2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt. Geography in WI is absolutely terrible for Ds; you need some very creative lines to avoid getting 4 likely/safe R districts. I tried to give Kind as blue of a district as I could (Clinton + 4) but ultimately it's unlikely to go very far in the decade. WI-1 I also tried to make competative and could definately become blue leaning by the end of the decade depending upon how the coalitions of the parties continue to change.

[ProgressiveModerate]

1 county split map



https://davesredistricting.org/join/8068ede1-8b6a-4c57-a13e-9e82ac75a494


I believe it keeps all incumbents in their districts too,  if Tom Tiffany is from Oneida.

Too bad the website requires you to check a box saying your a resident of Wisconsin or I would seriously submit this map.

Nice map. That looks like a 2-1-4? Trying to deal with Green bay (districts 6 and is always kinda annoying.

[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

[ProgressiveModerate]

Welp this pretty much means 6-2 is guaranteed.

WI is a weird case where especially with 8 seats, political geography heavily favors Rs, and a fair map from a partisanship standpoint would be terrible from a COI standpoint.

I think the right thing to do in this case would be keep Milwaukee whole to ensure minorities get a voice, but try to get 2 D-leaning districts out of Madison and SW WI.

Honestly, I wouldn't be to upset for this ruling except for the fact the original maps were GOP gerrymanders; I really just wish the court would re-start from scratch even if they don't look at partisanship data

[ProgressiveModerate]

Wisconsin is 100% the worst state geographically for democrats

No, that would be Missouri.

Eh, there's a chance both of them will end up with 6-2 R maps with about the same amount of erosity, despite one of them voting Biden by less than a point and the other voting Trump by 15.

Ye MO’s supposed R geographic advantage is overrated. While St. Louis is extremely Dem and stuck in a corner of the state, it is also pretty low turnout and swingy suburbs carry on for a decent amount of time. KC geography isn’t that bad either and Rs have started to overpack in rural MO. 5-1-2 seems pretty reasonable for a state of its partisanship

[ProgressiveModerate]

After playing around for a while, got a WI map that is ok from a partisanship standpoint (map is on 2020 numbers), is highly competitive, doesn't look hideous visually, and is ok from a COI perspective. Madison and Milwaukee are both kept whole, but barely, and Dane County is obviously split

[ProgressiveModerate]

Kinda funny how Hagedorn is the only man on the state Supreme Court block and you have 3 women who usually form a block to his left and 3 to his right.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Lol “victory” is still a 6-2 map. Still WI-01 is closer to and WI-03 is basically the same which is a win in my book

[ProgressiveModerate]

Wisconsin's State Supreme Court could use a tech upgrade.

https://twitter.com/jdjmke/status/1482043553920528390?s=20

I mean the court is 83% Karens

[ProgressiveModerate]

I mean isn’t  WI’s map deadline in like a week? Expecting a 6-2 map, it’s really a question of how winnable districts 1 and 3 (or their equivalents) are, and to a lesser degree 8 for Dems. If a 3rd seat is created, it’d prolly be a 2nd Madison/Diftless district and while it’s not necessary hard to make, it’s certainly not the most natural config and a huge change from the current map.

Milwaukee will def stay packed because of VRA

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's a fun experiment I did -  I came up with a scenario where WI gained a 9th district (I know it doesn't have the requisite population, but still), and then drew maps for a WI with 9 districts: https://districtr.org/plan/111118. The results are pretty surprising - even though I came with district boundaries arugably cleaner than the current map, it subtly helped the Democrats greatly, giving the GOP only a 5-4 majority (much more representative of the state's overall politics than 6-2). Because a 9th district allowed for Madison and Milwaukee to be split into two Democratic districts each. And I'm sure a 5-4 Democratic map could be produced by making the 1st include some western parts of the Madison metro area (and make the ultra-blue 2nd district some point redder). Another observation from this map is just how few people live in northern Wisconsin - East WI + Madison takes in the vast majority of the population (7/9 districts here), while a large chunk of land in Northern Wisconsin comprises just a single district (the 9th).

8 seats is def the worse number for Dems. You could go down to 4 and still need D leaning Madison and Milwaukee seats. And any additional 9th district forces the current WI-02 and WI-04 to properly pack Madison and Milwaukee

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at the most literal definition of a least change map if the court kind of does what MN did. The good news for Dems is that WI-01 kinda does have to get slightly bluer, however, outside of that the map is still likely to heavily favour the GOP no matter what

[ProgressiveModerate]

I feel like the court will either draw a disappointingly uncompetitive 6-2 map (i.e 1rst and 3rd become safer for GOP), or they do something really ugly to try and create greater partisan fairness.

