Sol's 50-state Redistricting Library

[Sol]

So yeah, playing with it, moving Mono and Inyo is pretty easy, as is slicing San Jose a different way, but avoiding a district that links Hayward/Fremont etc. with the Tri-Valley is almost impossible without either splitting Oakland or completely overhauling the map (which might force an equivalent ugliness to the north). What do you think is preferable?

[Хahar 🤔]

So yeah, playing with it, moving Mono and Inyo is pretty easy, as is slicing San Jose a different way, but avoiding a district that links Hayward/Fremont etc. with the Tri-Valley is almost impossible without either splitting Oakland or completely overhauling the map (which might force an equivalent ugliness to the north). What do you think is preferable?

Yeah, that's rough. I think that there's a case for splitting out the Hispanic parts of Oakland in the south and putting them in with Hayward, but keeping Oakland whole is obviously pleasing and splitting the city would also have the side effect of splitting out its black population. On the other hand, the Hayward-to-Livermore district is really displeasing, so it might be worthwhile to try to change the map more broadly. (I'll admit that I don't know a lot about areas north of Oakland, so the effect might be ugliness there that I don't notice.)

[Sol]

So yeah, playing with it, moving Mono and Inyo is pretty easy, as is slicing San Jose a different way, but avoiding a district that links Hayward/Fremont etc. with the Tri-Valley is almost impossible without either splitting Oakland or completely overhauling the map (which might force an equivalent ugliness to the north). What do you think is preferable?

Yeah, that's rough. I think that there's a case for splitting out the Hispanic parts of Oakland in the south and putting them in with Hayward, but keeping Oakland whole is obviously pleasing and splitting the city would also have the side effect of splitting out its black population. On the other hand, the Hayward-to-Livermore district is really displeasing, so it might be worthwhile to try to change the map more broadly. (I'll admit that I don't know a lot about areas north of Oakland, so the effect might be ugliness there that I don't notice.)

I may be missing something but it seems that the only reasonable option if you want to avoid splitting Oakland or drawing that CA-11 is for the Antelope Valley to take a huge bite out of Kern County, and not just the area east of the Sierras--it also has to take in Tehachapi and some of the area around Onyx too. Arguably this is the best option depending on the number of people affected but it's still fairly rough. 



This kind of thing is what makes California especially unpleasant to draw imo; the sheer number of mountain ranges that wall off areas from each other means there's very little flexibility and you sometimes have to choose between several bad options.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Cooper Mountain should be in OR-1, not OR-5.

Is this better?

That breakdown of Washington County looks better, although I really think Lincoln County should go with the Mid-Valley district even if the Lane County coast is kept separate from the Eugene portion due to population reasons.

Feels weird to see Woodburn in the eastern PDX suburbs district but then again that's also true for Hood River County. I like the idea of having a Portland proper district and 2 districts for all the suburbs + nearby rurals, even if the Portland district needs to include Milwaukie and the adjacent part of Clackamas County west of I-205.

This kind of thing is what makes California especially unpleasant to draw imo; the sheer number of mountain ranges that wall off areas from each other means there's very little flexibility and you sometimes have to choose between several bad options.

It's part of what makes drawing "whites <10% with 3 other racial groups >28%" districts for blatant D gerrymanders fun. May do a fair/cleaner looking redistricting later on

New District #1 (East Bay Area): Resident population is 28.2% Latino, 17.0% Black, 39.7% Asian, and 15.0% (Non-Hispanic) White. CVAP is 25.6% Latino, 17.0% Black, 40.0% Asian, and 16.7% (Non-Hispanic) White.

New District #13 (South LA County + Little Saigon OC): Resident population is 34.5% Latino, 28.3% Black, 28.3% Asian, and 9.4% (Non-Hispanic) White. CVAP is 31.5% Latino, 28.6% Black, 29.2% Asian, and 10.5% (Non-Hispanic) White.

[OBD]

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.

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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.

