2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

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I don't think a fair map or a compromise map splits Milwaukee.

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Thoughts on this competitive map? https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::39f05f2d-60ff-401a-8c49-58f53d04795a

Map not available.

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The thing about Wisconsin is that its geography is absolutely miserable for the Democrats. Like this would 100% be a map that you could argue is fair, yet it is a 6R-2D map (although 2 R districts are winnable by Dems)

Agreed, though I don't love the 3rd's salient over to Lake Michigan, which is a little sus.

The thing about Wisconsin Democrats and self-packing though is that a fair map probably has 5-6 Obama districts. Wisconsin has a lot of swing voters, and a slight swing in the political coalitions can change things.

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IMO Columbia County probably belongs with Sauk and Iowa.

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Appleton and Oshkosh probably belong in the same district no?

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It depends on your priorities. I find that beautiful east to west straight line between the two CD's, leaving near perfect populations on either side,  necessitating only the most micro of micro county chops, even more transfixing that the Mason Dixon line myself.

Logical communities trump everything else IMO.

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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.

This is interesting to me because actually the opposite is easier to do map-wise--it just requires WI-03 to go deeper into the towns around Madison, while improving WI-01 is pretty hard since the district is anchored firmly in R-leaning Southeast Wisconsin.

Really says a lot about the forum's society that people would assume that the more urban seat would have to be the one to target.

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link

This district is a Clinton and Biden voting seat, the latter by about 3 points, and could probably be made even more Dem with just a few tweaks. I don't actually think this is the optimal fair partisan-neutral version of this district, since splitting Chippewa and Eau Claire is cruddy and WI-02 should probably go South or West rather than East. But it's pretty attractive and not terrible on fair districting principles and is a decent argument for WI dems.

[Sol]

You can easily make WI-03 a Biden district, fwiw--you just have to give it all of Rock and thereby triage WI-01.

[Sol]

You can easily make WI-03 a Biden district, fwiw--you just have to give it all of Rock and thereby triage WI-01.

I agree completely correct about the 3rd. However do not assume the 1st is going to be R leaning as a result. That's not a given. It could just as easily go deeper into Milwaukee.

I mean--if you're drawing a gerrymander. Otherwise it has to go into Waukesha, which tbh is the obvious CoI pairing anyway.

[Sol]

You can easily keep Waukesha+Ozaukee+Washington together if that's what you want--you can just give WI-01 Jefferson or part of Rock. But I don't think it's wrong to say that those counties have less in common with Walworth or Western Racine than Waukesha.

[Sol]

You can easily keep Waukesha+Ozaukee+Washington together if that's what you want--you can just give WI-01 Jefferson or part of Rock. But I don't think it's wrong to say that those counties have less in common with Walworth or Western Racine than Waukesha.

Are you saying that Jefferson and Rock have more in common with Walworth and Western Racine than Waukesha? I'm having difficulty parsing exactly what you are saying here.

Sorry, I'm trying to say that Racine and Walworth have more in common with Waukesha than with Jefferson or Rock. They're both exurban/suburban extensions of Milwaukee in a way which Beloit or Watertown isn't.

[Sol]

Kind of silly to have Dodge and Jefferson with Madison as they're culturally a lot more connected to WOW, but it's what necessary to maintain some level of partisan fairness.

Maps shouldn't aim for partisan fairness, IMO, especially if it results a worse map. It makes more sense to put Dane with Rock, Columbia, or Iowa, for example, than with Jefferson and Dodge--particularly since we have no idea of what political coalitions will be like in 10 years. If say, Western Wisconsin trends hard R and Eastern Wisconsin trends hard D, it could end up having the opposite effect (Obviously that's not likely but similar things are possible in other parts of the country).

Drawing reasonable maps is the best safeguard for partisan fairness in the aggregate and over time even if it has some disproportionate results on the micro level resulting from geographic biases.

[Sol]

Kind of silly to have Dodge and Jefferson with Madison as they're culturally a lot more connected to WOW, but it's what necessary to maintain some level of partisan fairness.

Maps shouldn't aim for partisan fairness, IMO, especially if it results a worse map. It makes more sense to put Dane with Rock, Columbia, or Iowa, for example, than with Jefferson and Dodge--particularly since we have no idea of what political coalitions will be like in 10 years. If say, Western Wisconsin trends hard R and Eastern Wisconsin trends hard D, it could end up having the opposite effect (Obviously that's not likely but similar things are possible in other parts of the country).

Drawing reasonable maps is the best safeguard for partisan fairness in the aggregate and over time even if it has some disproportionate results on the micro level resulting from geographic biases.

Except it seems like nobody agrees as to what is reasonable, much less "fair." We certainly almost never do.  

But then I think the whole concept of COI's outside of hewing to metro areas and political subdivisions is largely partisan spin city and crap, and now there is this concept of gerrymandering to make a map "fair," which is going on in Michigan with the state House maps. That's crap too along with efficiency gaps and all kinds of other shiny new gleaming toys that are in vogue, which are not merely  attractive nuisances, but toxic waste dumps. Humans frankly are not up to this task, and it all needs to be turned over to bots.

You must love the NC County cluster rules for legislative districts right ?

Of course he does--the whole muon2-Torie UCC cluster/microchop/erosity theory thing is an attempt to do a more sophisticated version of that.

The thing that these miss is that redistricting isn't math or science--it's social science with a dash of art to it.

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Partisan fairness is an insane ask in a state where doing so requires disgusting gerrymandering, at least on the congressional level. Basically all S-tier maps wind up as 6-2, though there some high As with a Biden WI-03.

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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

Here's a map of WI with just 4 seats - https://districtr.org/plan/111181. There are some holes (not sure if the districts are fully contiguous and there may be some tiny islands), but you're absolutely right. It comes down to 2 pretty red and 2 pretty blue seats - which is fair. And you can also make a 4-4 map with WI as is, but it gets crude. Nonetheless, let's see....

Why do you have those weird tongs on yellow?

[Sol]

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.

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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.

Yeah it'll have to take Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, minus like half of one or the other. Not optimal but not crazy either, and more appealing if you don't put WI-04 in with Ozaukee.

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Make WI-3 a double digit Biden seat, then make WI-1 and WI-8 single digit seats that lean one way but winnable for the other side in 2010 and 2018 type years.

FYI, this requires dividing up Dane County like a roast chicken.