. statewide results (5 Safe D,  1 Lean D, 1 Toss Up, 1 Likely R but trending left, 3 Safe R), but the commission structure was ill-thought-out so it all went to court

WA- very fair map vs. statewide results, the commission reached unanimous agreement just after the deadline

Overall, I would say commissions have done their job well, at least for congress.  R's upset about CA should reflect on their rather shameless antics in OH and UT.  D's should reflect on whether they're really just mad they didn't get to do 6/2 CO and 8/3 VA maps.

[Roll Roons]

Even though MO-02 might be vulnerable later in the decade, I don't really blame Wagner for not wanting to go into the rural areas. Rural Missouri is just completely Trumpified and she probably doesn't need the MAGA lunatics sending her death threats for being a "RINO".

In any case, her base has always been the wealthy suburbanites. And while the district may be trending blue, it's not exactly doing so at the speed of Atlanta or Austin.

Plus it's not like she's a bad candidate. She did outperform Trump by 6 points despite being targeted heavily.

[Oryxslayer]

Even though MO-02 might be vulnerable later in the decade, I don't really blame Wagner for not wanting to go into the rural areas. Rural Missouri is just completely Trumpified and she probably doesn't need the MAGA lunatics sending her death threats for being a "RINO".

In any case, her base has always been the wealthy suburbanites. And while the district may be trending blue, it's not exactly doing so at the speed of Atlanta or Austin.

Plus it's not like she's a bad candidate. She did outperform Trump by 6 points despite being targeted heavily.

Her district actually swung further left from '16 to '20 than TX-10, TX-21, TX-25 - and swung about the same as TX-31. True, MO-2 did move slightly less to the left than GA-6, and GA-7, but that's pretty a pretty ing low bar to clear.

Had MO-2 taken all of St. Charles County (which is very suburban and affluent), and jettisoned some South County suburbs (which are not at all affluent, and are exactly the sort of WWC voters she apparently disliked) that would give her district another 2-3 points of padding.

Or alternatively add in Jefferson or Franklin, though those would require changes to the 3rd which others may not have desired. There's a lot of GOP suburban voters here being left on the table that could have been added while not rural-ifying the seat.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where was the 2016>2020 trend concentrated? Part of me wonders if in fact, while having an all-St. Charles CD would boost Wagner's topline number, it would be worse for her by 2030, because the sorts of demographic shifts that are driving her seat in the D direction are strongest in St. Charles County as opposed to St. Louis.

[Nyvin]

Where was the 2016>2020 trend concentrated? Part of me wonders if in fact, while having an all-St. Charles CD would boost Wagner's topline number, it would be worse for her by 2030, because the sorts of demographic shifts that are driving her seat in the D direction are strongest in St. Charles County as opposed to St. Louis.

The southwestern part of St Louis County has pretty strong D trends too, it's really the northern part in the MO-1 area that has the weaker trends or even R trends.

It's really weird they opted to put basically the entire area that's trending D into MO-2,  would there even be a much better district possible for Democrats?   MO-1 is kinda stuck the way it is really.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where was the 2016>2020 trend concentrated? Part of me wonders if in fact, while having an all-St. Charles CD would boost Wagner's topline number, it would be worse for her by 2030, because the sorts of demographic shifts that are driving her seat in the D direction are strongest in St. Charles County as opposed to St. Louis.

The southwestern part of St Louis County has pretty strong D trends too, it's really the northern part in the MO-1 area that has the weaker trends or even R trends.

It's really weird they opted to put basically the entire area that's trending D into MO-2,  would there even be a much better district possible for Democrats?   MO-1 is kinda stuck the way it is really.

But is Southeastern St Louis County trending D as fast?

[BoiseBoy]

Alright - we have a DRA link now:

https://twitter.com/Missouri_Mapper/status/1476810221750214687

Is this map pretty much a done deal or is it likely to be altered a bunch before passing?

[Oryxslayer]

Alright - we have a DRA link now:

https://twitter.com/Missouri_Mapper/status/1476810221750214687

Is this map pretty much a done deal or is it likely to be altered a bunch before passing?