Honestly I would consider just lumping the North Coast in with the 6th District - if you want to keep the coast together (which is an admirable, if interesting goal) putting it in with the Washington County suburbs is certainly a bit suspect.

[Torie]

If you want decent road connections to Inyo and Mono, here is how I handled it.

[Sol]

Honestly I would consider just lumping the North Coast in with the 6th District - if you want to keep the coast together (which is an admirable, if interesting goal) putting it in with the Washington County suburbs is certainly a bit suspect.

Where should the dividing line go on that? As someone who doesn't know much about Oregon, it seems like Columbia and Clatsop are relatively well connected, and then Clatsop seems like more of a coastal county.

[OBD]

Honestly I would consider just lumping the North Coast in with the 6th District - if you want to keep the coast together (which is an admirable, if interesting goal) putting it in with the Washington County suburbs is certainly a bit suspect.

Where should the dividing line go on that? As someone who doesn't know much about Oregon, it seems like Columbia and Clatsop are relatively well connected, and then Clatsop seems like more of a coastal county.

Iwould personally consider splitting Columbia and Clatsop - Columbia afaik is Portland exurbs while Clatsop is just coast. I guess culturally they're similar but Columbia is definitely way more in Portland's orbit than Clatsop.

[Sol]

Reposting Iowa here in an effort to make this thread more organized.

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IA-01: Waterloo, Dubuque, and the Iowa half of the Quad Cities. Miller-Meeks actually lives here so she'd probably run here since IA-02 is a little swingy, even though it's not the obvious successor to her current seat. Likely R

IA-02: Cedar Rapids, Iowa City. 50-48 Biden%, 46-46% Trump 2016. Tossup. Hinson lives here but she might move to IA-01 if she's cowardly, though it's still certainly winnable.

IA-03: Des Moines. 53-45% Biden, 48-43% Clinton. Likely D, nearly safe. Bondurant would be in big trouble; Axne could easily make a comeback.

IA-04: Sioux City, Council Bluffs, etc. Safe R for Feenstra of course.

[Sol]

Interested in folk's takes on this--is drawing the lines like this worth it to make the Bay Area better, or is it better to link Fremont to the Tri-Valley to avoid this?

Apologies for not responding earlier. Admittedly I'm not neutral in that one alternative involves an area that I know well and the other an area I've only been to a few times, but I think that linking the Antelope Valley with points northward is obviously better. The connection up to Ridgecrest doesn't involve crossing any mountains except to the extent that connecting Ridgecrest to anywhere involves crossing mountains. Similarly, Tehachapi is surrounded by mountains no matter which way you go, and it's not clear to me that aside from county lines there's a compelling argument that it needs to go with the southern San Joaquin Valley rather than the Antelope Valley.

Upon playing with it further, I have to say that unfortunately Tehachapi cut doesn't quite pan out either. It's possible there's something I'm missing, but the Vallejo/northern Contra Costa district is a good 70,000 or so people over population with no good way to get rid of the excess without slicing up Richmond. I'll continue to play with it but it seems like something has to get screwed in the Bay Area no matter what.

Hopefully I'm missing something but I'm probably not unfortunately.

In light of this, I'm going to keep the Fremont-Tri Valley link but implement the other CA-related improvements; I'll edit the original post to reflect this.

[Sol]

The revised California writeup. Not too much changed outside of Eastern California, San Jose, the Fresno area, and Northern LA, with some cosmetic changes in the East Bay and Sacramento.

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CA-01: Your safe R northwestern district. Not much to see here. LaMalfa is safe enough.

CA-02: Your safe D northeastern district. Huffman actually lives in Marin apparently; he might run instead in CA-06 though it would be double-bunked with Thompson. Sorry for the bite out of Siskiyou, but it lets CA-01 work pretty well and has a certain logic.



CA-04: Exurban Sacramento. Likely R, maybe bordering on lean R. Kiley should be pretty safe here.

