Official 2021 Redistricting Thread

[Will Hunting]

We'll see. The NC legislature appealed to the SCOTUS that the state court system shouldn't be allowed to override state legislatures. The SCOTUS is fresh off hearing and voting in favor of the Alabama GOP case. That NC case, if the SCOTUS were to rule in favor of the NC GOP, would be an enormous staré decisis going forward and a devastating blow to state courts and Democrats in general across many states, especially critical states, including Ohio, Florida (to an extent), and possibly the state legislature's case in PA as well, even though the PA map isn't really that bad.

It's crunch time in the redistricting cycle right now and the victor of the 2021 redistricting cycle will hinge on getting either Kavanaugh (likely) or Roberts (less likely) to join the 4 solid R's in the SCOTUS to rule in favor of the GOP in the North Carolina case.

They want SCOTUS to effectively rule that state cons utions are pointless and that a state Supreme Court has no authority to act as a check and balance to make sure a legislature is acting within the bounds of the cons ution.

Somehow I’m not losing sleep over that going anywhere.

[Millennial_Messiah]

They want SCOTUS to effectively rule that state cons utions are pointless and that a state Supreme Court has no authority to act as a check and balance to make sure a legislature is acting within the bounds of the cons ution.

Somehow I’m not losing sleep over that going anywhere.

What SCOTUS can rule is that the state courts cannot have a say specifically on US congressional redistricting without adding in all that other pork about "no authority to act as a check and balance...." or "state cons utions are pointless". We've seen it before from the SCOTUS.

You and I were probably in the same boat about a month or two ago thinking that Alabama was actually going to get 2 blue districts. 2012 the prevailing notion was the ACA was going to get nixed... nope. SCOTUS is the factory of strange outcomes. And don't discount them simultaneously throwing out certain parts of VRA as pertaining to redistricting, which would give Florida legislature carte blanche to obliterate FL-05 like DeSantis wants for example. Dems would be thanking their lucky stars that the super red states down south already passed their new maps that are good for ten years.

[Will Hunting]

What SCOTUS can rule is that the state courts cannot have a say specifically on US congressional redistricting without adding in all that other pork about "no authority to act as a check and balance...." or "state cons utions are pointless". We've seen it before from the SCOTUS.

You and I were probably in the same boat about a month or two ago thinking that Alabama was actually going to get 2 blue districts. 2012 the prevailing notion was the ACA was going to get nixed... nope. SCOTUS is the factory of strange outcomes. And don't discount them simultaneously throwing out certain parts of VRA as pertaining to redistricting, which would give Florida legislature carte blanche to obliterate FL-05 like DeSantis wants for example. Dems would be thanking their lucky stars that the super red states down south already passed their new maps that are good for ten years.

Alabama was a VRA case. This case is about the most fundamental aspects of federalism.

You literally don’t know the difference between state courts and federal courts …just admit you have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s no rational basis for saying that a state Supreme Court has no power over redistricting but still has its power to enforce every other part of a state’s cons ution.

[Millennial_Messiah]

I spent all night trying to draw out Columbus using dave's redistricting tool
https://davesredistricting.org/ that Will Hunting shared, and I couldn't get better than a 14-2 map with a lean blue seat stretching from east Columbus all the way to eastern Ohio. Fml. Gerrymandering is hard. These guys that do gerrymandering in real life deserve the big bucks. It's really an art and a science.

[Will Hunting]

I spent all night trying to draw out Columbus using dave's redistricting tool
https://davesredistricting.org/ that Will Hunting shared, and I couldn't get better than a 14-2 map with a lean blue seat stretching from east Columbus all the way to eastern Ohio. Fml. Gerrymandering is hard. These guys that do gerrymandering in real life deserve the big bucks. It's really an art and a science.

I think you mean 13-2 and yes, that's the absolute best map that can be drawn for the GOP in Ohio.

OH also has several laws about county splitting so you can't really crack Columbus.

Honestly I've found figuring out the fairest way to draw a map is a lot harder than just drawing a partisan gerrymander most of the time.

[Will Hunting]

For example Millennial_Messiah I've spent god knows how much time trying to draw a perfectly fair Texas map and this is the latest version.

I think I've done a pretty good job isolating the major MSAs, but despite the fact I ing lived there for 5 years, I'm still struggling with the best way to draw DFW.

[Millennial_Messiah]

I think you mean 13-2 and yes, that's the absolute best map that can be drawn for the GOP in Ohio.

OH also has several laws about county splitting so you can't really crack Columbus.

Honestly I've found figuring out the fairest way to draw a map is a lot harder than just drawing a partisan gerrymander most of the time.

The guys who worked overtime to come up with the maps in Michigan, Colorado and Arizona this past year should get paid big bonuses imo.

(Yes I did mean 13-2, Ohio among others in the area lost an ECV)

For example Millennial_Messiah I've spent god knows how much time trying to draw a perfectly fair Texas map and this is the latest version.

I think I've done a pretty good job isolating the major MSAs, but despite the fact I ing lived there for 5 years, I'm still struggling with the best way to draw DFW.

Decent map - I count 15, maybe 16 blue districts?


