CT Redistricting 2020

[lfromnj]

A few updates since this thread has had none for months:

The legislature had a deadline of September 15, 2021 to submit a congressional map.

This did not happen, therefore a backup commission had until November 30 to finalize a map.

This did not happen, so the commission asked the CT Supreme Court for an extension on the deadline.

On December 9, the court granted their request, extending the deadline by three weeks to December 21, 2021.

Today is December 21, we shall see if the congressional map is actually finalized.

Connecticut DID however complete their maps for the state house and senate, and those can be found here:
https://www.cga.ct.gov/rr/taskforce.asp?TF=20210401_2021%20Redistricting%20Project

lmao what is happening there? How hard can it be to draw 5 measly CDs?

The nw cd is a convenient district very similar to wi01(district that came about due to loss of seat in 2000 that now functions as a D/R mild gerrymander. Ct did least change just like wi is doing now so the GOP doesn't have much leverage.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1469109986567540740?s=20

 For the fourth consecutive cycle, the state's commission fails to pass a map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Shocked, shocked, I tell you! Who could have foreseen this?

[BoiseBoy]

Big surprise, they failed to make the 12/21 deadline. Now "special masters" will draw the lines. This is the second cycle in a row this has happened. Embarrassing!

[Oryxslayer]

Persily is appointed as the special master, same as last time. Last time he maintained the lines that were drawn in 2000, only making minor adjustments for population. Similar orders were handed down by the court once again.

[lfromnj]

https://www.rep-am.com/news/news-connecticut/2021/12/23/high-court-again-taps-election-law-expert-to-redraw-lines/?utm_source=RA%20News%20Feed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=rep_am

Code:

The Connecticut Supreme Court included some instructions for Persily in its notice on Thursday. For example, he must “modify the existing congressional districts only to the extent reasonably required” to make sure they’re as “equal in population as practicable,” are comprised of “contiguous territory” and comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and any other applicable federal law.

Least change similar to Wisconsin. Currnt wisconsin map is mostly based on the 2001 map other than Ozaukee/Dodge County and a few changes in WI03/WI07.

CT05 is based on a similar type of map where a district was lost.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://www.rep-am.com/news/news-connecticut/2021/12/23/high-court-again-taps-election-law-expert-to-redraw-lines/?utm_source=RA%20News%20Feed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=rep_am

Code:

The Connecticut Supreme Court included some instructions for Persily in its notice on Thursday. For example, he must “modify the existing congressional districts only to the extent reasonably required” to make sure they’re as “equal in population as practicable,” are comprised of “contiguous territory” and comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and any other applicable federal law.

Least change similar to Wisconsin. Currnt wisconsin map is mostly based on the 2001 map other than Ozaukee/Dodge County and a few changes in WI03/WI07.

CT05 is based on a similar type of map where a district was lost.

Do either CT-02 or 5 get redder or bluer

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1478863895674687495?s=20

We have the map the GOP submitted to the Court after no agreement was reached. It, unsurprisingly, is least change to the fullest extent of that definition.

Persily was changed to draw a similar, but different, least change map.

[BoiseBoy]

Democrat map:
https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1478868424264765441?s=20

[BoiseBoy]

Proto and Scala , who provided testimony, also had some map concepts that did not come to fruition. They can be found here:

https://jud.ct.gov/supremecourt/Reapportionment/2021/Docs/RyanScala_TestimonyMaps.pdf

https://jud.ct.gov/supremecourt/Reapportionment/2021/Docs/BenProtoMaps.pdf

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Democratic and Republican maps may as well be Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, yeah, looks like everyone in CT is going for the status quo. Makes it all the more baffling that they couldn't agree on a map in the first place.

[ElectionsGuy]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

[lfromnj]

Huh, yeah, looks like everyone in CT is going for the status quo. Makes it all the more baffling that they couldn't agree on a map in the first place.

Why couldn't wisconsin agree on a map?Its the exact same thing lol. Even the historical basis for each CD has the same reason which is losing a CD in 2000. The WI gop did slightly change up the map but its pretty darn close to the 2000 map.
 Only changes are switching Dodge and Ozaukee in the east. Pushing WI05 westwards(Milwaukee to Madison population shift required it anyway) and lastly the WI03/WI07 trades.

