Neutral map series

[Atlas Force]

Arizona

The biggest issue I had was balancing compactness with municipal and county integrity and not screwing over minority communities. I cleaned up the border between AZ-01 and AZ-04. In my view, the current AZ-01 does a pretty good job creating a clean Native-influenced seat that doesn't mess up the Tucson area, so I kept it with some alterations. Sticking with it does a good job of making AZ-04 more compact as well. I drew a district completely within Pima County, but ended up having to split Tucson just to make sure AZ-03 could remain a Latino seat. AZ-03 now borders the entire Mexican border. Both AZ-04 and AZ-03 swallow a significant amount of western Pheonix exurbs.

AZ-03 and AZ-04 push AZ-08 and AZ-07 east. AZ-08 now has a significant share of Northern Pheonix, and AZ-07 is kept as a Latino district. I redraw the lines in Maricopa once, mostly from scratch, because I was uncomfortable with a district with both all of Tempe and Canyon Creek. This redraw led to AZ-07 moving in a northwest direction. There is one dedicated Pheonix seat (AZ-07) and three districts that take from Pheonix, in a direction that keeps them the most compact. AZ-06 is the most Pheonix-heavy of them all. Pinal leftovers ended up in a district with Gilbert and most of Mesa. This pushed AZ-09 mostly out of Mesa.

There are 5 Trump districts and 4 Biden districts. The Biden seats, though, are all solid or at the very least extremely likely D holds. There are two Trump districts that he won by four points or less, and another that was within single digits.

AZ-01 (San Tan Valley): 49W, 24N, 22H; 51-47 Trump, R+4
AZ-02 (Tucson): 58W, 28H; 58-41 Biden, D+6
AZ-03 (Yuma): 56H, 34W; 53-46 Biden, D+2
AZ-04 (Surprise): 70W, 20H; 65-34 Trump, R+19
AZ-05 (Mesa): 67W, 21H; 58-41 Trump, R+12
AZ-06 (Pheonix): 73W, 14H; 51-48 Trump, R+5
AZ-07 (Pheonix): 60H, 22W, 12B; 73-26 Biden, D+22
AZ-08 (Glendale): 57W, 28H; 53-45 Trump, R+7
AZ-09 (Chandler): 51W, 27H; 58-40 Biden, D+6

DRA link

I think Dems could have a chance at picking up that AZ-01 if they recruited a Native moderate. I guess Tom O’Halleran could also make his comeback there.