2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[lfromnj]

If Dems had any bargaining power here (they don’t) they would be smart to try to make WI-1 closer while triaging WI-3.

Uh, the governor is a Democrat, and the WISC is fairly moderate. Anyways it's pretty easy to make WI-1 closer and WI-3 winnable, the two goals aren't really mutually exclusive

Technically the Wisconsin supreme court is fairly batsh**t partisan besides Hagedorn.
https://www.npr.org/2012/05/11/152520957/wis-justices-deadlocked-over-chokehold-allegation#:~:text=Justices%20on%20the%20Wisconsin%20Supreme%20Court%20are%20deadlocked,chokehold%20during%20an%20argument%20over%20a%20controversial%20ruling.

GILMAN HALSTED, BYLINE: What exactly happened in Justice Anne Walsh Bradley's office last year on June 13th depends on which of the six justices who were present you talk to. Justice Bradley and two of her colleagues say Justice David Prosser put his hands around Bradley's neck in a chokehold. Prosser and the other three justices on the court say Prosser was just defending himself when Bradley rushed at him with her fist in the air. Leading up to the incident, tensions in the Capitol building had been high for months.

Basically what happens when you put a bunch of Dane party activists against WOW party activists.

Yes, it's like 3 Alito's, 3 Sotomayor's and then 1 Roberts deciding everything 4/3.  Pretty wild.  

I don't think Hagedorn is ruling like Roberts for the sake of the opinion of the court or whatever though. I think he just rules how he wants to. He clearly doesn't care about how many liberal cocktail parties he gets invited to.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Say the Wisconsin Democrats got the chance to gerrymander the state legislature, unilaterally. How many seats in either chamber could they get?

I tried to do Senate map
https://davesredistricting.org/join/421e4f5a-7547-464a-8355-1def3f3f4db4

18-15 Trump 2016
18-15 Baldwin 2018
17-16 Walker 2018
18-15 Biden 2018

What State Senate districts would you make out of these State Assembly ones?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c08383c2-4eec-46c9-b4c3-7c6afb6aa08d

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

my idea as to what a Dem State Senate gerrymander with those state assembly districts would look like.
There are 15 Trump districts (I think).

[😥]

Say the Wisconsin Democrats got the chance to gerrymander the state legislature, unilaterally. How many seats in either chamber could they get?

I tried to do Senate map
https://davesredistricting.org/join/421e4f5a-7547-464a-8355-1def3f3f4db4

18-15 Trump 2016
18-15 Baldwin 2018
17-16 Walker 2018
18-15 Biden 2018

What State Senate districts would you make out of these State Assembly ones?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c08383c2-4eec-46c9-b4c3-7c6afb6aa08d

Based on those Assembly districts I would probably draw something like this:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bfe50f2a-5d8e-45ce-a2c4-c471f9372f6f

19-14 Biden 2020
21-12 Baldwin
17-16 Walker
17-16 Trump 2016

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Say the Wisconsin Democrats got the chance to gerrymander the state legislature, unilaterally. How many seats in either chamber could they get?

I tried to do Senate map
https://davesredistricting.org/join/421e4f5a-7547-464a-8355-1def3f3f4db4

18-15 Trump 2016
18-15 Baldwin 2018
17-16 Walker 2018
18-15 Biden 2018

What State Senate districts would you make out of these State Assembly ones?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c08383c2-4eec-46c9-b4c3-7c6afb6aa08d

Based on those Assembly districts I would probably draw something like this:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bfe50f2a-5d8e-45ce-a2c4-c471f9372f6f

19-14 Biden 2020
21-12 Baldwin
17-16 Walker
17-16 Trump 2016

https://davesredistricting.org/join/522d7520-48c1-44ce-ae42-bc1e58891a55
this is how the map I posted above compares.

18-15 Biden
22-11 Baldwin
17-16 Evers
18-15 Trump 16

[TJ in Oregon]

If Dems had any bargaining power here (they don’t) they would be smart to try to make WI-1 closer while triaging WI-3.