[Meatball Ron]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

CT-5 and perhaps CT-2 would be Likely D at worst given the tough environment, but a status quo map means 5 Safe D seats in a neutral year. Obviously that could change depending on broader long-term trends (I'd be more worried about CT-2 than CT-5 in the medium to long term; Biden outperformed Obama '12 in CT-5 so trends appear to be positive).

[MaxQue]

Huh, yeah, looks like everyone in CT is going for the status quo. Makes it all the more baffling that they couldn't agree on a map in the first place.

The Court requested a least change map. Nobody will propose anything else than that.

[DrScholl]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

Republicans haven't won a congressional seat in the state in over a decade. "Slightly competitive" doesn't mean much more than coming within a few points at this point. One may as well say there are five safe Democratic seats.

[ElectionsGuy]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

CT-5 and perhaps CT-2 would be Likely D at worst given the tough environment, but a status quo map means 5 Safe D seats in a neutral year. Obviously that could change depending on broader long-term trends (I'd be more worried about CT-2 than CT-5 in the medium to long term; Biden outperformed Obama '12 in CT-5 so trends appear to be positive).

Hayes won by 12 in 2020, and every Democrat should prepare for a 10 point swing (or worse) against them for 2022, as that's exactly what happened to Republicans in 2018 and 2020 was better for Dems than 2016 was for R's in the PV. So I don't really think even Likely D is the worst scenario.

[Meatball Ron]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

CT-5 and perhaps CT-2 would be Likely D at worst given the tough environment, but a status quo map means 5 Safe D seats in a neutral year. Obviously that could change depending on broader long-term trends (I'd be more worried about CT-2 than CT-5 in the medium to long term; Biden outperformed Obama '12 in CT-5 so trends appear to be positive).

Hayes won by 12 in 2020, and every Democrat should prepare for a 10 point swing (or worse) against them for 2022, as that's exactly what happened to Republicans in 2018 and 2020 was better for Dems than 2016 was for R's in the PV. So I don't really think even Likely D is the worst scenario.

Uniform swing isn't real, elasticity exists, etc. etc. - but we'll see in November, maybe you're right. If I had to bet, Hayes and Courtney both return to Congress, and yeah they'll win by single digits (or Hayes will, at least) but they won't realllllly sweat (i.e., I don't see Hayes winning by only 2 points).

[Mr.Phips]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

CT-5 and perhaps CT-2 would be Likely D at worst given the tough environment, but a status quo map means 5 Safe D seats in a neutral year. Obviously that could change depending on broader long-term trends (I'd be more worried about CT-2 than CT-5 in the medium to long term; Biden outperformed Obama '12 in CT-5 so trends appear to be positive).

Hayes won by 12 in 2020, and every Democrat should prepare for a 10 point swing (or worse) against them for 2022, as that's exactly what happened to Republicans in 2018 and 2020 was better for Dems than 2016 was for R's in the PV. So I don't really think even Likely D is the worst scenario.

Dems were able to hold CT-05 even in 2010 and 2014 and generally have seen less drop off here in bad midterms than in other districts. Biden won here by 11 in 2020. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this a low to mid single digit race, but would be really shocked if it flipped.

[Sol]

2022 seems likely to be a crushing Republican victory--and yeah, that's the kind of scenario where you do get incumbents like Hayes losing. That doesn't mean that she'll lose per se--but that candidates who are equivalent to her in terms of safety, like Kathleen Rice, Gottheimer, Perlmutter, etc. will have a decent shot of being the equivalent of Claudia Tenney or Steve Russell.

Uniform swing isn't real, elasticity exists, etc. etc. - but we'll see in November, maybe you're right.

Uniform swing isn't real--and that's certainly an argument for Hayes possibly losing. Suburban Connecticut has a fairly rich Republican tradition and is pretty elastic.

[coloradocowboi]

2022 seems likely to be a crushing Republican victory--and yeah, that's the kind of scenario where you do get incumbents like Hayes losing. That doesn't mean that she'll lose per se--but that candidates who are equivalent to her in terms of safety, like Kathleen Rice, Gottheimer, Perlmutter, etc. will have a decent shot of being the equivalent of Claudia Tenney or Steve Russell.

