2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Washington

[Sol]

Here is a mild Dem Gerrymander. This map basically does 3 things:

1: Shore up the 8th district while not harming any of the current other Dem districts
2: Turn the 3rd district into a true swing district
3: The 5th becomes marginally more Dem, but probably not enough to matter

All while mostly (but not fully) trying to keep COIs intact and what not. Not sure to what extent gerrymandering is possible tbh.



WA-01: Clinton+26; D+11
WA-02: Clinton+14; D+6
WA-03: Trump+2; R+1
WA-04: Trump+28; R+15
WA-05: Trump+10; R+7
WA-06: Clinton+11; D+6
WA-07: Clinton+76; D+36
WA-08: Clinton+10; D+4
WA-09: Clinton+33; D+13
WA-10: Clinton+12; D+5

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d4bbc6aa-8851-4f3e-bd6d-872d7ab9a506

I am sure you can be a lot more agressive, probably making the 3rd into a Dem district and not a tossup and possibly making the 5th into a tossup or even a Dem district. On paper the numbers are certainly there for 9-1, though you probably need snakes into Seattle to do it?

How connected are Pierce and Yakima though? IIRC there's a pass there but it probably makes more sense to cross the Cascades in the North or South.

[Sol]

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.

[Sol]

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.

[Sol]

Random PSA: Skykomish in King County needs to go Snohomish; it's not connected to the rest of King County.

[Sol]

Yes, I am aware of the road contiguity issue with those two precincts in King County. I don't really care too much; it is just two precincts and that would result in an extra county split I don't want.

The reason to avoid splitting counties is that counties are a proxy for communities, not due to any inherent feature of counties. Considering that the people of Skykomish have no connection to the rest of King County and have attempted to secede in the past, it's downright undemocratic to plop them into a King County district based on a lazy belief in county contiguity. Suck it up and move them into WA-01.

[Sol]

What do people think is going to happen to the WA-03.

A lot depends on what they do with the Cascades. If we have something close to the current map, or a map where WA-03 is the only district traversing the Cascades, then it'll probably be pretty much equivalent to the current map. This is probably the best scenario with regards to CoI tbh.

But if they decide to use just Snoqualmie pass, WA-03 will have to go further north which could definitely shake stuff up.

[Sol]

What do people think is going to happen to the WA-03.

A lot depends on what they do with the Cascades. If we have something close to the current map, or a map where WA-03 is the only district traversing the Cascades, then it'll probably be pretty much equivalent to the current map. This is probably the best scenario with regards to CoI tbh.

But if they decide to use just Snoqualmie pass, WA-03 will have to go further north which could definitely shake stuff up.

What would the partisan effect of that be ?

My apologies--I somehow thought that WA-03 went into Yakima on the current map.

Either way though, it doesn't seem like there's much of a partisan effect playing it out--the version which goes into the city of Yakima is the most Democratic since Yakima's a good bit more D than Lewis County.

[Sol]

Here's a nice Washington map--not exactly sure about the Tacoma area but I think everything else works well.





The Tacoma area is a little tricky to justify, but IMO it's just as much of a boondoggle as putting Tacoma's eastern suburbs into the 9th.

[Sol]

Nice, at least now the West is completely filled out on the 538 map.

Not quite yet...KS has yet to approve a map (and it's probably going to take a while now that Kelly vetoed Ad Astra).

Kansas isn't a western state

[Sol]

Nice, at least now the West is completely filled out on the 538 map.

Not quite yet...KS has yet to approve a map (and it's probably going to take a while now that Kelly vetoed Ad Astra).

Kansas isn't a western state

According to over 80% of the forum, yes it is: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=481811.0

You only gave people two options, one of which was obviously wrong. That's like running the 2016 election where the only two candidates are Trump and McMullin, whereas HRC can only appear as a write-in--you're not going to get an accurate encapsulation of people's preferences.

[Sol]

FYI the somewhat odd boundary in Klickitat is to preserve the bulk of Yakama fishing grounds and off-reservation trust land in one district.