Uh, the governor is a Democrat, and the WISC is fairly moderate. Anyways it's pretty easy to make WI-1 closer and WI-3 winnable, the two goals aren't really mutually exclusive

Technically the Wisconsin supreme court is fairly batsh**t partisan besides Hagedorn.
https://www.npr.org/2012/05/11/152520957/wis-justices-deadlocked-over-chokehold-allegation#:~:text=Justices%20on%20the%20Wisconsin%20Supreme%20Court%20are%20deadlocked,chokehold%20during%20an%20argument%20over%20a%20controversial%20ruling.

GILMAN HALSTED, BYLINE: What exactly happened in Justice Anne Walsh Bradley's office last year on June 13th depends on which of the six justices who were present you talk to. Justice Bradley and two of her colleagues say Justice David Prosser put his hands around Bradley's neck in a chokehold. Prosser and the other three justices on the court say Prosser was just defending himself when Bradley rushed at him with her fist in the air. Leading up to the incident, tensions in the Capitol building had been high for months.

Basically what happens when you put a bunch of Dane party activists against WOW party activists.

Yes, it's like 3 Alito's, 3 Sotomayor's and then 1 Roberts deciding everything 4/3.  Pretty wild. 

I don't think Hagedorn is ruling like Roberts for the sake of the opinion of the court or whatever though. I think he just rules how he wants to. He clearly doesn't care about how many liberal cocktail parties he gets invited to.

If anything Hagedorn got uninvited to both sides' cocktail parties, got unpersoned, and then unexpectedly won and suddenly ended up holding the balance of power. Tis one of the more amusing ironies of politics these days.

That being said, the WI conservatives are, for the most part happy to have him, the question is whether he wants to go. Hagedorn is simply his own man.

[Stuart98]

If you really want to increase the minority percentage of WI-04, put the cities of Kenosha and Racine in it (but not the western parts of the counties). Will post links/screenshots when I get back to my laptop in a few hours.

[Stuart98]

Forgot to post this last night, but fair map:


Pres 2020:


The 4th is 43.1% WVAP, 34.1% BVAP, 17.4% HVAP. The 3rd here doesn't contain any part of Dane county but still shifted left slightly from 2016 to 2020.

DRA link.

[walleye26]

Forgot to post this last night, but fair map:


Pres 2020:


The 4th is 43.1% WVAP, 34.1% BVAP, 17.4% HVAP. The 3rd here doesn't contain any part of Dane county but still shifted left slightly from 2016 to 2020.

DRA link.

Not too bad, what I would do instead is take the 4th all of MKE/north shore burbs + Ozaukee, then make the 5th the southern MKE burbs like Cudahy, Oak Creek, New Berlin, Muskego, and Brookfield + Racine/Kenosha. That would be about Trump +1.5

[vileplume]

I had a go at drawing a fair map of the Wisconsin State Assembly. I prioritised minimising splits of counties or municipalities together (not helped by the precinct and city lines being incredibly ugly in places) as well as trying to draw neat, relatively compact districts. There are six African American districts in Milwaukee and two Hispanic ones.

Whole State





Milwaukee-Madison





Fox River Valley





In this attempt at a sensibly drawn map of the Assembly, Trump still won 58 districts to Biden's 41, which is still pretty grim for the Democrats. Democratic voters in this state are so naturally packed that the GOP doesn't even need to draw anything that egregious e.g. slicing up Wisconsin's smaller cities (Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Wausau, Neenah-Menasha) to all but guarantee themselves control outside of a meltdown. Unless you make an deliberate effort to draw many city-suburb districts (which is not the most natural way of drawing them and doesn't respect communities of interest or municipal lines) you'll always end up with a map that decidedly leans Republican in Wisconsin.

There are marginal Trump seats though, the tipping point seat being District 58 in the Green Bay suburbs (De Pere, Ashwaubenon, Hobart, Lawrence, part of Ledgeview) at Trump+7.6. But unfortunately for Democrats of the top 20 most marginal seats, Biden actually still won half of them meaning Republicans could still win in quite a number of districts that went blue in 2020 making the challenge to take the chamber all that more challenging. The upside for Democrats is the 10th most marginal Republican seat is the Waukesha County based District 16 (Brookfield) and this may be the area where they break the Republican's hold on the Assembly.

