Sol's 50-state Redistricting Library

[Sol]

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

How does this work?

[Sol]

I'm not really sure what I was thinking with my original SC map. Here's something that actually complies with the VRA.



SC-01: The western half of metro Charleston, Beaufort County. A classic swing district; voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but with a Republican average on most other things. Splitting the Charleston area sucks but I think my split is pretty intuitive. Nancy Mace is the rep here and on paper she'd be favored, but I don't have a good sense of whether her antics have hurt her in this moderate district.

SC-02: Columbia and its suburbs, minus Fort Jackson, Dentsville, and the Congaree. Very narrowly a Trump voting seat in 2020; lean R, though with some potential upside for Democrats down the line; Joe Wilson might need to moderate himself.

SC-03: Clemson, Anderson, Greenwood, Aiken. Kind of a leftovers district. The logical successor to Jeff Duncan's seat; he probably runs here though he lives in the 5th. Safe R of course.

SC-04: Greenville, Spartanburg. This has to be one of the most Republican seats entirely in a major metro area; Biden barely cleared 40% here. Safe R for Timmons of course.

SC-05: Laurens, Rock Hill, lots of very densely populated rural Piedmont towns with very little name recognition. Safe R ofc; Norman will cruise.

SC-06: Sumter, Orangeburg, Florence, a bit of Richland County. Majority Black on VAP, CVAP, and total population. Should hold up even in a 2022-tier year for SC Democrats; thus Safe D.

SC-07: Myrtle Beach, the northern half of Charleston. Safe R for Fry.

[Sol]

Another Southern state for today.

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MD-01: Eastern shore, Eastern Baltimore suburbs. Safe R for Dr. Harris. This district is interesting in that the heart of Republican strength here is in Harford and Cecil counties, not the Eastern shore -- this is the most Republican bit of the area around the Northeast corridor.

MD-02: Northern and Western Baltimore suburbs. I believe Ruppersberger is retiring, but this would be his seat. Safe D, though one of the more conservative spots in Maryland.

MD-03: Columbia, Annapolis, the zone between Baltimore and DC. Safe D for Sarbanes' successor. I have no sense of of where it starts becoming clearly Baltimore suburbs here.

MD-04: Northern PG County and surrounds. Safe D for Ivey ofc, and majority Black on all stats. MD-04 and MD-05 are very similar on total population (around 51%) but this one is significantly more Black on CVAP due to larger immigrant communities here.

MD-05: Southern PG County, southern MD. Majority Black on all stats. Safe D for Hoyer. Sorry about the three-way split of Anne Arundel, though it has a certain logic, since rural southern Anne Arundel is similar to Calvert, St. Mary's, etc. I wish I had put the suburbs below the South River in MD-03 and may revise this to do that.

MD-06: Western Maryland, Frederick, Germantown. A hard district to assess; it was quite close in 2016 but Biden got a commanding margin here in 2020. I'll go with likely D, but that might need a downgrade depending.

MD-07: Baltimore, Dundalk. Majority Black on all stats. I'm pleased to keep the city of Baltimore whole. Mfume is safe here ofc.

MD-08: Southern Montgomery county. Jamie Raskin gets a safe D seat, what a shock. It's minority-majority, though heftily majority white on CVAP. You can really see that Montgomery County has restrictive land use regulations in redistricting around here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Another Southern state for today.

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MD-01: Eastern shore, Eastern Baltimore suburbs. Safe R for Dr. Harris. This district is interesting in that the heart of Republican strength here is in Harford and Cecil counties, not the Eastern shore -- this is the most Republican bit of the area around the Northeast corridor.

MD-02: Northern and Western Baltimore suburbs. I believe Ruppersberger is retiring, but this would be his seat. Safe D, though one of the more conservative spots in Maryland.

MD-03: Columbia, Annapolis, the zone between Baltimore and DC. Safe D for Sarbanes' successor. I have no sense of of where it starts becoming clearly Baltimore suburbs here.

MD-04: Northern PG County and surrounds. Safe D for Ivey ofc, and majority Black on all stats. MD-04 and MD-05 are very similar on total population (around 51%) but this one is significantly more Black on CVAP due to larger immigrant communities here.

MD-05: Southern PG County, southern MD. Majority Black on all stats. Safe D for Hoyer. Sorry about the three-way split of Anne Arundel, though it has a certain logic, since rural southern Anne Arundel is similar to Calvert, St. Mary's, etc. I wish I had put the suburbs below the South River in MD-03 and may revise this to do that.

MD-06: Western Maryland, Frederick, Germantown. A hard district to assess; it was quite close in 2016 but Biden got a commanding margin here in 2020. I'll go with likely D, but that might need a downgrade depending.