CA-05: The other Sacramento seat. There's not a great place to put Davis but here seemed like the best option given how other districts shaped up. Safe D, and a pretty strong contrast with denser CA-04. Double-bunks Bera and Garamendi, no clue who would win here.

CA-06: A pretty heterogenous North Bay district. Fairfield probably isn't a great fit here, but there aren't really better options available given where everything else should go. Thompson would run here.

CA-07: Sacramento. Safe D for Matsui. West Sacramento is here because it should be. Super diverse but plurality white. Did you know that the area between West Sacramento and Davis is unpopulated because it's a giant flood bypass?

CA-10: Vallejo, Richmond, Berkeley--this district has some of the most left-wing places in the entire country. The suburbs west of the Berkeley Hills drag it down to a shameful 81% Biden. If Garamendi doesn't want to run against Bera, this would be the obvious place as it's like his current seat. It's very diverse, but plurality white.

CA-11: The Tri-Valley district, plus some outer suburbs up the river. Safe D, DeSaulnier should be good.

CA-13: San Francisco. Safe D, Pelosi should be good.

CA-14: Oakland and some suburbs immediately to the south. Safe for Lee of course. Probably actually the most left-wing district in America, idk.



CA-12: I tried very hard to get rid of this district but it's very hard to avoid something like this. Mountain ranges severely limit the range of possibilities in the Bay Area and something has to give; I decided I'd rather do this than split Oakland or Richmond. I tried to make it a bit better by putting the 580 in the seat.

Plurality Asian by a lot (41%) but actually plurality white by a fair bit on CVAP, a fact which is true of most of the districts in the South Bay. Presumably Swalwell has enough clout (lol) to make Harder go back to the Valley.

CA-15: Northern and Western San Mateo, plus Santa Cruz and the Sunset District. Mullin is fine in this safe D district.

CA-17: Eastern San Jose. Plurality Asian on CVAP at 46.2%. Ro Khanna's seat, safe D.

CA-18: The heart of Silicon Valley. Safe D, Eshoo should be good here.

CA-19: Western San Jose. Plurality white here, with a very large citizenship gap. Lofgren should be good here. Also, the CA commission lines here are really weird; I assume they were trying maximize minority influence, but IMO they basically did the equivalent of NC-12 pre-2016 with how much they crossed over the mountains and cut up San Jose like a pizza.

CA-16: Modesto, Merced, a bit of Fresno County. I wanted to put Mendota here but it's too big. It's majority Latino but very slimly white plurality. Lean D on paper (53-44% Biden), but very much at risk of a Duarte reelection performance, especially in off years, so more or less tossup to maybe even lean R.



CA-21: The Central Coast district. Majority Latino but majority white CVAP; unlike the Central Valley this isn't a huge issue because Latinos can reliably elect their preferred candidate. Panetta is good here, safe D.

CA-03: Talking about it here because the largest portion of the district is in Fresno County. A bit of a messy leftovers district; fringe mountain areas outside Sacramento, the Sierras, and white suburbs of Fresno. I guess Mclintock runs here? Safe R but a higher D number than you'd expect.

CA-20: Fresno, minus the white parts and plus Madera and various small ag towns. Majority Latino on all measures. Safe D, and the only Latino-majority district in this part of the state where that's true. Jim Costa reps this district for some reason.

CA-22: Visalia and western Bakersfield. Safe R. Kevin McCarthy's district.

CA-23: Eastern Bakersfield, King County, bits of Tulare and Fresno. On paper likely to safe D, at 55.9% Biden, but given how the Central Valley works it's more or less tossup. It's a bit more Democratic than the current seat but Valadao would have still won in 2022.

I'm really conflicted on the Central Valley to be honest; this is the hardest part of the map and I might go in and change it later. The differential turnout patterns in the Central Valley, plus the small but non-zero crossover vote that Republicans get means that you have to draw extremely ugly districts to make sure that Latino voters can elect their candidate of choice reliably. I tried to thread the needle as much as possible, and I think what I drew would be fine under current jurisprudence, but I'm not sure if the map I drew is appropriately ethical.

