Alaska State Legislative Redistricting

[Oryxslayer]

There isn't a thread on this, so I guess I'll open it up cause the map proposals are coming.

Alaska draws their lines using a commission. Partisanship is merely a suggestion when it comes to legislative lines since independents can always emerge, and politicians cross lines all the time, and now we have the top-four system to seemingly lock-in the 'coalition' system.

State House lines proposals were released. They are not lettered, so no idea what the senate districts look like through nesting. The two proposed maps are very similar, with Anchorage being the only area of significant divergence.

[David Hume]

Is is a gerrymander? R basically control the commission. Did they try to draw out those R caucusing with D?

[Oryxslayer]

Is is a gerrymander? R basically control the commission. Did they try to draw out those R caucusing with D?

Saw something last night that one of the maps, I think A, was actually very D friendly - a product of anchorage's shifts giving the Dems a geographic advantage. Something around 21-19 Trump with a good number more marginal seats.

[David Hume]

Is is a gerrymander? R basically control the commission. Did they try to draw out those R caucusing with D?

Saw something last night that one of the maps, I think A, was actually very D friendly - a product of anchorage's shifts giving the Dems a geographic advantage. Something around 21-19 Trump with a good number more marginal seats.

Interesting. Why did they do that? A 10% margin with D self-packing could easily draw a larger margin, even in a fair map.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ECaliberSeven/status/1436188043870969860?s=20

Found it. Also this a commission, so the states geography cannot be 'corrected for' through cleaver gerrymandering.

[David Hume]

https://twitter.com/ECaliberSeven/status/1436188043870969860?s=20
Found it. Also this a commission, so the states geography cannot be 'corrected for' through cleaver gerrymandering.

The commission was nominated by politicians, IIRC two by governor, two by leaders of each house, one by chief justice. R has at least 3-2 advantage.

[Nyvin]

The commission was nominated by politicians, IIRC two by governor, two by leaders of each house, one by chief justice. R has at least 3-2 advantage.

But what can they really do?  In the urban areas each district is only a few precincts (there's one in Anchorage that only has 9), and a lot of the rural areas are required to give the Alaska Natives representation and those vote Dem.  

Also the three Juneau area districts in the southeast are bound by geography with only one uninhabited precinct to connect to the rest of the state.

Republicans are really just too clustered in the two Boroughs to the north and south of Anchorage.

I guess they could gerrymander the Fairbanks districts some more though.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The commission was nominated by politicians, IIRC two by governor, two by leaders of each house, one by chief justice. R has at least 3-2 advantage.

But what can they really do?  In the urban areas each district is only a few precincts (there's one in Anchorage that only has 9), and a lot of the rural areas are required to give the Alaska Natives representation and those vote Dem.  

Also the three Juneau area districts in the southeast are bound by geography with only one uninhabited precinct to connect to the rest of the state.

Republicans are really just too clustered in the two Boroughs to the north and south of Anchorage.

I guess they could gerrymander the Fairbanks districts some more though.

Ye.

It's funny how a compact AK map comes out to about even on 2020 numbers. It's be hillarious to see Dems win both AK chambers and yet not have control in states like MN.

[_.]

-SNIP-

Something that I found really interesting is that there were extremely blue parts of town even in 2016 while the suburban (presumably whiter) parts of Anchorage mostly are showing moderate margins. It's reminiscent of black neighborhoods in the South.

Do they have inner city Natives in Anchorage? It can't be Blacks or Hispanics. There just aren't enough of them (are there?)

In fact, are there more posts here about the political Geography of Alaska? I suddenly am super interested

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

All this talk about the legislative maps, but has anyone given any thought to what Alaska's congressional map is going to look like??

[ProgressiveModerate]

All this talk about the legislative maps, but has anyone given any thought to what Alaska's congressional map is going to look like??

Uh it’s going to be 1 giant Trump + 10 district no matter what. Only way this changes is if another state merges with Alaska or Canada joins the US and Canada’s joins a state there or smtg

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

All this talk about the legislative maps, but has anyone given any thought to what Alaska's congressional map is going to look like??

Uh it’s going to be 1 giant Trump + 10 district no matter what. Only way this changes is if another state merges with Alaska or Canada joins the US and Canada’s joins a state there or smtg

Yes. That's the joke.

[Хahar 🤔]

-SNIP-

Something that I found really interesting is that there were extremely blue parts of town even in 2016 while the suburban (presumably whiter) parts of Anchorage mostly are showing moderate margins. It's reminiscent of black neighborhoods in the South.

Do they have inner city Natives in Anchorage? It can't be Blacks or Hispanics. There just aren't enough of them (are there?)

In fact, are there more posts here about the political Geography of Alaska? I suddenly am super interested

Anchorage is only 57% non-Hispanic white; the non-white population is split pretty evenly between the groups you mentioned, Asians, and mixed-race people. It's a remarkably diverse city.

[If my soul was made of stone]

I tried drawing a State House map of my own to post here, but managing population equality (especially around Fairbanks) without either a ridiculous amount of split precincts or truly awful COI is fiendishly difficult. The only part of these proposals that somewhat confuses me is the Panhandle. I'm not an expert on what COI is most logical for the state, but what's most apparent to me is that a more compact and competitive district can be drawn with all of Ketchikan-Gateway and most of Prince of Wales-Hyder, as well as a much more compact central Juneau seat. The remainder of Prince of Wales then combines with Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka, and Angoon to form a nice, compact, and competitive Biden +5 seat, and the remainder can be grouped with a chunk of Copper River.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/alaskanrobby/status/1437220331534520322

Apparently the R-Majority on the commission want out of their way to mess with anchorage Republican incumbents since they couldn't gerrymander politically. He explores that in this thread - the partisan complaints he proposes don't exactly hold water.

[If my soul was made of stone]

I was unable to make a satisfactory State House map without ludicrous precinct splits, but I managed to put together a State Senate map that could theoretically be split into State House districts by someone with more patience than me:





Trump wins 11 of 20 seats. The tipping-point seat for a Republican majority (the southern Panhandle district) is Trump +4; for a tie, it's a Trump +5 seat in southern Anchorage. Begich and Dunleavy win 10 seats apiece, with the Kodiak-Chugach district being Begich-Trump. It's possible to draw Dunleavy-Biden seats as well, but there are none in this map.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/adndotcom/status/1649607480773840896

[Nyvin]

https://twitter.com/adndotcom/status/1649607480773840896

Kinda confusing ruling.   It's saying Eagle River and Muldoon can't be in the same district since they aren't a COI basically, but Eagle River and Muldoon "aren't" in the same district, they're in L (eagle river) and K (Muldoon).  What are they saying that Republicans did wrong exactly?

[MaxQue]

https://twitter.com/adndotcom/status/1649607480773840896

Kinda confusing ruling.   It's saying Eagle River and Muldoon can't be in the same district since they aren't a COI basically, but Eagle River and Muldoon "aren't" in the same district, they're in L (eagle river) and K (Muldoon).  What are they saying that Republicans did wrong exactly?

There was a court order last year forcing the commission to do that change last minute for the 2022 election.

Now, the Court is giving the commission 90 days to convince them that the corrected map shouldn't be used until 2032, instead of the original gerrymander.