Blumenauer Congressional Plan

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So Rep. Blumenauer released a bill to expand to 585 (no idea why that number) but I thought it'd be fun to make maps for it. Daily Kos did a distribution for the seats here;

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1622643617759100945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

First off I did one for Alabama and 9 Seats actually works quite well for the state, two black seats, a seat for Mobile, and a seat for Hunstville.

Here's what I drew https://davesredistricting.org/join/5dc2ce3c-e0b0-4947-b811-f8e37e5bbc6c

Feel free to add your own maps from whatever states!

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Here's a pass at an Arkansas map, which again works well in this plan. One for little rock, one for Fayetteville, and three for the rest.



I went with creating a relatively Dem leaning seat in Little Rock, but you can create a much pretty looking swing seat.

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I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

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I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

What's the fourth Dem district? The SE or the Fox River cities? I made a Lake Winnebago area district and a Green Bay + Lakeshore district and both were about Trump +15.

I had one for Kenosha to Milwaukee county, one from Dane to LaCrosse, and then one that was Green Bay/Appleton/Oshkosh which Biden lost by around 11,000 votes. It’s a reach for democrats, but it probably would’ve flipped in 2018

edit: the map https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7a154fe-6998-4580-a8a3-13545a69ebbe



It does seem both of the southern border swing seats are very stubbornly democratic. The LaCrosse seat has not gone for republicans in the data set, and the Kenosha seat only did in 2016 for Johnson (Clinton won it for president). Interestingly the Minnesota border runner, while usually more republican than the Green Bay seat, voted to the left of the Green Bay seat in the Governor's, Senate's and Attorney General races in 2018.

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Pennsylvania having 23 seats makes it need two black philadelphia seast minimum. Really, you can make 3 seats in the Philadephia metro that have majority minority populations. What I'm working on I made three seats that are plurality black by VAP; The first is 46.9/36.8. The second is 45.0/40.5. The third is 38.7/28.2. The first is also 10% asian. Ican't tell lfromnj's map but I think theres only 2 black seats and a plurality white seat

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Pennsylvania having 23 seats makes it need two black philadelphia seast minimum. Really, you can make 3 seats in the Philadephia metro that have majority minority populations. What I'm working on I made three seats that are plurality black by VAP; The first is 46.9/36.8. The second is 45.0/40.5. The third is 38.7/28.2. The first is also 10% asian. Ican't tell lfromnj's map but I think theres only 2 black seats and a plurality white seat

The East Philly seat is majority minority but its plurality and pretty close to majority white VAP. I could have tried for 2 majority Black seats which is actually what I pushed a little bit but I wanted the map fairly clean so i ended up with a 47% black VAP seat that was 49.9% Black. Not too hard to really push it to majority black by figuring out a way to add in Chester township or trade with the central seat.

This is how I spliced up Phili. I only had t split up Drexel Hills.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/e11bd18b-789e-4d80-a608-eab847d4c875

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https://davesredistricting.org/join/99497d6f-a0ae-4a6b-ad4e-b5f4cde541b8

So I did my own few attempts at Iowa and this was my favorite. It results in two districts that will usually elect democrats, one thats highly competitive, and one that is lean republican. I actually went on the Secy of State website and did the math for these districts.

                 Hinson   Fink
Winneshiek   6,041   5,807
Allamakee      4,595   2,697
Clayton      5,895   3,590
Buchanan      6,180   4,481
Delaware      6,608   3,280
Dubuque      26,263   26,541
Benton      9,165   5,307
Linn         56,243   69,391
Jones      6,621   4,242
Jackson      6,225   4,340
Clinton*      10,945   12,997    11,253   12,689
         144,781   142,673   145,089   142,365

         50.37%   49.63%   50.47%   49.53%

Clinton is asteriked as it was not in Fink's district so the first column is the results from Hart v. M-M and the second is a rough estimation of what it would look like if it were in Fink's seatbased on her usually running 1.2% behind Hart. Still, the Debuque and Cedar Falls seat would have been very close and IRL Fink might have pulled it out.

   M-M   Hart
Johnson    24,101     56,129
Cedar    5,534     4,629
Scott       24,487     37,333
Muscatine    10,279     9,731
Washington 6,633     4,650
Louisa    3,169     1,917
Jefferson    4,226     4,374
Henry    5,857     3,607
Des Moines 9,641     9,268
Lee       9,145     6,969
        103,072     138,607
       42.65%    57.35%
On the flip side Hart would have had a resounding victory against M-M in the Iowa City based seat. She would likely be in the House to this day.

edit: idk why the numbers are so curvy they're lined up perfectly in the text box

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https://davesredistricting.org/join/99497d6f-a0ae-4a6b-ad4e-b5f4cde541b8

So I did my own few attempts at Iowa and this was my favorite. It results in two districts that will usually elect democrats, one thats highly competitive, and one that is lean republican. I actually went on the Secy of State website and did the math for these districts.