CA-24: San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura. The bougier section of the Central Coast. Carbajal should be good here, safe D.

CA-26: Southern Ventura County and the Conejo Valley area in LA County. Safe D but used to be more conservative. LA is so huge that it has giant suburbs no one has heard of, like Thousand Oaks or Simi Valley. Brownley should be pretty safe.

CA-25: The Antelope Valley, with little scrapings of the San Fernando Valley. On paper this is likely D, but Mike Garcia seems to have dug himself well in here and it's marginally more Republican than the current seat. Extremely diverse, the Antelope Valley is a place where people who get gentrified out of the LA basin are forced to move to.



CA-29: The eastern part of the San Fernando Valley, with Burbank. Safe D and majority Latino district on population and CVAP. Cárdenas should be safe; Schiff technically lived here but this is not his base.

CA-30: The western San Fernando Valley. Safe D. Brad Sherman's seat. It's probably pretty clear by now that I don't know California as well as I should, so apologies when I say that I can think of nothing to distinguish this district whatsoever.

CA-31: North LA, Glendale, Pasadena, the Crescenta Valley. I assume Schiff would go for this district, though it's maybe not as Hollywood-oriented as he'd like. Safe D.

CA-32: North and west San Gabriel Valley, centered around the Covinas. Majority Latino on all measures. Safe D, repped by Grace Napolitano.

CA-33: The west and south of the San Gabriel Valley. The somewhat unattractive lines between this and CA-32 make them both pretty clearly VRA compliant; this is a heavily Chinese district which is nearly 50%  on both total pop. and CVAP.  Judy Chu reps this safe D seat.

CA-35: This is the real Hollywood district, taking in western neighborhoods of LA and the Hills and Malibu. Safe D. Actually an empty seat.

CA-36: DTLA, East LA, Koreatown. Safe D, majority Latino on all measures. Jimmy Gomez should be safe here. Btw, he seems to be quite left-wing, why do progressives keep challenging him? This is why East LA is in this seat, btw; it unpacks CA-41 but also ensures the Latino candidate of choice will win this district's fairly polarized top-twos.

CA-37: The eastern Gateway cities. Majority Latino, safe D. I assume Sánchez runs here--commission lines are weird in this part of the state too.

CA-38: The Beach cities. Safe D now, but in the recent past used to be a good bit more Republican. I miss Republican Palos Verdes. Lieu gets this one.

CA-40: Southern LA, Inglewood, Compton. Safe D. Majority Latino but plurality Black CVAP. Maxine Waters should be pretty safe here; Kamlager-Dove also lives here but she presumably doesn't have the clout here and decamps elsewhere, maybe to 35.

CA-41: The western Gateway cities. It's the most Latino district in the country. Barragan will win this seat.

CA-44: Long Beach and the Port of LA. A diverse but plurality Latino district on all metrics. The CA commission does the equivalent of Texas fajita districts to Long Beach to unpack the heavily Latino areas to the north; IMO that's probably not necessary to follow the VRA. Garcia should be good here.



CA-42: Orange County hills, Fullerton. Super diverse on total population but almost 50% white on CVAP. It's a swing seat; 51-47% Biden, but much more Republican downballot. Should be winnable for Young Kim and her notorious homophobia.

CA-45: Huntington Beach, Westminster, the westernmost parts of Orange County. Tries to keep the fairly coherent coastal CoI together while also uniting Vietnamese neighborhoods. Lean R; 49-48% Trump 2020 but was a Clinton seat. Steele should be fairly good here.

CA-46: Anaheim, Santa Ana. Majority Latino on all measures, Safe D. Correa's seat.

CA-47: Irvine and the various extremely rich southern OC exurbs. Katie Porter should be safe here; it's a couple shades better for both Clinton and Biden than her current district.

