2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Minnesota

[Sol]

Is that meant to be a fair map? If so I imagine the Minnesotans are all collectively exploding their heads at the Mpls.-St. Paul district.

[Torie]

Is that meant to be a fair map? If so I imagine the Minnesotans are all collectively exploding their heads at the Mpls.-St. Paul district.

I am just channeling Wasserman, and it certainly makes for a clean map. The Dems should win the red CD, and Trump 2020 actually lost the tan CD by a few thousand votes (one can figure these things out quickly when you avoid county chops!).  So in the current brave new world, it is hardly a screw the Dems map. And BRTD might like it, because edgy Dems will thrive in the inner city CD.

I just draw clean maps that make sense, exclusive of the needs of local politicians, at least to start.

[Brittain33]

I thought Wasserman tweeted that map combining the two cities with his tongue firmly in cheek...

[Torie]

I thought Wasserman tweeted that map combining the two cities with his tongue firmly in cheek...

Maybe. Do the two cities really hate each other? That seems silly to me.

[Brittain33]

I thought Wasserman tweeted that map combining the two cities with his tongue firmly in cheek...

Maybe. Do the two cities really hate each other? That seems silly to me.

I imagine it has to do with their individual political establishments prizing their civic independence and not embracing their relative decline to the country as a whole over the past 50 years and that St. Paul alone has gotten pretty small to anchor a district (even if Minneapolis is big enough to make the case).

[ilikeverin]

I thought Wasserman tweeted that map combining the two cities with his tongue firmly in cheek...

Maybe. Do the two cities really hate each other? That seems silly to me.

They do not anymore—at least, not at the levels it used to be—but combining them would be politically radioactive. They, very much, consider themselves to have separate civil institutions even if they get along fairly well now.

[Torie]

Sad.

[Sol]

Sad.

That's a really superb map--it's frustrating that a district combining the St. Paul suburbia and the Minneapolis suburbia has to be drawn, but after criticizing someone else's map for it earlier it became clear when I played with the boundaries myself that it's impossible to avoid.

The only nitpick I have is that Chisago and Isanti might be better fits in the Blue seat--they're kind of exurban Minneapolis zones like Sherburne.

If one was doing a California-style map which elevates CoI over county lines, I might would trade territory to put Elk River in the purple--but that's probably not the right approach for Minnesota.

[lfromnj]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manomin_County,_Minnesota

By the way  if anyone is wondering here is some history about Anoka county that creates the divide between that super inner ring suburban part and then the exurban/rural portion of the county.

[Sol]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manomin_County,_Minnesota

By the way  if anyone is wondering here is some history about Anoka county that creates the divide between that super inner ring suburban part and then the exurban/rural portion of the county.

That's pretty interesting--I wonder if any of the folks in that portion have even considered seceding.

[Torie]

This map seems to me to be another very reasonable option.

[Torie]

And with the brown CD having a new design, you could adjust the mini county chops in the Twin Cities metro area between the red, tan and brown CD's like this:



It is quite surprising to me how many people some of those relatively far northern counties have, e.g., Crow Wing with some 64,000 people, a bit more than my county, Columbia, in NY has, which is hardly in the middle of nowhere. I wonder what life is like up there.

[Sol]

In fairness Crow Wing is home to Brainerd, which is one of the main towns of Northern Minnesota--the kind of place where farmers might go to buy Christmas presents or spare parts or whatever.

My hometown of Boone is a similar place and the county has a similar population relative to its geographic size/hinterland.

[Torie]

In fairness Crow Wing is home to Brainerd, which is one of the main towns of Northern Minnesota--the kind of place where farmers might go to buy Christmas presents or spare parts or whatever.

My hometown of Boone is a similar place and the county has a similar population relative to its geographic size/hinterland.

Ah, the founder of the movement below has lived there all his life. I have corresponded with him to pick his brains a bit as to approaches to issues in the micro city that I live in. I did not connect Brainerd to the county, although I knew it was out there in the tundra somewhere, nor realize its size. If I get up there, perhaps via taking this Great Lakes oriented journey (with some detours for personal reasons), that is on my to do list!

https://www.strongtowns.org/

[ilikeverin]

I love Strong Towns! Chuck is amazing. Yes, that's where he lives, so you know quite a bit about Brainard already. A lot of folks from the Cities have cabins up in that neck of the woods. Come see me in Buffalo if you take that route.