Unless Governor Parson calls a concurrent special session imminently, it seems like the process could be subject to a lot of shenanigans from people trying to advance their parochial concerns. The Senate GOP can only afford to lose one vote, so unless they rely on Democrats, two Republicans can hold up the entire map.

One area to look at will be St. Charles. The two State Senators representing the county are going to be pissed and they could conceivably get the Senate Conservative Caucus to try to force a map change.

Perhaps that is another reason why the map appears "too good" for the Dems. Just get some votes from the blue team by threatening something potentially much worse in order to pass a map that benefits specific incumbents and legislators over the heads of other legislators.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where was the 2016>2020 trend concentrated? Part of me wonders if in fact, while having an all-St. Charles CD would boost Wagner's topline number, it would be worse for her by 2030, because the sorts of demographic shifts that are driving her seat in the D direction are strongest in St. Charles County as opposed to St. Louis.

Nope, you'd have a smaller swing there too.

Swings:

MO-3 portion of St. Charles (current map)
Trump +27.9 -> Trump +18.9:  9pts left

MO-2 portion of St. Charles (current map)
Trump +25.4 -> Trump +15: 10.4 pts left

MO-2 portion of St. Louis (current map)
Trump +5.7 -> Biden +5.0: 11.7 pts left

-----

MO-3 portion of St. Charles (new map)
Trump +21.7 -> Trump +13.0: 8.7 pts left

MO-2 portion of St. Charles (new map)
Trump +29.6 -> Trump +20.5: 9.1 points left

MO-2 portion of St. Louis (new map)
Trump +9.0 -> Biden +1.6: 10.6 points left

----

Not to mention, the exurban areas around Wentzville are still growing quite a bit, so you could see a lot of new GOP voters in those areas, while Southern STL county is basically entirely built out

This goes a long way in explaining both why it would be safer for her in the GE if she takes all of St. Charles, and also probably safer in the primary if she doesn't. New arrivals mean potential GOP primary voters, who might well be less favorable to her than her current electorate.

[MarkD]

Alright - we have a DRA link now:

https://twitter.com/Missouri_Mapper/status/1476810221750214687

There's something not adding up here. If I take this map and compare it to the Wikipedia "List of counties in Missouri," and calculate, I end up with 88 too many people in districts 5 and 6, and 88 too few people in districts 7 and 8. That is, if I take all of the whole counties in 1, 2, 3, 4, add 3,327 people in Ray County, I get 3,077,456, which is 769,364 x 4. That would leave 19,831 people in Ray; if I add them to all the other whole counties in district 6, add in Clay and Jackson counties too, that should mean either 1,538,728 or 1,538,729. But instead I have 1,538,817 (in the combined area of what appears to be districts 5 and 6). Likewise, if I take what appears to be the 41 whole counties in districts 7 and 8 (9 whole counties in 7, 31 whole counties in 8, and Taney County split between the two districts), that adds up to 1,538,640, which is 88 less than what it should be (769,364 x 2).

The only way it could add up correctly is if somewhere, out of Camden, Miller, Maries, Gasconade, Franklin, or Jefferson counties, there is a split county that doesn't appear to be split on this map, and 88 people who live in one those counties are actually in district 8 instead of 3. So I clicked on "Tools" and "Find Split Precincts," and low and behold, there does appear to be a precinct that, bizarrely, is mostly in Camden County but spills over slightly into Laclede County. I cannot fathom why there would be, anywhere in the whole state of Missouri, an election precinct that crosses county boundaries! That doesn't make any sense at all! And even after examining that one bizarre split precinct, the math still doesn't make sense, because there have got to be more than 88 people in that large swath of southeastern Camden County (that appears to be merged with a very small chunk of Laclede County). So I'm still trying to find 88 people somewhere among those six counties who appear to be in 3, according to the map, but who are actually in 8. (Or perhaps, besides all that, there is something wrong with the numbers in Wikipedia!)

Is this map pretty much a done deal or is it likely to be altered a bunch before passing?

Unless Governor Parson calls a concurrent special session imminently, it seems like the process could be subject to a lot of shenanigans from people trying to advance their parochial concerns. The Senate GOP can only afford to lose one vote, so unless they rely on Democrats, two Republicans can hold up the entire map.