CA-48: The rest of coastal Orange County, plus Oceanside in SD and Murrietta and Temecula in Riverside. I know this is a bit of a weird hash district, but it's an absolutely load-bearing one, allowing for much better districts in the Inland Empire and San Gabriel Valley. 49-48 Trump 2020, so probably lean R. Probably tough sledding for Mike Levin, but could be a good fit for Darryl Issa if he wants to be able to vote for himself.



CA-08: The Victor Valley, the Mojave Desert, Imperial County, counties east of the Sierras. Plurality Latino on CVAP, but a tossup at 48-48% Trump 2020 and 48-47% Clinton. Similar issues to the Central Valley seats I suspect, but a different configuration, like the Coachella Valley with Imperial, creates other issues and forces an ugly Victor Valley-San Bernardino seat. Obernolte's seat.

CA-27: San Bernardino and surrounds. Majority Latino on all measures. Safe D. Aguilar might actually live in 31 but this is the obvious successor to his seat.

CA-28: San Gorgonio Pass, the Coachella Valley, and various mountain towns in Riverside County. Likely D, and Raul Ruiz would run here.

CA-34: Ontario, Chino, Fontana. Safe D. Similarly, Norma Torres actually lives in 32 but would clearly run here. The double-split of Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana sucks but is necessary to make both 27 and 34 majority Latino on CVAP.

CA-39: Riverside and surrounds. Safe D. Mark Takano's seat. Just barely shy of majority Latino on CVAP.

CA-43: Corona, Menifee, Hemet, Lake Elsinore. Lean R at 50-48% Trump (though closer pre-rounding). Calvert's seat.



CA-49: Eastern suburbs and exurbs of San Diego. Lean R at 52-46, bordering on likely. Technically Darryl Issa's seat. Btw, why exactly are the much closer-in suburbs like Santee or El Cajon so Republican compared to even further away suburbs like Escondido or Oceanside?

CA-50: Northern SD and the northern suburbs. Safe D, Peters's seat.

CA-51: Central SD and northern inner neighborhoods. Safe D, Jacobs's seat.

CA-52: Southeastern SD. Majority Latino on all numbers. Safe D, Vargas is good.

[Sol]

New Mexico.

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I decided to split Albuquerque. Municipal lines in the Albuquerque area are ugly enough that you have to split something, and this lets you max out the Latino population in NM-03, unlike splitting Rio Rancho or putting South Valley in with NM-03 and having a smaller split of ABQ.

NM-01: Suburban Albuquerque, Santa Fe, various reservations, Taos. 37% white, 36% Latino, 25% Native. Leger Fernandez should be reasonably safe here.

NM-02: Las Cruces, south and east NM. 49% Latino CVAP, also safe R. Vasquez can't win here; I assume Herrell might would run?

NM-03: Most of the Albuquerque metro. 47% Latino CVAP, safest D seat in the state. Stansbury gets a safe seat.

[Sol]

Wisconsin.

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Like most fair maps of the state, it's 6-2.




WI-01: Racine, Kenosha, Western and Southern suburbs and exurbs of Milwaukee. 54-44% Trump 2020, so essentially safe R. Steil doesn't live here, though I'd imagine he'd run here.

WI-02: Madison, Janesville, Beloit. Super-duper safe D. Pocan should have no issues.

WI-03: La Crosse, the Driftless Area. 53-45% Trump in 2020, but this is more likely R than safe. I wish DRA had 2022 Evers numbers. Van Orden should still be fairly secure.

WI-04: Milwaukee. Ultra safe D, though amazingly only a few percentage points more Democratic than WI-02. Safe for Moore ofc.

WI-05: WOW counties. Safe R and pretty safe for Fitzgerald too, though this has some of the more Democratic swinging suburban communities.

WI-06: Fox River Cities, Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc. Safe R for Grothman.

WI-07: Eau Claire, Superior, Exurban Twin Cities. This is actually the most reachable target for WI Dems after 1 and 3, but it should still be safe R for Tiffany.

WI-8: Green Bay, Wausau, Stevens Point. Safe R for Gallagher of course.

[Sol]

Virginia.

