Utah 2020 Redistricting

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

bump
Would be interesting what kind of state legislative maps people come up with.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I tried my hand at a fair 4-district map of Utah.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is 0.03%, and it reflects 2015 - 2019 ACS Data.

28/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
87/100 on the Compactness Index
60/100 on County Splitting
0/100 on the Minority Representation index (minorities don't live in Utah lol)
0/100 on Dave's competitiveness index (eh)

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 Utah Attorney General Election: 4R

2016 U.S. Senate Election in Utah: 3R to 1D

2016 Utah Gubernatorial Election: 3R to 1D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Utah: 3R to 1D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Utah: 3R to 1D

2020 Utah Attorney General Election: 3R to 1D

2020 Utah Gubernatorial Election: 3R to 1D

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Utah: 3R to 1D


Opinions?

I like it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

An effort at a 4R map.
No counties are split except for Salt Lake, and the most pro-D district voted for Trump by 13 in 2020. All districts are territorially connected.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/468ca472-dbd6-4b3b-9c47-13c48d77e541

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

An effort at a 4R map.
No counties are split except for Salt Lake, and the most pro-D district voted for Trump by 13 in 2020. All districts are territorially connected.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/468ca472-dbd6-4b3b-9c47-13c48d77e541

So, in your opinion, do you think a rule prohibiting Salt Lake County from being split more than once (similar rules are in place in Ohio) would ensure a D-leaning district in this state?

D-leaning? Maybe not, it seems possible still to make an R-leaning district wholely within Salt Lake. But D-winnable? Absolutely. Such provisions would ensure Ds have a shot at least one CD, perhaps even 2.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/50ec584d-54b4-4417-bfa1-1946758a22f9
This is what a GOPmander with Ohio-style rules would look like. Serious dummymander risk with a merely Trump+9 UT-04, and a marginally, slightly R-leaning CD that voted for Cox by 20 but Trump by only 3, and taking in everything in SLC minus SLC city and some neighboring safe Dem areas.


If you concede a district in SLC county instead, then you end up with the fair map Abdullah posted above.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Independent Commission's final public hearing in West Valley City is ongoing.

Once the public comment portion is over the commission will be meeting to whittle down their congressional maps to three and conduct other commission business. I'm in the room and will be staying for the duration.

Best of luck!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Rob Bishop has resigned from the commission. This late in the process, is he going to have to be replaced?

Reason for resignation is frustration with the commission drifting away from his approach to having gerrymandered urban-rural mix districts.

Bishop wants a bunch of rurban seats? odd

Rurban districts is how you gerrymander Utah in favor of the Republicans.

(Note: This is just at the congressional level, none of the commissioners were advocating for rurban school board or state legislative districts)

On the other hand, a "big rural" district (aka everything but BE, WB, CA, RI, DA counties in the north; a Salt Lake CD; and one CD taking in the rest of Salt Lake County and all of Utah County as needed) is generally favorable to Dems in terms of results. If Utah ever shifts enough towards Dems, such a plan might even give Ds a tie in seats while losing by high single digits statewide.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Rob Bishop has resigned from the commission. This late in the process, is he going to have to be replaced?

Reason for resignation is frustration with the commission drifting away from his approach to having gerrymandered urban-rural mix districts.

Bishop wants a bunch of rurban seats? odd

Rurban districts is how you gerrymander Utah in favor of the Republicans.

(Note: This is just at the congressional level, none of the commissioners were advocating for rurban school board or state legislative districts)

On the other hand, a "big rural" district (aka everything but BE, WB, CA, RI, DA counties in the north; a Salt Lake CD; and one CD taking in the rest of Salt Lake County and all of Utah County as needed) is generally favorable to Dems in terms of results. If Utah ever shifts enough towards Dems, such a plan might even give Ds a tie in seats while losing by high single digits statewide.

You can actually have a compact two Biden district map right now, though it's no guarantee either district would vote dem down-ballot.

How would it be done?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Okay I think I figured out how to make 2 Biden seats.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e1ba5099-629c-45ae-99a7-687d1235b19a

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Okay I think I figured out how to make 2 Biden seats.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e1ba5099-629c-45ae-99a7-687d1235b19a

You could make it a bit easier on yourself by putting Park City into one of the Biden districts.

Ah, that's true. That was not optimized, merely it was a proof of concept. But I also wanted to avoid having no road connectivity whatsoever. As far as I'm aware, Box Elder and Tooele have no road link of any kind. Avoiding Summit going into one of the Biden seats makes this a non-issue.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The commission is sending the second best version of my third best congressional map to the state legislature.

Congratulations!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Okay I think I figured out how to make 2 Biden seats.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e1ba5099-629c-45ae-99a7-687d1235b19a

You could make it a bit easier on yourself by putting Park City into one of the Biden districts.

Ah, that's true. That was not optimized, merely it was a proof of concept. But I also wanted to avoid having no road connectivity whatsoever. As far as I'm aware, Box Elder and Tooele have no road link of any kind. Avoiding Summit going into one of the Biden seats makes this a non-issue.

Just split Summit. Eastern Summit is quite Republican anyway.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/94f4593c-99d4-45d5-bff0-e4c87a7b9af0

Impressive work. You did it better than me.
"The number of Democratic seats closest to proportional is two. The likely number of Democratic seats is 1.45. The likely number of unexpected Democratic seats (won) lost is 0.55."
This is a tangible increase from my map, which had 1.24.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm in an absolutely packed meeting where the independent commission is presenting its maps to the legislative committee. Will post a video (or audio) on demand link once the meeting is over and the vod is up.

Best of luck!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's the audio on demand link.

Thanks for the link.
I hope you had a great time! It's cool you are actually able to be part of the redistricting process. That's more than the vast majority of us can claim.