Uniform swing isn't real, elasticity exists, etc. etc. - but we'll see in November, maybe you're right.

Uniform swing isn't real--and that's certainly an argument for Hayes possibly losing. Suburban Connecticut has a fairly rich Republican tradition and is pretty elastic.

I think a lot of times the PVI, polling, and otherwise quantitative expression of politics comes to occupy way too much of this site's imagination. For instance, I dk s*** about Connecticut, but I can tell you that regardless of how risky it looks on paper that Ed Perlmutter isn't losing. Could be an R+6 national environment (and I don't think it will be), but it doesn't matter. The community isn't a "D +6" district; it's a Jefferson County district, a Denver/Boulder suburbs district, believe it or not a unique place with its own racial and class politics that I will say now confidently is not electing a Republican short of a massive and uniform shift in that party's politics to the right. At the end of the day, numbers only provide a crude approximation of a district's politics.

For instance, even though they have similar districts, I can tell you for a fact that Gottheimer is in way bigger trouble than Perlmutter. Gottheimer's white voters are just rich suburbanites concerned about things like the SALT deduction, keeping their schools segregated, and Israel, who really only vote Democrat federally because the GOP nat'l brand has gone full fash. But Perlmutter's similarly educated and white voters contain a lot of people who live off 93 and work in renewable energy and tech, are far to the left of New Jersey suburbanites on cultural issues (and have been even since CO was a red state), want to keep pot legal... The only GOP candidate I see winning here is a Jeffco moderate who is pro-gay, pro-pot, and serious about tackling climate change. That person does not exist, and even if they did would never make it out of a COGOP primary.

I don't doubt that the GOP, esp. with Biden's miserable approvals (tho who knows if they'll hold), will likely take the House. But the idea that they are gonna nominate a bunch of Glenn Youngkins in suburban districts and win 60 seats is actually way more implausible to me than the idea that Dems will hold the House. IIRC Youngkin didn't even win a primary! Maybe districts like Hayes' will be in play. But if that happens they will be few and far between imo bc each district like that needs a best fit candidate, and most GOP primary electorates will nominate a loon instead.

[MT Treasurer]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

It’s honestly awful how this hack Drew Savicki has become the face of Election Twitter, especially around here. Classifying CT-5 as "Safe Democratic" in a heavily Republican environment is just lazy, and even the NRCC has identified CT-5 and CT-2 as target seats (initially they only had CT-5 on their list but then added CT-2 in November). No one is denying that these would be "heavy lifts" under normal circumstances or that Courtney is stronger than generic D (even if overrated), but of all the "heavy lifts", I’d argue that they are among the first to fall in a wave year (and CT-5 may not even require a big wave).

FTR, I don’t think there will be all that many upsets in 2022 given how efficiently/aggressively Democrats have been gerrymandering across the country (I think the GOP's absolute ceiling is a 25-30 seat gain, nothing remotely comparable to 2010), but I’ve always viewed CT-2 and especially CT-5 as prime targets for a 'surprise' flip, and the VA/NJ races somewhat confirmed my suspicion. Any Biden +<12 district in which there hasn’t been serious D gerrymandering compared to the current map, in which Democrats are extremely reliant on rural/small-town voters (even if they are culturally/socially more 'moderate'), and in which some GOP rebound in exurban-ish, heavily white, more affluent areas can be expected (I’d argue this is the case in CT) shouldn’t be considered completely safe. Like Sol, I think 'elasticity' if anything benefits the GOP here.

Dems were able to hold CT-05 even in 2010 and 2014 and generally have seen less drop off here in bad midterms than in other districts. Biden won here by 11 in 2020. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this a low to mid single digit race, but would be really shocked if it flipped.

There are plenty of districts of the kind you just described (held by the dominant party even in wave years for the other party) that nonetheless ended up flipping at some point (ME-2, MN-3, MN-7, TX-32, etc.) because national trends finally caught up with the dominant party in regions/seats which had withstood them before. The same can be observed at the Senate level, where some races tend to 'lag behind' trends (MI-SEN 2014 D blowout, D coalition in MN-SEN 2014, AZ-SEN 2006 R blowout, etc.). Courtney definitely isn’t winning by anything near 20 points in 2022.