The special master map is actually quite good; this one is working from basically the same premises.

link



VA-01: Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, the Eastern Shore. This is very narrowly more D than the current seat but still probably an R-leaning tossup for Kiggans.

VA-02: Norfolk, Hampton, Portsmouth. Plurality Black (44.6% VAP). Safe D of course. Bobby Scott has an easy reelection.

VA-03: Suburban Richmond, Williamsburg, Eastern VA. Safe R currently but perhaps a longshot pickup opportunity for Dems; this is the kind of place that could have produced some wild special election results in the Trump administration. Wittman probably reelected easily though.

VA-04: Richmond, Petersburg, Emporia. Safe D and a Black opportunity seat, though not plurality Black on VAP. McClellan is safe.

VA-05: Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Southside VA. Democrats inexplicably have tried to win this district a lot, maybe because it has a high D floor and mobilized activist base with Charlottesville, but it's really not a winnable seat; safe R. Good is good.

VA-06: The Shenandoah Valley, Roanoke. Safe R of course. I could have taken all of Warren and dropped Clarke but I thought that looked very ugly. Cline is guaranteed to win.

VA-09: SWVA, Danville. Danville in this district is a poor fit; it'd go much better in VA-05 but VA-09 needs people. The current map takes part of Roanoke County and Bedford County, but that has the nasty side effect of splitting the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas, while this option keeps greater Danville together.



In Northern Virginia, I decided to hew more closely to settlement patterns, topography, etc. rather than county lines.

VA-07: The I-95 corridor, Fredericksburg. Unlike the current seat, which looks a lot like this one, this is basically safe D, on account of losing some rural counties and gaining a bit of Fairfax (it didn't even vote for Youngkin). This seat has some of the most working class areas of NOVA, as well as some of the most heavily Black communities in the Virginia section of the DMV; this is a seat which is majority minority. Spanberger is sitting pretty here.

VA-08: Manassas, Loudon County, Front Royal. The other outer DC seat. This one is much whiter and bougier, and also more conservative. Wexton is a serial underperformer and she could maybe be taken out in a really good R year, so I'm putting this as Likely D.

VA-10: Western Fairfax and a bit of Loudon. A big slice of affluent DC suburbia, and quite robustly D too. It's also 25.8% Asian, which is one of the more Asian-American districts on the east coast. Connolly should be a shoo-in for reelection ofc.

VA-11: Arlington, Alexandria, a bit of Fairfax. I tried to make this one the more urban "inner" seat. It's minority-majority, though nearly majority white. Let me know if you think this should take in Tysons! Don Beyer should be quite safe.

[Sol]

Nevada.

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I took the liberty of renumbering seats, because I could not abide the awful current one.



NV-01: Reno, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, tumbleweeds and Basques. I considered putting Mineral in this district even if it meant a split since it's a better fit, but you'd have to split Elko, which doesn't split well at all. This is safe R for Amodei of course.

IMO the Reno area is kind of underdiscussed, and it actually has a reasonably populous hinterland too, unlike Las Vegas. Demographically it's fairly interesting too; it's much whiter than either Las Vegas or the California metros it's closely tied to. I wonder why that's the case -- is it just a function of the city being less economically vibrant and thus less attractive to immigrants?



NV-02: Northern suburbs and exurbs of Las Vegas+tumbleweeds. This district is a funny one, voting narrowly Trump in 2020 but still very swingy. It has some of the wealthiest and most conservative sections of the Las Vegas areas, with Summerlin and Northwest Las Vegas. I'd say narrowly lean R but very winnable for a Democrat. Probably Horsford loses.

NV-03: The urban core of LV, with downtown, Southern North LV, and the strip. It's safe D ofc for Titus, though with weaker margins than you'd expect for the downtown core of a major city. It's also plurality Latino by a good amount (48%), though remarkably becomes plurality white on CVAP.

NV-04: Southern suburbs and exurbs. The inverse of NV-02, as a narrowly D-leaning tossup. Susie Lee should be capable of winning in most years.

