US House Redistricting: Idaho

[muon2]

After the 2010 Census Idaho had the the distinction of being the state with the lowest population inequality when congressional districts were made from contiguous whole counties. This plan has a deviation of only 1 person from the ideal population, which is a range of 2.



I strongly doubt that ID will have such a nearly equal split in 2020. In any case, the plan above attaches Lemhi county onto CD 1, with no road connection between them. ID requires state or federal highway connections between counties (or their fragments) for legislative districts, but not for congressional districts.

I put together a map of the connections between counties to use when analyzing the CDs. The connections are in olive, with one green connection in Boise county. State highways 21 and 55 both go all the way through Boise county, but connect by the Banks-Lowman highway which is no longer considered a state highway.



From 2013 to 2016 we looked at a number of criteria that could and should apply to redistricting. Metropolitan areas were clearly a community of interest, and the thought was that they should be split as little as possible. This led to jimrtex's concept of an Urban County Cluster based on the urbanized population in metro counties. The Boise metro has a 2-county UCC: Ada and Canyon. Keeping them together and minimizing population deviation with connected counties gives a plan something like this from DRA with 2018 ACS data.



CD 1 (blue): -1218
CD 2 (green): +1219

[Sol]

Just split the Boise area, ffs. That map is way worse in outcome.

[muon2]

Just split the Boise area, ffs. That map is way worse in outcome.

How different would the outcome be? The partisan values of the two maps I posted are virtually the same. In both cases the CD with Boise city is about 60% R and the other is 68-69% R. I get that the politics of ID shuns mixing the northern panhandle with the eastern Snake river plain, but I don't see how keeping the metro together would substantially change representation.

[lfromnj]

Just split the Boise area, ffs. That map is way worse in outcome.

How different would the outcome be? The partisan values of the two maps I posted are virtually the same. In both cases the CD with Boise city is about 60% R and the other is 68-69% R. I get that the politics of ID shuns mixing the northern panhandle with the eastern Snake river plain, but I don't see how keeping the metro together would substantially change representation.

He doesn't care about the partisan impact, he just doesn't like it lol. I don't know too much about Idaho.

[muon2]

Just split the Boise area, ffs. That map is way worse in outcome.

How different would the outcome be? The partisan values of the two maps I posted are virtually the same. In both cases the CD with Boise city is about 60% R and the other is 68-69% R. I get that the politics of ID shuns mixing the northern panhandle with the eastern Snake river plain, but I don't see how keeping the metro together would substantially change representation.

He doesn't care about the partisan impact, he just doesn't like it lol. I don't know too much about Idaho.

I've been there a few times including stays in the east, north, central and in Boise. It's all quite conservative with the usual exceptions for the college and ski areas. The Dem-leaning areas aren't significant enough to sway a whole CD.

I think the question of map aesthetics is tricky. Should we be necessarily tied to what we have seen before or let some set of metrics guide the result? I like the IA process where the metrics dictate the map. Sometimes the IA plan results in populations placed together in a district that weren't in the past, yet the politics of the mix are left out of the decision.

The two ID maps I posted were both driven solely by metrics: in one population equality with whole counties was dominant and in the other keeping the metro UCC intact as a community of interest controlled the design. It's the reason I support viewing a plans with multiple metrics so that an optimal set of maps rather than an single optimal map can emerge.

[Skill and Chance]

Idaho redistricting is really boring right now but will get much more exciting when the state gets a 3rd CD.  Expect a big fight between the parties over whether the commission has to draw a compact Boise CD. 

[muon2]

Idaho redistricting is really boring right now but will get much more exciting when the state gets a 3rd CD.  Expect a big fight between the parties over whether the commission has to draw a compact Boise CD. 

It is politically boring, but that makes it interesting to look at from a theoretical perspective. It's often harder to talk about neutral criteria when partisan issues cloud the discussion.

ID is relatively small in the number of its subdivisions, but constrained by its shape and the various types of terrain separating contiguous areas. For example, Lemhi county is contiguous to CD 1 on my 2010 equal population map, but it sits across the mountains with no direct road connection to the rest of the CD. It's the type of map that helps suggest other criteria that should be used beyond contiguity.

[Sol]

My concern isn't partisan--it's that the panhandle and eastern Idaho are incredibly different from each other and very remote to one another. Idaho has about three distinct and pretty obvious communities of interest (Panhandle, Boise Metro, and Eastern Idaho) so any configuration of two districts is going to suck in some way. Eastern Idaho and Boise have strong links, and are all in the Snake River Valley--compare that to Coeur D'Alene and Pocatello, which are an 8 hour drive apart. Plenty of people often have never been in the other region.

Since we've last talked, I've swung hard back to CoI based districts.