             Hinson Fink
Winneshiek 6,041 5,807
Allamakee 4,595 2,697
Clayton 5,895 3,590
Buchanan 6,180 4,481
Delaware 6,608 3,280
Dubuque 26,263 26,541
Benton 9,165 5,307
Linn 56,243 69,391
Jones 6,621 4,242
Jackson 6,225 4,340
Clinton* 10,945 12,997 11,253 12,689
 144,781 142,673 145,089 142,365

 50.37% 49.63% 50.47% 49.53%

Clinton is asteriked as it was not in Fink's district so the first column is the results from Hart v. M-M and the second is a rough estimation of what it would look like if it were in Fink's seatbased on her usually running 1.2% behind Hart. Still, the Debuque and Cedar Falls seat would have been very close and IRL Fink might have pulled it out.

 M-M Hart
Johnson 24,101 56,129
Cedar 5,534 4,629
Scott 24,487 37,333
Muscatine 10,279 9,731
Washington 6,633 4,650
Louisa 3,169 1,917
Jefferson 4,226 4,374
Henry 5,857 3,607
Des Moines 9,641 9,268
Lee 9,145 6,969
 103,072 138,607
 42.65% 57.35%
On the flip side Hart would have had a resounding victory against M-M in the Iowa City based seat. She would likely be in the House to this day.

edit: idk why the numbers are so curvy they're lined up perfectly in the text box

That's funny because your districts are very similar to the ones I did for my map yesterday. Looks like we had the same ideas for the dem seats.

The Daveport-Iowa City seat is just so natural and works so well with this map that it's basically impossible to not include. I did draw a dem county compliant gerrymander and boy do I hate it. It should elect 3 democrats the majority of the time though.

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Gave AZ a go. Pretty happy with this.

How many hispanic majority seats are there?

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I randomly selected a state and got hawaii which also works very well with these numbers. It allows for the not-oahua islands to have a seat (blue) unto their own and a seat for ubran Oahu(green) and one for rural Oahu(purple).

The rural Oahu is interesting as it has seen some dramtic rightward trends in the last decade and could potentially have been a surprise pick up for republicans in 2022 with the right candidate, still it would have been a very longshot.




The new third would have been Hanabusa's seat. Patrick Branco might have it now.

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I randomly selected a state and got hawaii which also works very well with these numbers. It allows for the not-oahua islands to have a seat (blue) unto their own and a seat for ubran Oahu(green) and one for rural Oahu(purple).

The rural Oahu is interesting as it has seen some dramtic rightward trends in the last decade and could potentially have been a surprise pick up for republicans in 2022 with the right candidate, still it would have been a very longshot.




The new third would have been Hanabusa's seat. Patrick Branco might have it now.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but: aren't the non-Oahu islands 47K+ underpopulated and the Hawaii law that okay's greater deviations for island-based nesting only applies to the legislature?

You are right but I would imagine there would be a court case over the issue as without it applying to congressional district you would have to add a small part of Oahu to the district to equal it out - a proposition the outer islands and the residents of Oahu would probably be against. Especially if you have the right AG it would get approved under the courts as any alternative is worse. It also isn't as if this is trying to gerrymander seats, but just trying to make the best out of an awkward situation



This is probably what would happen is this hypothetical court battle is lost which imo is much worse from a COI and partisanship view. You *could* do as is currently done where most of the northern half is in the outerisland seat, but then the suburban/rural Oahu seat has to take in parts of Urban Honolulu and I do not think that should be done.

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Nebraska is a trickier question from a Republican perspective. On the one hand, Douglas County isn't that strongly Democratic. On the other hand, it's still large enough relative to other counties that it's hard to drown it out entirely. With four districts, splitting it between two districts just means that both are vulnerable in a wave and I don't think splitting it three ways is possible without the map looking stupid, especially since you also have to worry about Lincoln.

I think the easiest solution is to create one district that narrowly voted for Biden and three others which are safe, then hope Bacon can hold down that district. Something like this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/aff14830-3f67-4ad5-8511-163b6e0e86c6

Douglas and Sarpy couty have been shifting left fore a decade now, if I were NE Reps with this plan I would make an Omaha sink as in your plan theres a decenet chance both of these Omaha seats would be democratic by the end of the decade. I came up with this map to that affect. The Lincoln seat voted for Trump by just under ten points. It may become competitive, but it likely wont flip.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/835113b7-0626-4c91-ad3a-693a880fd7dc

EDIT:

By messing around with it some more and splitting up Lancaster county I was able to get three safe republican seats without it looking like a gerrymander. Both east seats Biden got around 40% in. Even in democrats best elections in the data it still doesn't break 45%. Interestingly the 3rd (Northeast) district has shifted right since the 2016/2012 PVI by about the same amount the 2nd (Southeast) shifted left. Both the 2nd and 3rd are R+13


https://davesredistricting.org/join/81cde134-0306-4264-bb1a-7fd287360dcf