Sol's 50-state Redistricting Library

[Sol]

At the risk of being annoying, I decided to set a goal for myself recently: draw fair congressional maps of each state that I'm proud of.

Link to each completed state:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Hawai'i
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Looking forward to more of these maps. Do your best!

[Sol]

link

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

link

A thought: would it make sense to change the Scranton CD by removing Wyoming County and replacing it with more of Luzerne?

[Sol]

link

A thought: would it make sense to change the Scranton CD by removing Wyoming County and replacing it with more of Luzerne?

You have to split a county anyway, and Wyoming is also part of the Scranton-Wilkes Barre metro and portions of it are closer to the cities. You can easily do it the way you said but IMO it's basically a washout as far as communities are concerned.

Plus tbh I never see Wyoming in a Wyoming Valley district so I thought I might as well do it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

link

A thought: would it make sense to change the Scranton CD by removing Wyoming County and replacing it with more of Luzerne?

You have to split a county anyway, and Wyoming is also part of the Scranton-Wilkes Barre metro and portions of it are closer to the cities. You can easily do it the way you said but IMO it's basically a washout as far as communities are concerned.

Plus tbh I never see Wyoming in a Wyoming Valley district so I thought I might as well do it.

Fair enough. The main benefit would be compactness, but your criteria emphasizes other things more.

[Sol]

Minnesota (link)





Should be a 4-4 map most years, with Republicans having a decent shot at MN-02 in GOP-friendly years and Democrats having a smaller chance at MN-01 in better years (or if coalitions flop back).

[Sol]

Michigan.





Prioritized municipalities over compact lines in metro Detroit, which seems correct given the extreme demographic polarization on muni lines.

I know I said this is meant to be a repository of maps I like but this is a good alternative if you want two VAP majority seats.



Sorry about Pontiac but it has to go in MI-11 if you want two majority BVAP seats, which is also the reason for the wonky lines in Detroit proper (well, that and upping the Middle Eastern percentage in 12). There are more elegant ways to do this but nearly all of them involve chopping Maycomb again.

Both maps are basically 4D-5R-4T, with two tossups voting for Biden and two for Trump. Probably in an average year 6D-7R or 5D-8R. There's a lot of capacity for competitiveness at the margins though--only really 1, 6, 11, and 12 are impossible to imagine flipping though 8 and 9 are pretty close.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

No offense, but these maps (so far) look like the sort of stuff I would throw together in a few minutes back when I was a redistricting noob, and have many flaws that would be expected from maps drawn by someone not well versed with the rules of general good government redistricting criteria.

[Sol]

No offense, but these maps (so far) look like the sort of stuff I would throw together in a few minutes back when I was a redistricting noob, and have many flaws that would be expected from maps drawn by someone not well versed with the rules of general good government redistricting criteria.

What are your specific critiques then?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Minnesota (link)





Should be a 4-4 map most years, with Republicans having a decent shot at MN-02 in GOP-friendly years and Democrats having a smaller chance at MN-01 in better years (or if coalitions flop back).

I like this one a fair bit.

[Sol]

Colorado:





Colorado is a rare state where a pretty logical map kind of draws itself--kind of amazing that the Commission didn't manage to draw anything good. There are probably several maps like this circulating on this board already.

There's an argument for putting Teller into the Colorado Springs district, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to split the Nuevomexicano areas in Southern Colorado, which would have happened if I did that.

Lfromnj has also pioneered splitting El Paso from the west, so I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that--I initially was going to discuss it before justifying an eastside split instead, and then I realized that Manitou Springs is actually a mountain ski town that fits well with the rest of the 3rd and put that into practice in my map.

[Sol]

Here's Texas.
link


TX-01: 82% L, 11% W. Safe D.
TX-02: 79% L, 17% W. 52-46 Trump 2020, 54-42 Clinton. Lean R but even a moderate improvement with Latinos for Dems flips it probably.
TX-03: 45% L, 44% W. Safe R obviously. Surprisingly urban for West Texas.
TX-04: 54% W, 34% L. Safe R is an understatement.
TX-05: 72% W, 20% L. Probably will be the most Republican seat in the series with only 18% for Biden in 2020.
TX-06: 79% L, 16% W. Fajita #1, and probably the worst in terms of communities of interest. 50-49% Biden, but usually 5-6 points more Dem. Hard to say where this goes in a neutral year, in 2022 it's probably a flip.
TX-07: 82% L, 14% W. 53-46% Biden. Lean D I think, but very plausible flip this year ofc.
TX-08: 84% L, 12% W. 56-43% Biden. Likely D really.
TX-15: 49% W, 25% L, 21% B. Safe R.
TX-26: 64% W, 17% B, 15% L. Safe R.
TX-27: 62% W, 20% L, 14% B. Tyler is really amazingly R for a decently large metro area.
TX-28: 51% W, 34% L, 11% B. Safe R.