Both your maps, Torie, are quite nice. The districts near the Cities are fantastic. The Eden Prairie of my childhood would have been horrified to be put into MN-05, but the Eden Prairie of today is begging Metro Transit to extend the light rail out their way... go figure! And I do like the fact that in the second map, the dark brown district includes all of the exurban scatter of the areas north and west of the Cities. Chisago and Stearns Counties, say, are dissimilar in some ways, but in other ways they'd fit pretty well into a district.

What's the partisanship of the Hennepin + Anoka MN-03 (presumably that's how it would be numbered)?

[Torie]

I love Strong Towns! Chuck is amazing. Yes, that's where he lives, so you know quite a bit about Brainard already. A lot of folks from the Cities have cabins up in that neck of the woods. Come see me in Buffalo if you take that route.

Both your maps, Torie, are quite nice. The districts near the Cities are fantastic. The Eden Prairie of my childhood would have been horrified to be put into MN-05, but the Eden Prairie of today is begging Metro Transit to extend the light rail out their way... go figure! And I do like the fact that in the second map, the dark brown district includes all of the exurban scatter of the areas north and west of the Cities. Chisago and Stearns Counties, say, are dissimilar in some ways, but in other ways they'd fit pretty well into a district.

What's the partisanship of the Hennepin + Anoka MN-03 (presumably that's how it would be numbered)?

Thank you, and for your invitation as well, which I shall take you up on post covid. I have not among other things really explored Buffalo (we just zipped through on a journey to spend a week at the Chautauqua Institution of all things; wow that place is unique - the topic for the week was immigration).

The numbers as I drew the CD are below. Trump did not wear well in this part of the world obviously. I see that Dave Leips made on error by including the vote totals for Chanhassen City in both Hennepin and Carver County (presumably the confusion arises from the city having a sliver across the line into Hennepin that has no residents in it), but the double count did not flow through to his totals for the county, so the error I guess did not become instantly obvious to him. But I had to figure out what happened to make sure that I did not make an error!

Man the turnout was high wasn't it? I knew the folks here take their franchise seriously, but this is just amazing to me.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Most fair maps seem to settle on an arrangement of four urban seats and three rural seats, anchored by Duluth, St. Cloud and Rochester respectively.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/357b23bf-6a5e-427f-8c90-274e1423e1dd

This map is an attempt to draw 5 Twin Cities-focused seats (two of which take in St. Cloud and Rochester) and two rural ones. In practice the St. Cloud and Rochester districts end up primarily taking in exurbs of the Twin Cities rather than outer suburbs, but it was interesting as a thought experiment.

I prioritised neat shapes and keeping similar sets of suburbs together rather than respecting county boundaries, so there are a fair number of extra splits around the Twin Cities. In particular, MN-3 now extends across northern Hennepin, southern Anoka, northern Ramsey and northern Washington. Nevertheless, I feel it's quite cohesive taken as a whole.

I drew this with partisan data turned off, but it looks like a clear 4R-3D map, though MN-2 might be competitive in good Democratic years if trends in Rochester and Dakota County continue.

[Former President tack50]

For fun and to see just how bad the dem vote distribution is, here is a "high risk, high reward" map for Republicans that is 5-2:

All districts here voted Dem for governor in 2018 (although most by very narrow margins) and were at least Trump+10 in 2016:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5928ff76-7498-4020-9eb3-d1b20ab0c0a2



MN-01: Trump+16, Johnson+0 (wins by only 19 votes!), R+6
MN-02: Trump+10, Johnson+1, R+6
MN-03: Trump+13, Johnson+6, R+8
MN-04: Clinton+35, Walz+40, D+16
MN-05: Clinton+49, Walz+53, D+23
MN-06: Trump+18, Johnson+8, R+8
MN-07: Trump+16, Johnson+3, R+5

[R.P. McM]

There's no reason the 5-2 DFL majority on the MN Supreme Court should refrain from imposing a gerrymander at this point. 100% of the state GOP delegation signed onto a judicial coup, and this is the result. They simply can't be trusted, and every effort should be made to minimize their Congressional influence.