I considered putting the extreme south of Clark County in NV-02, so the remote non-urban areas stayed in just two districts, but topography and road connections suggested otherwise.

Basically sorts out as 1D-1R-2T, with 2D-2R most of the time.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Nevada.

link

I took the liberty of renumbering seats, because I could not abide the awful current one.



NV-01: Reno, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, tumbleweeds and Basques. I considered putting Mineral in this district even if it meant a split since it's a better fit, but you'd have to split Elko, which doesn't split well at all. This is safe R for Amodei of course.

IMO the Reno area is kind of underdiscussed, and it actually has a reasonably populous hinterland too, unlike Las Vegas. Demographically it's fairly interesting too; it's much whiter than either Las Vegas or the California metros it's closely tied to. I wonder why that's the case -- is it just a function of the city being less economically vibrant and thus less attractive to immigrants?



NV-02: Northern suburbs and exurbs of Las Vegas+tumbleweeds. This district is a funny one, voting narrowly Trump in 2020 but still very swingy. It has some of the wealthiest and most conservative sections of the Las Vegas areas, with Summerlin and Northwest Las Vegas. I'd say narrowly lean R but very winnable for a Democrat. Probably Horsford loses.

NV-03: The urban core of LV, with downtown, Southern North LV, and the strip. It's safe D ofc for Titus, though with weaker margins than you'd expect for the downtown core of a major city. It's also plurality Latino by a good amount (48%), though remarkably becomes plurality white on CVAP.

NV-04: Southern suburbs and exurbs. The inverse of NV-02, as a narrowly D-leaning tossup. Susie Lee should be capable of winning in most years.

I considered putting the extreme south of Clark County in NV-02, so the remote non-urban areas stayed in just two districts, but topography and road connections suggested otherwise.

Basically sorts out as 1D-1R-2T, with 2D-2R most of the time.

Good map!

[Sol]

Hawaiʻi.

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HI knowers, let me know if this makes sense; I put several towns near Honolulu on the windward side of Oahu in HI-02, because they seemed to be more connected with Honolulu than areas further away, but I'm aware there's some rather steep topography in the way, so if it's an issue I can switch it up.

HI-01: The outer islands, rural and exurban Oʻahu . The whiter and more Native Hawaiʻian district. It's the marginally more Republican of the two, because it has some of the most Republican portions of the state in Northern and Western Oahu. I know Lāʻie has the LDS, but why is Māʻili so heavily Republican?

HI-02: Honolulu, Kailua, Pearl Harbor. Probably the most heavily Asian district in the country, at 64.6%.

I knew Hawaiʻi was very diverse, but both seats are well above the national average in Native American percentages -- is this Native Hawaiʻians claiming Native ancestry, or natives from the mainland in the military? HI-01 is also way more Latino than I expected, at 11%, with the most Latino areas being in its section of Oʻahu and to a lesser extent, the big island.

[Хahar 🤔]

CA-12: I tried very hard to get rid of this district but it's very hard to avoid something like this. Mountain ranges severely limit the range of possibilities in the Bay Area and something has to give; I decided I'd rather do this than split Oakland or Richmond. I tried to make it a bit better by putting the 580 in the seat.

For what it's worth, "the 580" is exclusively southern usage. The proper way to describe this road is "580" with no article.

[Sol]

CA-12: I tried very hard to get rid of this district but it's very hard to avoid something like this. Mountain ranges severely limit the range of possibilities in the Bay Area and something has to give; I decided I'd rather do this than split Oakland or Richmond. I tried to make it a bit better by putting the 580 in the seat.

For what it's worth, "the 580" is exclusively southern usage. The proper way to describe this road is "580" with no article.

Haha, serves me right for trying to ape Californianisms.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

CA-12: I tried very hard to get rid of this district but it's very hard to avoid something like this. Mountain ranges severely limit the range of possibilities in the Bay Area and something has to give; I decided I'd rather do this than split Oakland or Richmond. I tried to make it a bit better by putting the 580 in the seat.