TX-09: 63% L, 23% W. Safe D.
TX-10: 51% L, 32% W, 13% B. 56-43% Biden, likely D. This used to be a much more Republican seat but has swung hard to the left.
TX-11: 57% W, 33% L. Safe R.
TX-12: 47% L, 37% W, 11% B. Safe D pretty much at this point, which amazing to say about a seat which might have voted Romney.
TX-13: 54% W, 26% L, 11% A. Safe D obvs.
TX-14: 58% W, 22% L, 10% A. The epitome of Titanium tilt R, as it is a very narrow Trump-Cruz seat.
 



TX-16: 64% W, 23% L. Safe R.
TX-17: 41% L, 33% W, 20% B. Basically Safe D, though almost likely.
TX-18: 33% W, 32% L, 26% B. 56-42% Biden, 50-45% Clinton. Likely D.
TX-19: 53% W, 21% L, 13% A, 11% B. Safe R probably, let's see where it in 2028.
TX-20: 56% W, 20% L, 12% B, 10% A. Safe R, also with big D growth potential.
TX-21: 56% L, 18% W, 16% B, 10% A. Safe D.
TX-22: 43% B, 37% L, 18% W. Safe D. You basically have to add Kaufman County for this map to work.
TX-23: 45% W, 29% L, 16% B, 10% A. Likely D, bordering on safe. Allred probably won't need to worry.
TX-24: 49% W, 23% A, 15% L, 12% B. 51-47% Biden, 51-42% Trump 2016. Lean D, another place with wild swings in the past decade.
TX-25: 60% W, 19% L, 11% B. Safe R. Winner of "most likely to be overpopulated in 2030" contest.



TX-29: 41% W, 27% L, 18% A, 12% B. Safe R, but incredibly diverse and seems like the sort of place that could flip in a while if things don't change.
TX-30: 42% B, 28% L, 15% B, 15% A. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee get smushed together, probably would not be popular with the Houston establishment. Had another configuration for the area which I can link which would make two Black influenced seats.
TX-31: 38% L, 27% W, 21% B, 14% A. Likely D.
TX-32: 38% W, 37% L, 13% B, 12% A. Safe D, astonishingly.
TX-33: 44% W, 28% L, 16% B, 11% A. Safe R.
TX-34: 57% L, 29% B, 10% W. Safe D.
TX-35: 59% W, 29% L. Safe safe safe R.
TX-36: 67% L, 17% B, 13% W. Safe D.
TX-37: 51% W, 30% L, 13% B. Safe R.
TX-38: 57% W, 20% B, 19% L. Safe R.

Adds up to 19 Biden seats and 19 Trump seats.

[Sol]

Was playing around with Ohio and somehow it turned into a nice map. (Let's hope it doesn't violate Ohio's baroque redistricting rules). No overview rn because it's late. Columbus design is to max Black % in OH-07.

Overview is here now.

link



OH-01: 61% W, 29% B. Your urban Cincy district. Safe D, although it probably wouldn't have been in, say 2014. Cincinnati is really an amazingly right-wing metro.

OH-02: 80% W. Super safe R obviously.

OH-03: 72% W, 18% B, 53-45% Trump 2020. Likely R, maybe could be dislodged in a very good Dem year--but probably not with Mike Turner, who overperforms.

OH-04: 89% W. Super safe R; at only 23% for Biden it's about comparable to West Texas seats.

OH-05: 85% W. Safe R. Has a slightly odd shape so the more Appalachian/Ohio Rivery bits can be in one district.

OH-06: 92% W. Safe R. Aformentioned Appalachian bits. Used to be a lot more D.

OH-09: 90% W. Safe R

OH-10: 74% W, 15% B, 49-49% Biden. Would be one of the closest seats in the country. Hard to assess because it's historically a bit more Democratic but that tradition hasn't been totally obliterated, and Toledo is a legitimately big Democratic floor. Tossup, maybe slight lean R.