My guess is more the former, but the latter would be an interesting twist, especially since NC has shown us that judges don't always know how to draw the best maps from a COI standpoint.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I feel like the court will either draw a disappointingly uncompetitive 6-2 map (i.e 1rst and 3rd become safer for GOP), or they do something really ugly to try and create greater partisan fairness.

My guess is more the former, but the latter would be an interesting twist, especially since NC has shown us that judges don't always know how to draw the best maps from a COI standpoint.

I think even the 1st became a touch more D in the R map

It kinda is hard to make the 1rst redder without making some quite R favorable decisions. Assuming the district profile remains simillar, the only real way to make it redder would be to have it take in more of Wakesha County, however, most court drawn maps would probably make the 5th more dominate in Wakesha and psuh WI-01 to take in slightly more of Rock of the immediate Milwaukee burbs.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Fair 7 district WI for 2030. This uses 2020 census numbers so you might need to move some population here and there but the map stands.

District 1: The successor to the current district 1, nicely nested in the Southeast corner in the state. This map cleans up the Awful Rock County split and instead has the district take in more of Milwaukee and Waukesha, making the district more suburban and Milwaukee focused in general.

District 2: Tbh, this was a sort of leftovers district that takes in much of what used to be 2, 6, and 8. Very rural in nature, but takes in some of Madison's outer sphere of influence. Will be a fun district politically due to the heavy polarization between liberal Madison are and some of most Conservative rural counties up in Northern WI.

District 3: The successor to the current WI-03, basically a driftless district. Takes in a lot of bluer rural communities, however, it has to expand a bit inwards.

District 4: District 4 is likely to be the most underpopulated by the end of the decade, so I decided to do a Madison-Milwaukee merge which tbh, falls pretty naturally and creates a district that is maximally urban so that urban Wisconsin can get a voice. As a consequence, WI-04 loses any black functionality it may still have left, but again, the black population of Milwaukee has been on a pretty rapid decline and WI-04 will have to expand anyways.

District 5: This is the successor to the current WI-05, based heavily in Waukesha and basically all of Milwaukee's deep red suburbs and exurbs. It also takes in a few precincts from Milwaukee 4 had to shed to be made into a maximally urban district and make district 5 a bit more competative

District 6: This district was designed to be a coastal district, taking in much of the Fox Valley, and stretching up to Boone County and down to Ozaukee. A lot of these mid-sized communities have been on the rise and are transitioning from more historically industrial towns to more modern communities.

District 7: District 7 takes in the northern part of the state and is basically equivalent to the existing 7. Due to needing to expand, the district now takes in Eau Claire and Stevens Point.

Honestly, I really think this map falls quite nicely. Populations by 2030 will force inevitable changes but the cores of the districts make sense.

Unfortunately, due to crappy geography for Democrats, this map likely produces a 6R-1D delegation but unless you want to do something egregious to overcome Ds disastrous geography in WI, there's not much you can do.



Here's an alternative proposal that places a greater emphasis on compactness and abiding by counties, but at the expense of COI. This map also takes some pretty bold steps to try and help Democrats overcome their horrible geography, most notably by putting Milwaukee and Madison into separate districts when logically, they should be kept together cause they're both blue cities.

[ProgressiveModerate]

How the hell is this a fair district?

Madison and Milwaukee are two separate cities and communities of interest. There's absolutely no reason to put them together besides a GOP gerrymander.

If a district needs to be cut, district 4 is most likely to be underpopulated and will thus have to expand. The district it shares the most in common with is 2, so it's the most logical merge.

(If you couldn't tell already, I'm being sarcastic and makiing fun of Ds geography troubles in WI)

[ProgressiveModerate]

What about this as a baseline for a fair map? Huge population deviations but all counties are whole so def some tweaks to be made around the margins.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f2d8ee93-e0bd-4a3f-9649-63f79b7960b2

I think there is a case to be made that Ozaukee can be paired with Milwaukee at this point, especially since it allows for a perfect divide in Milwaukee County because Milwaukee proper and communities to the South/West of Milwaukee proper.

Madison is harder. Splitting Dane down the middle violates a clear community of interest, and to make WI-03 a Biden seat, you need all 3 of Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Rock Counties, but to do so you need some notable testicles (similar to the current WI-03).

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's pretty easy to make WI-03 Democratic; you just have to give it Rock (and send WI-02 east). You don't even have to put in Eau Claire.