MD-07: Baltimore, Dundalk. Majority Black on all stats. I'm pleased to keep the city of Baltimore whole. Mfume is safe here ofc.

MD-08: Southern Montgomery county. Jamie Raskin gets a safe D seat, what a shock. It's minority-majority, though heftily majority white on CVAP. You can really see that Montgomery County has restrictive land use regulations in redistricting around here.

Doesn't MD-02 have a significant black population under these lines? I guess that you might see a black primary challenger here.

[Sol]

New York.

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If anyone knows of a way to get the layers for the various communities below the town level in Long Island, that would be much appreciated; I'm sure I'm unnecessarily chopping up some of those places without that data.

NY-01: Brookhaven, the Hamptons. Likely R. Confusingly Garbarino and LaLota are in opposite districts, but whichever one runs here is safe ofc.

NY-02: Babylon, Islip, Massapequa; basically South shore LI. Likely R too, but less so than NY-01.

NY-03: North Shore inner Long Island. It’s Lean D, narrowly even voting for Clinton. Safe for Suozzi though it could easily fall in a 2022 environment.

NY-04: SW Queens, Hempstead, Valley Stream. This district is the biggest shift, essentially combining NY-04 and NY-05. Meeks would probably run here; D’Esposito lives here but obviously would lose badly. It's plurality Black at 38.5%, but it should be performing given that white voters here are Republicans; you can up that percentage a bit by getting a little uglier in Long Island.

NY-05: Flushing, NW Queens, Elmhurst. Unifies the Chinese-American community in Queens in one district. Safe D for Meng, though it’s probably the most Republican district in the city outside of the obvious in Brooklyn/Staten Island. 49% Asian but a huge fall-off on CVAP.

NY-06: Jamaica, Rockaway, East NY. Safe for Jeffries ofc.

NY-07: Bedstuy, Bushwick, Richmond Hill, Woodside. Velázquez’s district; has a very high probability of electing a DSA-adjacent candidate, potentially even in a primary. It's a very diverse seat but plurality Latino. Safe D.

NY-08: Flatlands, Crown Heights, Park Slope. Safe D ofc. Yvette Clark’s district; she remains fairly vulnerable to a primary.

NY-09: Southern Manhattan, Williamsburg, Long Island City. Very similar to Goldman’s old district except it takes in Queens. Safe D and with the usual amount of primary risk.

NY-10: Borough Park, Gravesend, Coney Island. This district may be the politically weirdest one in the country; on presidential numbers it is Safe R, but has a strong chance of electing an extremely conservative Democrat. It also united the various Chinese communities in SW Brooklyn. Tossup. I have no idea who would run here.

NY-11: Staten Island and various bits of fast-gentrifying Brooklyn. Obviously a CoI hash, but there aren’t really better options imo. A 55-45 district, but given how polarized it is I’m saying Safe D, with a decent shot of electing a very left wing Democrat. Malliotakis can’t win lol.

NY-12: Midtown, UES, UWS. Safe D for Jerry.

NY-13: Harlem, South Bronx, Washington Heights. Safe Democratic for Espaillat.

NY-14: University Heights, Morrisania, Morris Park. Takes in the higher western Bronx. Safe D for Torres ofc.

NY-15: Corona, Hunts Point, Co-op City. The Eastern Bronx, plus a bit of Queens. Safe D for AOC.

NY-16: Eastchester, White Plains, Yonkers. Safe D.

NY-17: Northern Westchester, Rockland, southern Orange. Likely D; a hard seat for Lawler to hold. Amazingly swung to Biden despite the wild swings in Kiryas Joel, Kaser, and New Square. Idk if Mondaire Jones or Sean Patrick Maloney would try for a comeback here.

NY-18: Dutchess, Putnam, and bits on the other side of the river. Lean D, though certainly losable for Ryan.

NY-19: Hudson Valley, Utica. Molinaro benefits a ton from this map, and would now rep a Safe R district.

NY-20: Capital Area. Tonko will have no trouble in this Safe D seat.

NY-21: North Country, Eastern Mohawk Valley. Safe R for Stefanik. I generally struggled with the alignment of 19, 21, 22, and 23; this alignment is imperfect elsewhere but fits this district quite well.

NY-22: Syracuse, Oswego. Moves rightward from the remap to become a tossup, albeit very winnable for Williams.

NY-23: Binghamton, Ithaca, Southern Tier. A very weird district; it has a bunch of moderately Democratic cities, increasingly swingy Ontario County, and Ithaca, but still narrowly voted for Trump. Still highly losable for the incompetent Claudia Tenney; tossup with her but lean R without.

NY-24: Rochester. Safe D for Morelle.