OH-07: 49% W, 37% B. Safe D. Design is to maximize Black percentage; you can push it higher if you really ignore communities of interest and trade Gahanna for OSU.

OH-08: 77% W, 54-45% Biden. This district is really the quintessential example of "Columbus as sunbelt city." Swings here look like suburban Dallas--it narrowly voted for HRC and almost certainly voted for McCain and Romney by decent margins. Lean D?



OH-11: 82% W, 50-48 Trump 2020. Cleveland's western suburbs always feel like they should be more Democratic than they are; a district with Oberlin College, liberal streetcar suburbs, and gritty diverse post-industrial towns managed to vote for Trump. Medina's most of it I think. Likely R.

OH-12: 76% W, 15% B, 50-48% Biden. Akron-Canton. Lean D.

OH-13: 84% W, 10% B. As hard as it is to say, safe R.

OH-14: 46% B, 42% W. Safe D.

OH-15: 84% W. Safe R. Probably has the most diverse white ancestry of any congressional district in America outside of perhaps New York City, with large Jewish, Finnish, and Eastern European communities in addition to your more common German, Irish, etc. ancestries.

[Sol]

Here's Utah:

link





UT-01: 79% W, 13% L. Safe R.

UT-02: 64% W, 22% L. Safe D--at 60% Biden.

UT-03: 76% W, 14% L. Safe R.

UT-04: 82% W, 11% L. Safe R. Morgan County seems to be reasonably well connected to Summit so it should work.

[Sol]

IL.

link



IL-01: 54% B, 29% W, 15% L. Southern Cook county and Eastern Will are fairly Black now, so you can do a Black-influence district which is firmly in the suburbs with just a little bit of the South side. Robin Kelly runs here despite the numbers

IL-02: 57% B, 22% W, 11% L. Has almost all of the South Side, plus the loop. Bobby Rush gets this seat.

IL-03: 69% L, 19% W. Southwest Chicago, plus some western suburbs. Sorry for the snakelike shape. Chuy Garcia runs here.

IL-04: 38% L, 32% B, 27% W. A coalition seat. Although Latinos are the largest group, it probably reelects Davis easily.

IL-05: 56% W, 20% L, 13% A, 10% B. The North Side is always a bit more diverse than I remember, even though this district is very white for a major city. Mike Quigley's seat I think.

IL-06: 64% W, 17% A, 13% L. The lakeshore suburbs of Cook plus a bit inland. Safe D ofc. Schakowsky runs here, though she's a bit liberal for this monied seat.

IL-07: 58% W, 23% L. Somehow manages to be less white than IL-06 despite being only in Lake and McHenry, I assume due to Waukegan? Would have been competitive like 15 years ago but Safe D now. Schneider's district.

IL-08: 70% W, 15% L. Has the NW exurbs and Rockford. Sort of the successor to Underwood's pre-2020 district, and is super competitive. Voted Biden very narrowly but quite Trump in 2016. Tossup, maybe lean R. An interesting seat in that Democrats's stronghold here are outside of the Chicago proper seats. Also interesting how Latino these affluent suburbs are. I guess Underwood would run here but it's not her seat.

IL-09: 55% W, 24% L, 15% A. NW Cook plus several Fox River cities. Safe D these days.

IL-10: 66% W, 17% L, 12% A. Inner Western suburbs. Safe D. Casten's seat.

IL-11: 55% W, 22% L, 12% A. Aurora and Naperville. Safe D, and actually more D than the suburbs closer to city (how common is this?). Foster runs her, Underwood could too because she lives here.

IL-12: 70% W, 17% L. SW Cook, most of Will, and exurban Grundy. Was 50-47 Trump in 2020, so pretty much likely R. Takes in the more Lipinski-ish suburbs. He could maybe run here, or maybe also Kinzinger, but I doubt either would win.



IL-13: 81% W. Has Peoria and LaSalle-Peru. Safe R ofc. LaHood's seat.

IL-14: 80% W, 10% B. Has Springfield and the Quad Cities. Safe R, not clear who'd run here.

IL-15: 74% W, 12% B. Has the colleges and Kankakee (which is surprisingly R given its status as a decently large city on the fringes of a world city) and Danville, so it's consequently the least R seat downstate. Still safe R, though could be vulnerable if Mary Miller runs here as she lives here.