Also not sure what this has to do with Ed Perlmutter, who obviously isn’t losing in 2022 because he’s running in a far more Democratic, rapidly D-trending, heavily suburban/urban seat in which the GOP has virtually no chance of offseting unfavorable trends/migration patterns (which is quite clearly not the case in CT-2 and CT-5, both of which lag well behind national trends/realignment as far as potential R gains are concerned).

[Mr.Phips]

There's not going to be 5 "Safe Democrat" seats in Connecticut in 2022. At least one will be slightly competitive.

It’s honestly awful how this hack Drew Savicki has become the face of Election Twitter, especially around here. Classifying CT-5 as "Safe Democratic" in a heavily Republican environment is just lazy, and even the NRCC has identified CT-5 and CT-2 as target seats (initially they only had CT-5 on their list but then added CT-2 in November). No one is denying that these would be "heavy lifts" under normal circumstances or that Courtney is stronger than generic D (even if overrated), but of all the "heavy lifts", I’d argue that they are among the first to fall in a wave year (and CT-5 may not even require a big wave).

FTR, I don’t think there will be all that many upsets in 2022 given how efficiently/aggressively Democrats have been gerrymandering across the country (I think the GOP's absolute ceiling is a 25-30 seat gain, nothing remotely comparable to 2010), but I’ve always viewed CT-2 and especially CT-5 as prime targets for a 'surprise' flip, and the VA/NJ races somewhat confirmed my suspicion. Any Biden +<12 district in which there hasn’t been serious D gerrymandering compared to the current map, in which Democrats are extremely reliant on rural/small-town voters (even if they are culturally/socially more 'moderate'), and in which some GOP rebound in exurban-ish, heavily white, more affluent areas can be expected (I’d argue this is the case in CT) shouldn’t be considered completely safe. Like Sol, I think 'elasticity' if anything benefits the GOP here.

Dems were able to hold CT-05 even in 2010 and 2014 and generally have seen less drop off here in bad midterms than in other districts. Biden won here by 11 in 2020. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this a low to mid single digit race, but would be really shocked if it flipped.

There are plenty of districts of the kind you just described (held by the dominant party even in wave years for the other party) that nonetheless ended up flipping at some point (ME-2, MN-3, MN-7, TX-32, etc.) because national trends finally caught up with the dominant party in regions/seats which had withstood them before. The same can be observed at the Senate level, where some races tend to 'lag behind' trends (MI-SEN 2014 D blowout, D coalition in MN-SEN 2014, AZ-SEN 2006 R blowout, etc.). Courtney definitely isn’t winning by anything near 20 points in 2022.

Also not sure what this has to do with Ed Perlmutter, who obviously isn’t losing in 2022 because he’s running in a far more Democratic, rapidly D-trending, heavily suburban/urban seat in which the GOP has virtually no chance of offseting unfavorable trends/migration patterns (which is quite clearly not the case in CT-2 and CT-5, both of which lag well behind national trends/realignment as far as potential R gains are concerned).

The thing is that CT-05 is not R trending.  Biden did better here than Obama in 2012.

[Meatball Ron]

Dems were able to hold CT-05 even in 2010 and 2014 and generally have seen less drop off here in bad midterms than in other districts. Biden won here by 11 in 2020. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this a low to mid single digit race, but would be really shocked if it flipped.

There are plenty of districts of the kind you just described (held by the dominant party even in wave years for the other party) that nonetheless ended up flipping at some point (ME-2, MN-3, MN-7, TX-32, etc.) because national trends finally caught up with the dominant party in regions/seats which had withstood them before.

The problem with this reasoning is that CT-05 isn't trending Republican. It voted ~5 points left of the nation in 2012 and ~6 points left of the nation in 2020. Some will argue it's trending D, I'd argue it's generally flat given rural and suburban trends cancelling each other out.

CT-02, on the other hand, is going to be a problem in the long run.