One area to look at will be St. Charles. The two State Senators representing the county are going to be pissed and they could conceivably get the Senate Conservative Caucus to try to force a map change.

Yeah; having lived there almost all of the first forty years of my life, and being very familiar with the precincts of St. Charles County, I definitely do not like seeing that east-west dividing line that splits, apparently, twelve precincts. I would prefer, and I feel pretty sure that Senators Onder and Eigel would prefer, a north-south dividing line instead, so that all of Eigel's SD 23 can be in MO-02, and most of Onder's SD 2 can be in MO-03. (I recently heard rumor that Onder's intention next year is to run for County Executive, which would make sense since it's about time for Steve Ehlmann to retire.)

Besides those two STCC Senators, can you think of any other legislators - of significant influence - who might put pressure on changing this map in some way? Notwithstanding that STCC split, I think it's a very good map.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Democrats: We're going to gerrymander every place we can and infiltrate commissions to get back at those evil Republicans for their past gerrymandering.

Republicans: We can't be too impolite and raucous. We better take the L lying down instead of using the limited power we have.

I guess UT, NC, OH, WA and AZ don't exist?

I would say congressional commissions have been fair overall:

AZ- very fair map, unanimous agreement on a 5 Biden/4 Trump map in a Biden by <1 state

CA- clearly D leaning map, the commission selection process in CA seems almost designed to find as many culturally woke R's and I's as possible

CO- mildly R leaning map with 4 safe D seats and a 5th seat that went for Biden but by much less than statewide, this happened mainly because a couple of D commissioners dug in on a 6D/2R map that the I's thought was ridiculous.

IA-  fair map vs. statewide results, R's respected the process and didn't try to take power back

ID- no drama, both districts are Safe R no matter what, this will get a lot more interesting once there's an ID-03 and it fits in Boise

MI- mildly D leaning map because they prioritized minimizing the efficiency gap over all else, but not totally out of line with the state, 2 of the I commissioners were quite culturally liberal

MT- the sole independent broke the tie for the R map, but the R's agreed to draw a map honoring the historical E/W divide.  The D commissioners were extremely aggressive and basically trying to create a Biden district.  The R commissioners offered a Trump +7 western district and looked reasonable by comparison.  See CO.

NJ-  the sole independent broke the tie for the D map, the D map does give up one of the seats they currently hold, but makes 9/12 seats totally safe D, which is out of line with the statewide results

OH- clearly R leaning map, the commission structure essentially created a backdoor for this, but state courts are likely to demand changes

UT- clearly R leaning map, legislature gave itself the authority to overrule the commission and did so, unfortunate but the law there allows it

VA- very fair map vs. statewide results (5 Safe D,  1 Lean D, 1 Toss Up, 1 Likely R but trending left, 3 Safe R), but the commission structure was ill-thought-out so it all went to court

WA- very fair map vs. statewide results, the commission reached unanimous agreement just after the deadline

Overall, I would say commissions have done their job well, at least for congress.  R's upset about CA should reflect on their rather shameless antics in OH and UT.  D's should reflect on whether they're really just mad they didn't get to do 6/2 CO and 8/3 VA maps.

The final draft in AZ was far fairer than the second to last draft, so I’d no longer put that on the gerrymander list; we ended up with a solidly R-leaning fair map.  Colorado doesn’t bother me as much as Virginia b/c the D commissioners really brought that map on themselves by over-aggressively and rather obnoxiously pushing for a blatant gerrymander.  In WA too, the Dem commissioners screwed up (this time by not pushing for a more secure WA-8), so it’s harder to get as mad.  

In Virginia though, I’d argue the special masters really did draw a Republican gerrymander or at the very least clearly set out to draw a Republican-leaning map.  I’ll grant you that not everything was gerrymandered as badly as it could have been in the worst case scenario and *some* of the choices you’d make to draw a fair map end up benefiting the Democrats here (especially in NOVA and the Richmond-to-Charlottesville areas).  