(I switched the numbers for IL-16 and 17 after screenshotting, so teal is 16 and green is 17).

IL-16: 76% W, 16% B. The St. Louis metro area and surrounds. Safe R. Open seat, but Bost could run here since it's closer to his current seat and he wouldn't have to run against Miller.

IL-17: 86% W. Little Egypt, reaching up to Decatur for population. Safe R. It's the obvious successor to Miller's seat but she doesn't live here and Bost does.

[Sol]

KY-01: Safe R of course. This seat probably overlaps a little more with Guthrie's even though he lives in Bowling Green.

KY-02: Safe R. The hideous configuration of 1 and 2, made much worse by the current map's salient to Frankfort, is undone. Unfortunately for them, Comer, Guthrie, and Rogers get triple-bunked. Comer probably runs here, he lives here at least.

KY-03: 62% W, 25% B. 60-38% Biden. In an earlier time this would've been swing but basically safe D now.

KY-04: Safe R ofc. This is a fun seat and kind of has a certain goofy logic to it. Probably will be one of the richest seats in the Upper South in this series, excluding what I end up doing in suburban Nashville.

KY-05. Safe R Rogers almost certainly runs here though he lives in Somerset.

KY-06: 53-45% Trump. Frustratingly on the edge of competitiveness at likely R, nearly safe.

[they don't love you like i love you]

At the risk of being annoying, I decided to set a goal for myself recently: draw fair congressional maps of each state that I'm proud of.

Wouldn't that actually be a 44-state library?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Minnesota

Brooklyn Center definitely belongs with MN-05, as do Crystal and New Hope (more specifically they belong with Robbinsdale.) Bloomington meanwhile does not. At least not West Bloomington, you can split Bloomington down the middle via I-35W and the two halves are basically distinct and different communities of interest. West Bloomington was even Republican pre-Trump.

And if you're going to split Ramsey County like that no reason to separate Lauderdale from St. Paul and Falcon Heights.

[Torie]

link

A thought: would it make sense to change the Scranton CD by removing Wyoming County and replacing it with more of Luzerne?

You have to split a county anyway, and Wyoming is also part of the Scranton-Wilkes Barre metro and portions of it are closer to the cities. You can easily do it the way you said but IMO it's basically a washout as far as communities are concerned.

Plus tbh I never see Wyoming in a Wyoming Valley district so I thought I might as well do it.

The idea is to minimize the size of a county split in population all things otherwise being equal, and they would seem to be here given that both counties in play are in the same MSA. As you can see, the size of the chop would be so small, that if PA had a law allowing for population deviations of up to 0.5% in order to avoid a county or municipal split, which would almost certainly be upheld by SCOTUS, one could avoid having any county split at all.




I quite like your PA map btw. Well done.

[Sol]

Brooklyn Center definitely belongs with MN-05, as do Crystal and New Hope (more specifically they belong with Robbinsdale.) Bloomington meanwhile does not. At least not West Bloomington, you can split Bloomington down the middle via I-35W and the two halves are basically distinct and different communities of interest. West Bloomington was even Republican pre-Trump.

And if you're going to split Ramsey County like that no reason to separate Lauderdale from St. Paul and Falcon Heights.

How is this?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Brooklyn Center definitely belongs with MN-05, as do Crystal and New Hope (more specifically they belong with Robbinsdale.) Bloomington meanwhile does not. At least not West Bloomington, you can split Bloomington down the middle via I-35W and the two halves are basically distinct and different communities of interest. West Bloomington was even Republican pre-Trump.

And if you're going to split Ramsey County like that no reason to separate Lauderdale from St. Paul and Falcon Heights.

How is this?

Better. I'd trade Brooklyn Park for New Hope and Richfield though.

[Sol]

Brooklyn Center definitely belongs with MN-05, as do Crystal and New Hope (more specifically they belong with Robbinsdale.) Bloomington meanwhile does not. At least not West Bloomington, you can split Bloomington down the middle via I-35W and the two halves are basically distinct and different communities of interest. West Bloomington was even Republican pre-Trump.

And if you're going to split Ramsey County like that no reason to separate Lauderdale from St. Paul and Falcon Heights.

How is this?

Better. I'd trade Brooklyn Park for New Hope and Richfield though.

How does this look?

[Sol]

Fair Oregon.

I ended up prioritizing county integrity less here and CoIs more, since Oregon has large counties that often cross major topographical boundaries and metro areas.

