2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Washington

[lfromnj]

Washington Democrats should try to use the VRA to create a Hispanic legislative seat in Yakima county

Creates a very nice Rotten borough hispanic district for Democrat which is +10 clinton
Despite the purple area having 2/3 the population of green district it has 20k more total votes.

[lfromnj]

Washington Democrats should try to use the VRA to create a Hispanic legislative seat in Yakima county

Creates a very nice Rotten borough hispanic district for Democrat which is +10 clinton
Despite the purple area having 2/3 the population of green district it has 20k more total votes.

IIRC they sort of made one last time.

The Hispanic seat is still Trump +9 btw and has been Safe R. I mean I don't see a reason why a court wouldn't draw it if there's even a slight push for a Hispanic farming VRA seat.

[lfromnj]

Washington Democrats should try to use the VRA to create a Hispanic legislative seat in Yakima county

Creates a very nice Rotten borough hispanic district for Democrat which is +10 clinton
Despite the purple area having 2/3 the population of green district it has 20k more total votes.

IIRC they sort of made one last time.

The Hispanic seat is still Trump +9 btw and has been Safe R. I mean I don't see a reason why a court wouldn't draw it if there's even a slight push for a Hispanic farming VRA seat.

Yeah for whatever reason it seems like last time WA redistricting played out as the most Republican possible version of fair districts, in much the same way that AZ shook out unfavorably for the GOP.

AZ legislative actually abused population deviation lol which was crazy.

[lfromnj]

I need to do a lot of work cleaning things up and fixing other spots, but I am happy with my 67% Hispanic (also 7% native) Yakima seat!

Whats the CVAP(go to the voting age population data set and change to CVAP 2018) Just curious about that
Also that district 39 looks quite large for a legislative seat. Any chance the cascade cut could be anywhere else?

[lfromnj]

Whats the maximum deviation allowed for Washington?
Would a possible map just use rounding East and West of the cascades?

[lfromnj]

Whats the maximum deviation allowed for Washington?
Would a possible map just use rounding East and West of the cascades?

I'm not sure about the state legislature, but there will be an instant lawsuit which the state would probably lose, based on OMOV, if deviation is above 0.5% in either way (and most but not all maps aim for 0% div with cut precincts).

Yeah I know it would be impossible to have a good rounding for the cascades with 10 districts and the federal court wouldn't allow it but state legislature in general has been allowed to be 10% by the federal courts but Im not sure if Washington state has any specific limits. I think its worth it to divide Washington into 2 parts for state legislative districts and just round it and then divide the 2 parts by the number of rounded districts.

[lfromnj]

Yeah Democrats probably should have pushed for Yakima to be the split just as starting points in negotiations basically by stating to give Hispanics more influence. Main issue though is the 2 current counties are basically perfectly whole with only a few hundred people required to be split. Along with that I think Kittatis county has been rapidly growing as a somewhat super exurban of Seattle with something like 15% of its population now being these trans Cascade commuters. This would atleast make them the area with the most connection to the west if one is forced to do a Cascade split.

[lfromnj]

What a mess. Washington does not have the best system. Either way, it looks like the Washington Supreme Court will have the final say.

I highly doubt a court is going to get involved in redistricting over 90 seconds.

[lfromnj]

Also why does the 4th and 5th need to be split like that when North and South makes so much more sense ?

[lfromnj]

It really is a meme tier commission when even IL Dems and Texas Rs let the public see the map before its passed.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/Jim_Brunner/status/1460654574763581443

Like is there no map at all or is this just the fact they were 90 seconds late?

[lfromnj]

Why did the court allow it

Because why would a court want to get involved when a bipartisan map had all but passed ?

[lfromnj]

Is there a DRA map?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cc4e7f00-13c1-4bd7-ac7a-1019ad86d176

Yuck, the 8th voted for Loren Culp. Probably +1 for the GOP in 2022.

I still don’t understand why there were a lot of Asian Biden-Culpvoters (as pre-election poll crosstabs seemed to suggest), despite my sympathy to the idea of anti-establishment protest votes in Ultra Safe D states. Not that there would have been very many of them in the new 8th district, even if it includes more of Issaquah and Sammamish than I’m thinking.

I don't know about Asian voters specifically, but it's pretty clear that Culp was both a lot more popular in Washington than Trump has ever been and that Inslee was a lot more hated by Republicans than Biden has ever been. If they were already moderate Republicans, it's not hard to see why they would find Trump unacceptable but also hate Inslee enough to vote for Culp.

Personally, I'm not too worried about WA-8. Those suburbs are rocketing leftward and there's not a ton of room for Republican growth, even if depressed turnout among traditional Democratic groups is factored in. It's still close enough that Republicans might be able to pull off a win in 2022, but it'd very likely be the last time they manage it unless the national realignment either changes or reverses suddenly.

I mean it certainly is a district that is trending leftwards but the current seat was like Obama +3, Clinton +3 and Biden +6.5 Hardly an extreme trend.

[lfromnj]

https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/incumbents-are-an-afterthought-in-proposed-maps-for-state-house-and-senate/article_634d3898-390f-550d-9146-be16d282754f.html

Likely what causes the commision to work in WA.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/Jim_Brunner/status/1496622318637903877?cxt=HHwWisCrlbiEicUpA...

[lfromnj]

The Redistricting Commission is apparently unwilling to mount a legal defense of their own maps, plus the chair resigned. Oof.

https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/wa-redistricting-commission-wont-intervene-in-voting-rights-lawsuit-chair-resigns/article_20827ca1-24cc-539b-9015-395796869a9a.html

Specifically for an Eastern WA legislative district.