[muon2]

My concern isn't partisan--it's that the panhandle and eastern Idaho are incredibly different from each other and very remote to one another. Idaho has about three distinct and pretty obvious communities of interest (Panhandle, Boise Metro, and Eastern Idaho) so any configuration of two districts is going to suck in some way. Eastern Idaho and Boise have strong links, and are all in the Snake River Valley--compare that to Coeur D'Alene and Pocatello, which are an 8 hour drive apart. Plenty of people often have never been in the other region.

Since we've last talked, I've swung hard back to CoI based districts.

To make the current map requires carving the city of Boise itself and adding most of it to the east and tacking all the rest of it, Nampa, and the suburbs in Ada county to the Panhandle. That's a pretty nasty split of the Boise CoI.

I spent some vacation time in both the Panhandle and Boise area in both 2015 and 2017 and I agree that the state is effectively three separate areas. My feeling is that the Panhandle didn't feel particularly connected to either of the other two areas of the state. It's about the same 6 1/2 hours drive from the Coeur d'Alene to Idaho Falls through Missoula or to Nampa through Pasco WA (it's 8 1/2 hours on US-95).

That said, I'm not saying that I would only support a plan that keeps metro Boise together. I just think that a plan that minimizes the chops to a metro and keeps the CoI together should be given some credit compared to those that don't. What I don't give much weight to is guessing which separate CoIs pair well, unless it is a VRA issue.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My preferred map on 2010 figures is Boundary, Bonner, Kootenai, Shoshone, Benawah, Latah, Clearwater, Nez Perce, Lewis, Idaho,  Valley, Adams, Washington, Payette, Gem, Boise, and Ada counties, and the rest of the state in the other CD.
I'm not sure what things would be like under 2018 figures, or the eventual 2020 census results.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Update: the above CD would be overpopulated by 11k under 2018 figures, a sharp contrast to being 3k below quota under 2010 figures. Definitely would not work as well.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Idaho redistricting is really boring right now but will get much more exciting when the state gets a 3rd CD.  Expect a big fight between the parties over whether the commission has to draw a compact Boise CD.  

It might not be a massive fight in practice - any compact Boise CD is still at least R+7 (after having toyed with things in DRA). That being said, Rs would definitely prefer a CD that is all of Canyon and some of Ada as opposed to all of Ada and some of Canyon.



whipped up a quick and easy 3 CD map.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/6783f745-d1cb-4640-adc5-9b4241f4a1bc

[YE]

R+7 would be competitive by 2030 though, no?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

R+7 would be competitive by 2030 though, no?

It could possibly be. Bear in mind that Idaho's population growth has been fed in large part by influxes that are in fact more right-leaning than Idaho is overall.
Even leaving that aside, by 2030, I'd still rather be Rs than Ds here. Rs don't actually have too much to fear from a compact Boise district. Ada still would be only three-fourths of the seat at most (and Ada isn't exactly firm Dem territory), while rapidly growing burbs in neighboring Canyon, that is basically titanium R territory, would be needed to reach quota. And that is a major, major hurdle to any Dem trying to win a compact Boise CD.
Also, the Boise CD on my map isn't R+7, it's R+9.73 - markedly safer overall. R+7 was thrown about as a guesstimate as to what the PVI of a Boise CD created in 2030 might be, given it'd likely take less of Canyon County.

[Hope For A New Era]

(came here from the "biggest reapportionment surprise" thread, in which the possibility of 3-district Idaho was discussed)

It might not be a massive fight in practice - any compact Boise CD is still at least R+7 (after having toyed with things in DRA).

It should be noted that that map was drawn with 2016 results, in which third-party candidates got 13.4% of the vote in Ada. That county went from Trump +9.2 in 2016 to Trump +4 in 2020.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

(came here from the "biggest reapportionment surprise" thread, in which the possibility of 3-district Idaho was discussed)

It might not be a massive fight in practice - any compact Boise CD is still at least R+7 (after having toyed with things in DRA).

It should be noted that that map was drawn with 2016 results, in which third-party candidates got 13.4% of the vote in Ada. That county went from Trump +9.2 in 2016 to Trump +4 in 2020.

Yes, that is fair, but the Canyon County part of any compact Boise district would be a major, major roadblock to Democrats.

[BoiseBoy]

Idaho uses a six-person commission to draw its maps.

Commissioners for the upcoming cycle include:

• Bart Davis, former state senator (District 33) and senate majority leader (R)
• Nels Mitchell, lawyer and 2014 senate nominee (D)
• Amber Pence, aide to former Boise mayor Dave Bieter (D)
• Eric Redman, former state representative (District 2B) (R)
• Dan Schmidt, former state senator (District 5 and 6) (D)
• Tom Dayley, former state representative (District 21B) and former state director of the FSA (R)

Idaho will have two congressional districts and 35 state legislative districts.