Also, have I ever mentioned how bad the Oregon numbering scheme is? I followed the current scheme for clarity but if I actually was a special master I would renumber everything.

link



OR-02: Your eastern Oregon seat. Keep everything east of the Cascades except Hood River. It also takes in Medford and Ashland in Jackson County. There's actually a surprising high Biden number on account of Bend and Ashland (42%), but still safe R barring a truly deranged Republican incumbent.

OR-04: 49-48% Trump. A very competitive but slightly R leaning seat since 2016. Would still be a tossup due to the tendency of Democrats to overperform here. Sorry about the three-way split of Lane but IMO it has a logic given local topography.

OR-06: 48-48% Biden. A very narrow Biden seat in the middle of the Willamette Valley, and probably a true bellwether district. Splitting both Yamhill and Marion lets me keep the exurban Portland bits in Portland districts.



OR-01: The Washington County district, plus areas along the Columbia estuary and the Oregon coast. I could be persuaded to move the coastal counties to either 6 or to split them between 6 and 1; I don't know Oregon communities too well. I ended up doing this because it meant the split of Lane was very attractive and allowed really clean cuts of Yamhill and Marion. Safe D ofc.

OR-03: Portland seat, gets Milwaukie too. Super super safe D, Biden cleared 80%.

OR-05: 54-43% Biden. The Clackamas seat, plus various Portland hangers on that don't fit in 1 or 3. I put Gresham here because it seems like a similar place to a lot of Clackamas. It's likely D, bordering on
safe.

So that's pretty crummy for Dems, as expected. 3D-1R-2 Tossup most years, with each party having an extremely remote shot at OR-02 and OR-05 in a huge landslide.

It's interesting; Oregon used to be a state that people considered to have a Democratic bias in population distribution. Not much has changed in the broad strokes, but the main shifts since the Obama years in the state -- the weakening of Dem support in southern Oregon and the strengthening of Democratic numbers in Bend and Portland -- mean that more of the Democratic gains in recent years have been in safe districts for each party.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Fair Oregon.

I ended up prioritizing county integrity less here and CoIs more, since Oregon has large counties that often cross major topographical boundaries and metro areas.

Also, have I ever mentioned how bad the Oregon numbering scheme is? I followed the current scheme for clarity but if I actually was a special master I would renumber everything.

link



OR-02: Your eastern Oregon seat. Keep everything east of the Cascades except Hood River. It also takes in Medford and Ashland in Jackson County. There's actually a surprising high Biden number on account of Bend and Ashland (42%), but still safe R barring a truly deranged Republican incumbent.

OR-04: 49-48% Trump. A very competitive but slightly R leaning seat since 2016. Would still be a tossup due to the tendency of Democrats to overperform here. Sorry about the three-way split of Lane but IMO it has a logic given local topography.

OR-06: 48-48% Biden. A very narrow Biden seat in the middle of the Willamette Valley, and probably a true bellwether district. Splitting both Yamhill and Marion lets me keep the exurban Portland bits in Portland districts.



OR-01: The Washington County district, plus areas along the Columbia estuary and the Oregon coast. I could be persuaded to move the coastal counties to either 6 or to split them between 6 and 1; I don't know Oregon communities too well. I ended up doing this because it meant the split of Lane was very attractive and allowed really clean cuts of Yamhill and Marion. Safe D ofc.

OR-03: Portland seat, gets Milwaukie too. Super super safe D, Biden cleared 80%.

OR-05: 54-43% Biden. The Clackamas seat, plus various Portland hangers on that don't fit in 1 or 3. I put Gresham here because it seems like a similar place to a lot of Clackamas. It's likely D, bordering on
safe.

So that's pretty crummy for Dems, as expected. 3D-1R-2 Tossup most years, with each party having an extremely remote shot at OR-02 and OR-05 in a huge landslide.

It's interesting; Oregon used to be a state that people considered to have a Democratic bias in population distribution. Not much has changed in the broad strokes, but the main shifts since the Obama years in the state -- the weakening of Dem support in southern Oregon and the strengthening of Democratic numbers in Bend -- mean that more of the Democratic gains in recent years have been in safe districts for each party.

In my experience, it's very likely, when working with more-or-less neutral redistricting principles, to end up with a marginal CD in the Central Willamette Valley. Whether it's Trump-won or Biden-won varies depending on choices made elsewhere, but all other things being equal, Biden is likelier.