NY-25: Western NY, and the most Republican district in the state. Langworthy’s seat.

NY-26: Buffalo. Safe D ofc.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Nice job of NY! Some thoughts:

Imo, having 4 take in some of Queens to become a black functioning district isn't worth it IMO. In this case it isn't truly adding another new black seat, rather just reconfiguring the others; 6 is now an awkward combination of 2 distinct pockets of black voters in Queens and Brooklyn. Also just having a district nested within Hempstead is natural and nice.

I do see what you mean by there's nowhere really good to put Staten Island with since you try to create a new Asian and Jewish seat in South Brooklyn.

I like how you consolidated all the hyper-religious Jewish pockets into NY-17 and the seat is honestly bluer than I would expect.

I like the NY-23 seat based around a lot of these smaller college towns too.

Overal;l, good job.

[Sol]

Thanks for the kind words!

Imo, having 4 take in some of Queens to become a black functioning district isn't worth it IMO. In this case it isn't truly adding another new black seat, rather just reconfiguring the others; 6 is now an awkward combination of 2 distinct pockets of black voters in Queens and Brooklyn. Also just having a district nested within Hempstead is natural and nice.

I get that; it feels like most of the crossings between NYC and Long Island suck and are bad. Do you prefer the current configuration?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Thanks for the kind words!

Imo, having 4 take in some of Queens to become a black functioning district isn't worth it IMO. In this case it isn't truly adding another new black seat, rather just reconfiguring the others; 6 is now an awkward combination of 2 distinct pockets of black voters in Queens and Brooklyn. Also just having a district nested within Hempstead is natural and nice.

I get that; it feels like most of the crossings between NYC and Long Island suck and are bad. Do you prefer the current configuration?

Yeah, NY-03 crossing into Bayside and Whitestone is preferable imo. Northeast Queens is honestly retry disconnected from the rest of the city and more like LI; culturally disconnected from NYC, less dense, no subway lines, ect, ect.

Southeast Queens on the other hand feels a bit more like the rest of the city; subway lines actually run decently far into southeast Queens; E train was almost extended to the Nassau County border at one point. And ofc just keeping that black pocket of southeast Queens whole to be its own black functioning district is preferable.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

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

How does this work?

Not loving how Eugene is in a Tilt R (by 2016/2020-PRES standards) district, and I'd prefer that your OR-5 end further away from Salem, but it's a clean map and I like how Portland proper is cleanly separated from almost all of its OR suburbs.

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.

US census stats suggest it's native Hawaiians being counted as "native" and not "PI"

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Hispanics make up about 11% of Hawaii’s population, about 160,000 residents. It is the fastest-growing ethnic group, according to the 2022 U.S. Census American Community Survey.

UHERO researchers at UH Manoa estimate that by 2040, Hispanics will make up about 15% of the local population.

“So, over the past decade, 1000s of Latin American migrants have arrived in Hawaii, many to work in the service industry ... There is also a large share of Hispanics in the military. So, about one in five active service members are Hispanics. We also see them in more professional areas, such as lawyers, managers, professional services, there’s even growth in small business ownership.” said Ruben Juarez, UHERO Professor and Treasurer of the Hawaii Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

[Sol]

Not loving how Eugene is in a Tilt R (by 2016/2020-PRES standards) district, and I'd prefer that your OR-5 end further away from Salem, but it's a clean map and I like how Portland proper is cleanly separated from almost all of its OR suburbs.

Wrt: Eugene, that's basically down to the split in Jackson County. I try to avoid considering partisan outcomes in the map, but if you move Ashland into the same district as Eugene it flips IIRC. Ignoring the partisan element, is that better or worse CoI?

I think shifting around in the Salem area is doable, let me play around with it. Also, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the positioning of Columbia and Clatsop; I'm wondering if they might should go in with Lincoln County.

[Sol]

Not loving how Eugene is in a Tilt R (by 2016/2020-PRES standards) district, and I'd prefer that your OR-5 end further away from Salem, but it's a clean map and I like how Portland proper is cleanly separated from almost all of its OR suburbs.

Wrt: Eugene, that's basically down to the split in Jackson County. I try to avoid considering partisan outcomes in the map, but if you move Ashland into the same district as Eugene it flips IIRC. Ignoring the partisan element, is that better or worse CoI?

I think shifting around in the Salem area is doable, let me play around with it. Also, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the positioning of Columbia and Clatsop; I'm wondering if they might should go in with Lincoln County.

Playing around with topography in Google Maps, IMO Ashland needs to go in OR-02; the only good connections eastwards are through Medford and there are big mountains to the southwest of the city (which does mean the Eugene district must be lean R, not that that should matter).