Only 4 districts flipped between 2016 and 2020:

3 from R to D:
-District 23 (Greenfield)
-District 49 (Neenah-Menasha)
-District 67 (Wausau)

1 from D to R:
-District 98 (Green County, Lafayette County, City & Town of Mineral Point)

[lfromnj]

I had a go at drawing a fair map of the Wisconsin State Assembly. I prioritised minimising splits of counties or municipalities together (not helped by the precinct and city lines being incredibly ugly in places) as well as trying to draw neat, relatively compact districts. There are six African American districts in Milwaukee and two Hispanic ones.

Whole State





Milwaukee-Madison





Fox River Valley





In this attempt at a sensibly drawn map of the Assembly, Trump still won 58 districts to Biden's 41, which is still pretty grim for the Democrats. Democratic voters in this state are so naturally packed that the GOP doesn't even need to draw anything that egregious e.g. slicing up Wisconsin's smaller cities (Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Wausau, Neenah-Menasha) to all but guarantee themselves control outside of a meltdown. Unless you make an deliberate effort to draw many city-suburb districts (which is not the most natural way of drawing them and doesn't respect communities of interest or municipal lines) you'll always end up with a map that decidedly leans Republican in Wisconsin.

There are marginal Trump seats though, the tipping point seat being District 58 in the Green Bay suburbs (De Pere, Ashwaubenon, Hobart, Lawrence, part of Ledgeview) at Trump+7.6. But unfortunately for Democrats of the top 20 most marginal seats, Biden actually still won half of them meaning Republicans could still win in quite a number of districts that went blue in 2020 making the challenge to take the chamber all that more challenging. The upside for Democrats is the 10th most marginal Republican seat is the Waukesha County based District 16 (Brookfield) and this may be the area where they break the Republican's hold on the Assembly.

Only 4 districts flipped between 2016 and 2020:

3 from R to D:
-District 23 (Greenfield)
-District 49 (Neenah-Menasha)
-District 67 (Wausau)

1 from D to R:
-District 98 (Green County, Lafayette County, City & Town of Mineral Point)

If you post the DRA link someone else can make a copy and just place the senate districts as well. Your assembly seats seem fine but with nesting they might not be.

Your assembly map seems decent at first glance but I don't think your senate map based by 1-3 nesting would be that good.

I think you definitely screwed Democrats out of a logical tossup seat senate seat  based in Eau Claire county.

[vileplume]

I had a go at drawing a fair map of the Wisconsin State Assembly. I prioritised minimising splits of counties or municipalities together (not helped by the precinct and city lines being incredibly ugly in places) as well as trying to draw neat, relatively compact districts. There are six African American districts in Milwaukee and two Hispanic ones.

Whole State





Milwaukee-Madison





Fox River Valley





In this attempt at a sensibly drawn map of the Assembly, Trump still won 58 districts to Biden's 41, which is still pretty grim for the Democrats. Democratic voters in this state are so naturally packed that the GOP doesn't even need to draw anything that egregious e.g. slicing up Wisconsin's smaller cities (Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Wausau, Neenah-Menasha) to all but guarantee themselves control outside of a meltdown. Unless you make an deliberate effort to draw many city-suburb districts (which is not the most natural way of drawing them and doesn't respect communities of interest or municipal lines) you'll always end up with a map that decidedly leans Republican in Wisconsin.

There are marginal Trump seats though, the tipping point seat being District 58 in the Green Bay suburbs (De Pere, Ashwaubenon, Hobart, Lawrence, part of Ledgeview) at Trump+7.6. But unfortunately for Democrats of the top 20 most marginal seats, Biden actually still won half of them meaning Republicans could still win in quite a number of districts that went blue in 2020 making the challenge to take the chamber all that more challenging. The upside for Democrats is the 10th most marginal Republican seat is the Waukesha County based District 16 (Brookfield) and this may be the area where they break the Republican's hold on the Assembly.

Only 4 districts flipped between 2016 and 2020:

3 from R to D:
-District 23 (Greenfield)
-District 49 (Neenah-Menasha)
-District 67 (Wausau)

1 from D to R:
-District 98 (Green County, Lafayette County, City & Town of Mineral Point)

If you post the DRA link someone else can make a copy and just place the senate districts as well. Your assembly seats seem fine but with nesting they might not be.