[Nyvin]

There's no reason the 5-2 DFL majority on the MN Supreme Court should refrain from imposing a gerrymander at this point. 100% of the state GOP delegation signed onto a judicial coup, and this is the result. They simply can't be trusted, and every effort should be made to minimize their Congressional influence.

There's also no reason for Wright to be put in with the Dakota district.

[SInNYC]

There's no reason the 5-2 DFL majority on the MN Supreme Court should refrain from imposing a gerrymander at this point. 100% of the state GOP delegation signed onto a judicial coup, and this is the result. They simply can't be trusted, and every effort should be made to minimize their Congressional influence.

Assuming you mean the votes on blocking AZ and/or PA, Emmer and Stauber voted with Ds, so it was 'just' half the R delegation (Hagedorn and Fischbach) that signed on. I was particularly surprised that Hagedorn did, considering his district isnt that hard R (he won by 3 points in an election where the weed party got 6), and I hope MN-01 votes him out.

[R.P. McM]

There's no reason the 5-2 DFL majority on the MN Supreme Court should refrain from imposing a gerrymander at this point. 100% of the state GOP delegation signed onto a judicial coup, and this is the result. They simply can't be trusted, and every effort should be made to minimize their Congressional influence.

Assuming you mean the votes on blocking AZ and/or PA, Emmer and Stauber voted with Ds, so it was 'just' half the R delegation (Hagedorn and Fischbach) that signed on. I was particularly surprised that Hagedorn did, considering his district isnt that hard R (he won by 3 points in an election where the weed party got 6), and I hope MN-01 votes him out.

I was referring to the AG lawsuit, which 100% of the MN GOP Congressional delegation supported. Admittedly, only half of them were willing to advance the Trumpist position after the Capitol was desecrated. But that's just a demonstration of cowardly self-interest, not genuine conviction.

[neostassenite31]

Hardcore D gerrymandered map I made that is 6-1 for the Dems. Results based on the 2012-2018 composite.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/74be8a47-b8aa-4874-951d-31ae4c1678ae

The 2012-2018 composite averages in pre-2016 level Democratic margins in rural and exurban areas which are completely unattainable post-2016. It also averages in Klobuchar's landslide where exit polls show her winning 25% of the Republican vote. 

A sustainable, failproof Democratic gerrymander is at best 4 D to 2 R to 1 competitive because Democrats have an even worse geographical vote distribution problem in MN than WI.

In any case the MN Supreme Court is not going to do a D gerrymander because of how the two parties treat judicial elections here. This is assuming that Dems and Republicans in the state legislature don't just decide to scratch each other's backs with a shameless bipartisan gerrymander / incumbent protection scheme, which I think is a real possibility

[R.P. McM]

Hardcore D gerrymandered map I made that is 6-1 for the Dems. Results based on the 2012-2018 composite.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/74be8a47-b8aa-4874-951d-31ae4c1678ae

The 2012-2018 composite averages in pre-2016 level Democratic margins in rural and exurban areas which are completely unattainable post-2016. It also averages in Klobuchar's landslide where exit polls show her winning 25% of the Republican vote.  

A sustainable, failproof Democratic gerrymander is at best 4 D to 2 R to 1 competitive because Democrats have an even worse geographical vote distribution problem in MN than WI.

In any case the MN Supreme Court is not going to do a D gerrymander because of how the two parties treat judicial elections here. This is assuming that Dems and Republicans in the state legislature don't just decide to scratch each other's backs with a shameless bipartisan gerrymander / incumbent protection scheme, which I think is a real possibility

I don't think it would be at all problematic for the 5-2 DFL majority on the MN SC to punish the insurrectionists. If the judges blanch at the prospect, they never should've been appointed in the first place. They might as well support the My Pillow guy.

[jimrtex]

Yeah, folks without Minnesota ties do like putting the Cities together, but that would never, ever happen (and I appreciate you acknowledging that it wouldn't!) unless Republicans got a trifecta and really felt like flexing their muscles. Keeping Minneapolis and St. Paul separate is sacrosanct.

Why do you want to crack the Hmong population?