For what it's worth, "the 580" is exclusively southern usage.

Maybe it's not in California but apparently "the" is used in Washington:

I've never heard it in the Midwest though, "the 494" or "the 35W" does sound quite bizarre.

[Gass3268]

Wisconsin.

link

Like most fair maps of the state, it's 6-2.




WI-01: Racine, Kenosha, Western and Southern suburbs and exurbs of Milwaukee. 54-44% Trump 2020, so essentially safe R. Steil doesn't live here, though I'd imagine he'd run here.

WI-02: Madison, Janesville, Beloit. Super-duper safe D. Pocan should have no issues.

WI-03: La Crosse, the Driftless Area. 53-45% Trump in 2020, but this is more likely R than safe. I wish DRA had 2022 Evers numbers. Van Orden should still be fairly secure.

WI-04: Milwaukee. Ultra safe D, though amazingly only a few percentage points more Democratic than WI-02. Safe for Moore ofc.

WI-05: WOW counties. Safe R and pretty safe for Fitzgerald too, though this has some of the more Democratic swinging suburban communities.

WI-06: Fox River Cities, Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc. Safe R for Grothman.

WI-07: Eau Claire, Superior, Exurban Twin Cities. This is actually the most reachable target for WI Dems after 1 and 3, but it should still be safe R for Tiffany.

WI-8: Green Bay, Wausau, Stevens Point. Safe R for Gallagher of course.

This is a Republican gerrymander.

[Sol]

How? Lol

[Gass3268]

How? Lol

It's a 6-2 Republican map in a 50-50 state. Bare minimum it should be 5-3 if not a straight up 4-4. Both aren't hard.

[Sol]

How? Lol

It's a 6-2 Republican map in a 50-50 state. Bare minimum it should be 5-3 if not a straight up 4-4. Both aren't hard.

You can draw a 5-3 map within those constraints, but it's going to be a little uglier and WI-03 is probably more of a D-leaning swing seat--you have to give WI-03 a good chunk if not all of Rock County, plus Eau Claire (but excluding Chippewa Co., which should probably go in the same seat as Eau Claire). If you want to make WI-03 safer, you have to make it a little bit uglier than I'm willing to--a split of Dane isn't good redistricting practice and that's basically what you have to do.

There's no good way to do 4-4 though. You can put Milwaukee proper in with Ozaukee County but that honestly sucks ass and I'm not going to do it.

Either way, I don't think proportionality is a good standard for making FPTP maps because 1) it forces uglier lines, like it would in Wisconsin, and 2) it's not a good standard because political coalitions change a great deal in a decade, and a map that would be reasonably proportional in 2020 might not be so in 2030.

Imagine how screwy Massachusetts or Connecticut would look if we drew them using a proportionality standard!

[Sol]

Mississippi.

If y'all yell at me, I'll make the boundary between 3 and 4 prettier and split a county, but I was too pleased with the possibility of splitting only one to avoid drawing it that way.

link



MS-01: DeSoto County, NE Mississippi. Safe R of course, though it will be interesting to see what effect demographic change in DeSoto County has on the politics of the area.

MS-02: Jackson, the Mississippi Delta. It takes in Rankin and Madison to unify the core of the Jackson metro, which means that its Dem numbers take a hit, though it still votes 56-43 Biden. Sadly this shift means that Natchez, Vicksburg, etc. can't fit in this seat, though they're the obvious odd men out, since they aren't technically in the Delta.

MS-03: The Golden Triangle, Meridian, Laurel, Vicksburg, Natchez. Mississippi geography creates three obvious and straightforward seats and then one which is a bit random and oddly shaped; if this was in Britain it would be called "Mid Mississippi." Safe R of course, though losable in a Roy Moore tier scenario.

MS-04: Hattiesburg, the Gulf. Safe R of course. Apparently Pearl River County is/is becoming New Orleans exurbia.