Your assembly map seems decent at first glance but I don't think your senate map based by 1-3 nesting would be that good.

I think you definitely screwed Democrats out of a logical tossup seat senate seat  based in Eau Claire county.

I had a go at the State Senate and I think it works out pretty okay:

Whole State





Milwaukee-Madison





Obviously the map leans solidly Republican due to the geography of the state. Trump won 22-11 though a lot of the Republican districts are at least competitive.

The Senate seat with Eau Claire in it (24), shown above, is Trump+3, so it's definitely pretty competitive and so the Democrats are hardly screwed there.

If you mean the Assembly map it's just because the counties of: Eau Claire, Trempealeau, Clark, Jackson and Monroe form a group for four seats (Eau Claire unlike La Crosse is too small to support 2 on its own) and that was the best arrangement I could find for that area. Assembly district 80 (Trempealeau County - Altoona) is only Trump+5.6 and is a seat the Dems would need to take the chamber.

Also I'm happy to publish the links but I'm not exactly sure how you go about doing that..

[lfromnj]

If you mean the Assembly map it's just because the counties of: Eau Claire, Trempealeau, Clark, Jackson and Monroe form a group for four seats (Eau Claire unlike La Crosse is too small to support 2 on its own) and that was the best arrangement I could find for that area. Assembly district 80 (Trempealeau County - Altoona) is only Trump+5.6 and is a seat the Dems would need to take the chamber.

The thing is Chippewa + Eau Claire is only 4k short of 3 assembly seats and is a good COI.

Turns out you didn't screw Democrats there much.

[vileplume]

If you mean the Assembly map it's just because the counties of: Eau Claire, Trempealeau, Clark, Jackson and Monroe form a group for four seats (Eau Claire unlike La Crosse is too small to support 2 on its own) and that was the best arrangement I could find for that area. Assembly district 80 (Trempealeau County - Altoona) is only Trump+5.6 and is a seat the Dems would need to take the chamber.

The thing is Chippewa + Eau Claire is only 4k short of 3 assembly seats and is a good COI.

Turns out you didn't screw Democrats there much.

I did try that arrangement but the problem was Douglas and Bayfield were fine for 1 district, the rural NW Wisconsin counties of 69 and 71 get 2 and Pierce, St. Croix and Polk get 3. Short of something ugly this pushed Chippewa to be with Barron, Dunn, Pepin and Buffalo for 3.

The part of Eau Claire county that I've paired with Clark and part of Jackson is pretty rural and Republican anyway. So an suburban/rural Eau Claire county based district would be similar in partisan leanings to the one I suggested but likely cause ugly knock-on effects elsewhere. 

[Gass3268]

Looks like we will be getting the Republicans maps here soon.

https://twitter.com/sbauerAP/status/1450933182174572550?s=20

Also the People's Maps Commission made updates to their maps.

Lastly, Dane County tentatively approved the following for their 37 Seat County Board.

[Gass3268]

Here are the Republican maps.

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1450940129636409346?s=20

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/Union_Tpke/status/1450941542890450946?s=20

[It’s so Joever]

Unsurprising. The most boring news of this redistricting cycle.

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/zach_solomon1/status/1450945806144520193?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Unsurprising. The most boring news of this redistricting cycle.

Evers will veto, the Leg won't be able to override, and we will then get into the juicy stuff.

[BoiseBoy]

Unsurprising. The most boring news of this redistricting cycle.

Evers will veto, the Leg won't be able to override, and we will then get into the juicy stuff.

What happens then? Is it court-drawn or something?

[Oryxslayer]

Unsurprising. The most boring news of this redistricting cycle.

Evers will veto, the Leg won't be able to override, and we will then get into the juicy stuff.

What happens then? Is it court-drawn or something?

That's why it's so juicy. We don't know. Obviously there will be a bunch of plans flying around, potential for compromise plans (lol this is WI), reps would want the state supreme whereas dems would prefer district courts, and then every other uncertainty that would flow from a court case.

[Gass3268]

Not sure why poor Baraboo had to get chopped in half between WI-02 and WI-03.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Why not just go for a supermajority in the state leg? This ain’t gonna be the map anyways so might as well be worth a try

[wbrocks67]

What a wonderful map this would be -

https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1451182214075531264