I’ll even grant that this state requires mapmakers to choose between the lesser of two evils more than most states b/c everything is screwed up by the fact that NOVA really needs 4 seats and VA really needs 12 to have an ideal map that doesn’t do some sort of nonsense in a region or two, but only has 11.  

That said, we’re talking about a Likely/Borderline Safe D state and you’d never know that from looking at the map we got here; the special masters shouldn’t be going out of their way to make choices that benefit the Republicans whenever possible.  Yes, Youngkin won in a fluke, but that was a fluke from a Republican wave election.  I’m not saying it’s one of the worst of the cycle by any means.  

VA having only 11 districts forces a number of lesser of two evils choices and it looks like maybe 75% of the time they went with whatever would help Republicans at the margins.  The result was a Republican gerrymander.  A milder one as far as gerrymanders go, but definitely a gerrymander as opposed to something like the final AZ map which was a deliberately R-leaning fair map.

[ElectionsGuy]

Even though MO-02 might be vulnerable later in the decade, I don't really blame Wagner for not wanting to go into the rural areas. Rural Missouri is just completely Trumpified and she probably doesn't need the MAGA lunatics sending her death threats for being a "RINO".

In any case, her base has always been the wealthy suburbanites. And while the district may be trending blue, it's not exactly doing so at the speed of Atlanta or Austin.

Plus it's not like she's a bad candidate. She did outperform Trump by 6 points despite being targeted heavily.

Unlike those wealthy upstanding conservatives in the suburbs who would never do such a thing. Only the dirty rubes in the rural areas would behave in such a neanderthal way.

I just can't understand why Republicans think their own leaders and consultant class that concentrates around DC have contempt for them and their interests?

[ElectionsGuy]

Democrats: We're going to gerrymander every place we can and infiltrate commissions to get back at those evil Republicans for their past gerrymandering.

Republicans: We can't be too impolite and raucous. We better take the L lying down instead of using the limited power we have.

I guess UT, NC, OH, WA and AZ don't exist?

Of those, only NC and OH actually are gerrymandered to affect more than 1 seat, but both are less gerrymandered than they were 10 years ago. Utah just shored up a seat that was likely to be R anyway. The rest were independent commissions that produced an actually fair map (but since Dems think a fair map is gerrymandered, I guess that makes sense for you to bring that up). Arizona's map last time produced 5/9 Dem-leaning seats in a R-leaning state, and the new map is still 5/9 Biden-won seats.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Democrats: We're going to gerrymander every place we can and infiltrate commissions to get back at those evil Republicans for their past gerrymandering.

Republicans: We can't be too impolite and raucous. We better take the L lying down instead of using the limited power we have.

I guess UT, NC, OH, WA and AZ don't exist?

Of those, only NC and OH actually are gerrymandered to affect more than 1 seat, but both are less gerrymandered than they were 10 years ago. Utah just shored up a seat that was likely to be R anyway. The rest were independent commissions that produced an actually fair map (but since Dems think a fair map is gerrymandered, I guess that makes sense for you to bring that up). Arizona's map last time produced 5/9 Dem-leaning seats in a R-leaning state, and the new map is still 5/9 Biden-won seats.

Love the shifting standards to rationalize GOP gerrymandering in different states. NC and OH are "not as bad as last time" (arguable in OH's case), UT is "just shoring up a likely R seat" (which is only likely R because of a previous gerrymander and would be likely D in any fair map). I'm sure I could find some creative formulas like that to justify IL and MD too, but I'm not going to bother because I'm not a complete hack.

WA and AZ are examples of commissions where Republicans played hardball and Democrats played with kid gloves. To deny it is just delusional. The Arizona map is a soft R gerrymander which in a neutral year would go 6-3 and could even end up 7-2 in a mild Republican year. Sure, the 2010 map was a soft D gerrymander, but two wrongs don't make a right. WA ended up as a status quo map, but that just means enshrining the soft R gerrymander from 2010, so it's absolutely pathetic that Democrats caved on that. Again, feel free to nitpick each individual case applying an ad hoc rationale for why those two are totally OK but the mildldy D-leaning maps that came out of CA and MI are absolutely disgusting or something.