In terms of the congressional map, I expect one that minimally changes the existing map. ID-02 is currently underpopulated and will likely take in more of Boise.



I have no idea what to expect for the state legislative map.

Thoughts?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if there’s any viable way to make a little change map without a Boise “snake”?

The biggest question is going to be whether Dems have a realistic path to break the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature. ID geography currently favors the GOP, so it’s really about Will they go out of their way to “unpack” Boise.

[BoiseBoy]

I wonder if there’s any viable way to make a little change map without a Boise “snake”?

The biggest question is going to be whether Dems have a realistic path to break the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature. ID geography currently favors the GOP, so it’s really about Will they go out of their way to “unpack” Boise.

It would be hard to crack the supermajority. I would say there's no realistic path for that whatsoever. Democrats would need hold 24 seats or more (out of 70 house seats) to break our supermajority. They currently hold 12.

In the senate, Democrats would need to hold 12 or more seats out of 35. They currently hold 7.

My best efforts to gerrymander the map for Democrats has led to 8 Democrat senate seats (which would translate to 15-16 house seats).

Democrats will not have a chance to break our supermajority until Ada and Canyon shift left enough to where they can pick up a few seats from there, and maybe one or two in Idaho Falls or Coeur d'Alene. Breaking up Boise, if it stretched into some of the rurals, would be majorly unpopular, and also in violation of our redistricting guidelines.

As for our national congress, our north is very different from the rest of the state, culturally and economically. If ID-02 did not reach into Boise, it would have to snake up into the panhandle.

Also, Boise REALLY does not fit with North Idaho. That would not go over well. We are very different kinds of Idahoans. Idaho really needed/needs a third district. This would solve so many problems. We could have one district focusing on Ada/Canyon, one district for central/east/southern Idaho, and one for west/north Idaho. I suppose we have to wait until 2032.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=416549.0
We already have a thread.

[BoiseBoy]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=416549.0
We already have a thread.

If mods could merge this thread into the existing one, that would be great.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=416549.0
We already have a thread.

If mods could merge this thread into the existing one, that would be great.

Agreed.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if there’s any viable way to make a little change map without a Boise “snake”?

The biggest question is going to be whether Dems have a realistic path to break the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature. ID geography currently favors the GOP, so it’s really about Will they go out of their way to “unpack” Boise.

It would be hard to crack the supermajority. I would say there's no realistic path for that whatsoever. Democrats would need hold 24 seats or more (out of 70 house seats) to break our supermajority. They currently hold 12.

In the senate, Democrats would need to hold 12 or more seats out of 35. They currently hold 7.

My best efforts to gerrymander the map for Democrats has led to 8 Democrat senate seats (which would translate to 15-16 house seats).

Democrats will not have a chance to break our supermajority until Ada and Canyon shift left enough to where they can pick up a few seats from there, and maybe one or two in Idaho Falls or Coeur d'Alene. Breaking up Boise, if it stretched into some of the rurals, would be majorly unpopular, and also in violation of our redistricting guidelines.

As for our national congress, our north is very different from the rest of the state, culturally and economically. If ID-02 did not reach into Boise, it would have to snake up into the panhandle.

Also, Boise REALLY does not fit with North Idaho. That would not go over well. We are very different kinds of Idahoans. Idaho really needed/needs a third district. This would solve so many problems. We could have one district focusing on Ada/Canyon, one district for central/east/southern Idaho, and one for west/north Idaho. I suppose we have to wait until 2032.

Yeah you're probably right.

However realistic path to break GOP's supermajority and actually having those seats =/=. In a fair map, Biden probably on wins about 4-6 seats (4-5 in Boise and maybe a Blaine County based swing-seat). The next 6 could come from 2 Ada County suburban seats that have a good chance of falling this decade, a Pocatello-based seat, a Latah County based seat that maybe combines a bit with Lewiston to the South, 1 or 2 more suburban seats in Canyon County that have potential to fall, along with maybe 1 or 2 random rural Dems as is the case currently. It'd be a very difficult needle for Dems to thread this decade but it is still a small opening nonetheless as opposed to them literally being locked out.

[BoiseBoy]

This is a least change map with a deviation of 19 people (and probably the most realistic map going forward as I don't see a North/East and South/West district working out). The current ID-02, needing to take in more of Ada County as it's about 35,000 people short, does so here. It's very similar to the map I posted on August 2, with a few precincts swapped due to the Census data release.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Boise metro kept whole, reasonably compact, population deviation under 0.1%, one district is almost becoming competitive, only one county split (Blaine, cause it's so ugly):



Blue: Little +34.1, Trump +44.3
Green: Little +9.5, Trump +16.9