If you send WI-02 East then redistricting the WOW/Milwaukee area gets funky, since 5 has to be pushed North.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Tried drawing a partisan-blind GA; it ended up "only" being 54Trump - 45Biden on 2020 Pres numbers and the chamber control in realistic reach for Dems. Biden has a lot more narrow seats than Trump though, largely from the Appleton - GreenBay area where you have a bunch of Trump-Biden seats.

Under a fair map, I think the general assembly is attainable for Dems long term if the Milwaukee suburbs continue to shift left (a lot of single digit Trump seats in this area), and they hold their ground elsewhere.

Is nesting districts required in WI?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Is nesting districts required in WI?

Yes. There’s also consistent precedent for small non contiguous parts to follow non contiguous City and Township lines.

Ik. Discontinuity is a pet peeve of mine so as you might be able to tell in the map above, I choose to disreguard some city lines for the sake of continuity. Wisconsin precincts tend to be annoying cause you have a lot of discontinuous precincts near township lines.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm curious to see the route the court takes on a Congressional redraw. To be honest, I think a truly fair partisan-blind map would only yield slightly more equitable results on the Congressional level, with 2 safe D seats, 2 swing seats, and 4 relatively safe R seats. However, if the court aims for partisan fairness, we'll prolly end up with a map that's pretty bad when it comes to COIs.

It's more the legislature where a neutral map goes a long way. It's hard to draw an outright Biden majority, but you can get close in both chambers, and def keep Rs out of a supermajority.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's actually not as hard and ugly as I thought to make 4 Biden districts:



WI-03 is Biden +3.0%

WI-01 is Biden +2.6%

All without splitting Dane.

WI-03 wouldn't remain a Biden seat for long, given the steady pro-GOP movement along the Iowa border.

It’s also possible the rural areas just stagnate or revert a bit.

Doesn't look likely at this point:
https://twitter.com/Center4Politics/status/1643671177188057107?cxt=HHwWpoC9vcSOv...

Driftless's drift right has been fairly consistent, and to suddenly assume it'd revert would be the same wishcasting Rs do with many suburbs. Ds may make gains in Ew Claire and La Cross, but it likely isn't enough to pull a whole Congressional District left.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The annoying thing about drawing a 4-4 Wisconsin is that, while making WI-03 a Biden district is fairly trivial even without splitting Dane just because Madison has such a weirdly large geographic sphere of influence, I'm pretty sure making WI-01 a Biden district is straight up impossible without splitting Milwaukee. You can make that look fine, of course, but the real issue is that you need to put a bunch of WOW into WI-04 to compensate, which always makes my WI-05 look pretty gross. Still better than the existing map imo (which has the Portage tentacle, splits WOW, splits Fox Cities, etc.), but still, I wish there was a more elegant solution.

This WI-01 is Biden + 2.5, and Milwaukee is kept whole in WI-04. However, this WI-01 sucks from a COI and makes the rest of the map a nightmare to draw.

I think people need to rmbr though that there's not a *major* difference between having a Biden + 1 vs a Trump + 1 seat, and trying to aim for exactly a 4-4 map may not be the best route to go here.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think the court overturning the maps is somewhat inevitable at this point.

The real question is do they go for a partisan-blind maps, or maps that purposely seeks to overcome unfavorable geography?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm all here for Dane County saving WI. It would be interesting to see the in state/out of state breakdown these updated numbers.

They don’t release those, but it would be cool to see. I’m willing to bet a lot of the St Croix County growth is Twin Cities spillover.

Also when you factor in Portage, Eau Claire, and LaX Counties, the Democratic ones are outpacing the GOP ones. From personal experience I also know a lot of the growth in Brown is from younger (20/30s) people moving in for jobs. They are probably purple or blue leaning.

Wisconsin has decently good growth patterns for Dems; the only thing that's not great for them is that Milwaukee has been shrinking but even that seems to have slowed down a bit recently and many of the new folks seem to be high turnout white liberals in downtown, Shorewood, Fox Point, ect.

However, favorable growth has been overcome by the GOP flipping an insane number of rural voters. Insane to think Biden did better than Bush 2000 based on the County map, but since 2000 Dane County's vote net for Dems has near tripeled.

Biggest question for what happens to WI long term imo is what happens to the Fox Valley (Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, ect). In the past 2 decades, there have been mixed signs from this region.

For reference below are County Pres maps for 2000 (Gore + 0.2) and 2020 (Biden + 0.6):




It's proof that GOP gains in WI rurals can and have been offset by gains in urban and suburban areas.