As far as DFW goes, I've lived there 7 years... one thing you've got to consider is the north-Tarrant County / lower Denton County area (south of the universities... think North Fort Worth near Melody Hills, Keller, Southlake, Westlake, Northlake, Grapevine, Colleyville, Flower Mound, Argyle, etc... anywhere near Lake Lewisville) is EXTREMELY conservative, wealthy, upper class and very much proud of Texas, God, family and Trump. They're nothing like the pro-Democrat suburbanites of NoVA or the relatively laodicean Philly collar. they proudly wear MAGA stuff, right wing bumper stickers, don't tread on me stuff, lots to do with guns there. The way it's drawn right now that Kay Granger and Beth Van Duyne, two stalwart conservatives are representing... is completely fair.

On the other hand, I don't like how they drew most of Irving, a much more diverse and likely Democrat area, into district 6 which extends south all the way down into the Waxahachie area. Most of Dallas, excluding the SMU area, should be represented by a blue representative. Irving, Richardson, Mesquite, Balch Springs areas also come to mind that should be blue and not red. I actually think most of DFW drawn pretty fairly as is. Plano is pink trending purple because of all the immigrant workers once they get citizenship they will vote blue majority. But once you get to somewhere like Allen or McKinney or even Frisco or The Colony, you're back into MAGA territory.

I think the San Antonio being cracked is a bit ridiculous - I'm just outside of Bexar county in my childhood home in far eastern Medina county close to Sea World and I'm drawn into that enormous TX-23 district that usually goes GOP and expands all the way through the RGV to just east of El Paso. Tony Gonzales district. That sort of shape should be illegal unless there's really no other choice, but there really are other choices in that case.

Houston is a tough nugget because of VRA stuff. Austin you can either make 2 or 3 blue districts, you can lump liberal San Marcos into one, make one that's just Austin and then a swingy district that's trending bluer in Round Rock/Georgetown.

[Millennial_Messiah]

OH also has several laws about county splitting so you can't really crack Columbus.

Columbus has currently the highest rate of growth in terms of population and high-paying jobs in the entire Midwest currently, followed behind by Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Aside: that MI-03 district will need to be shrunk big time in 2030.) Back to Ohio, most of them that are moving in to Columbus are young and white (blue majority moving in; only area of Ohio that's actually trending blue is Franklin and Delaware counties which comprise the Columbus metro) and not enough blacks there so no VRA protection. So pretty soon they won't have a choice but to crack Franklin County, but in any case it'd be take an awfully extreme dummymander to draw out the Democrat in bent there.

By 2030 Columbus and Grand Rapids will be seen as the tech epicenters of the upper midwest, the tech-happy places like Austin, Raleigh/Durham NC, little Silicon Valley type places everyone young wants to move to... completely leaving their rust belt counterpart former anchors in the state like Cleveland and Detroit behind.

[Will Hunting]

Decent map - I count 15, maybe 16 blue districts?

It's not nearly done yet, still need to finish most of DFW and Harris County.

[Will Hunting]

Here is how I drew DFW (the DFW counties have almost exactly enough people for 10 congressional districts so that part works out well.

The DFW area was also almost exactly 50/50 between Biden and Trump, so a fair map has 5 Biden and 5 Trump districts, the issue there is that you have GOP voters crammed into the exurb counties so the geography for Republicans isn't great.

6/26/5 are the 3 deep red exurb districts.
30 is the black VRA district.
33 picks of the working class Hispanic areas in West of Dallas (South Irving, Grand Prairie, South Arlington)
32 picks of the working class areas East of Dallas (Mesquite, Garland, etc.)
3 has a goofy shape but the goal was to create a district for white voters in Dallas County + Plano.
12 actually gives Ft. Worth its own district as oppose to the way it's currently chopped up
24/25 are supposed to be the districts for red, affluent midcities suburbs. They show as compe ive on this map, but they both have a ton of down ballot R voters so I don't think they would be.

[Millennial_Messiah]

Will Hunting Solid content, tbh keep it coming.

IMO they should do this every 4 or 5 years because the timing of who is governor or who is on either court system etc just often makes it unfair to do it for a whole decade.

[Millennial_Messiah]

Here is how I drew DFW (the DFW counties have almost exactly enough people for 10 congressional districts so that part works out well.

The DFW area was also almost exactly 50/50 between Biden and Trump, so a fair map has 5 Biden and 5 Trump districts, the issue there is that you have GOP voters crammed into the exurb counties so the geography for Republicans isn't great.

6/26/5 are the 3 deep red exurb districts.
30 is the black VRA district.
33 picks of the working class Hispanic areas in West of Dallas (South Irving, Grand Prairie, South Arlington)
32 picks of the working class areas East of Dallas (Mesquite, Garland, etc.)
3 has a goofy shape but the goal was to create a district for white voters in Dallas County + Plano.
12 actually gives Ft. Worth its own district as oppose to the way it's currently chopped up
24/25 are supposed to be the districts for red, affluent midcities suburbs. They show as compe ive on this map, but they both have a ton of down ballot R voters so I don't think they would be.

Everything makes so much sense here. And the affluent North part of Fort Worth is kept red (24). If you found a way to put the city of Denton (120K population, 1 major state flagship university and 1 other decent sized vast-majority-female university) in 25 instead of 26, you could make it a pure swing district.

Also, solid job on extending the 3rd district from SMU to Plano but cir venting the ghetto areas between it. They belong in (32) in that map and it shows.

Only thing is I'd probably extend 24 westward at least to I-35. That Northern Fort Worth area has the same demography as Keller, Southlake, etc.

[Millennial_Messiah]

Here's my Ohio maps and breakdown that I spent 2 days working on.






Self Analysis:
OH-01 is shored up to R+20 and includes all of downtown Cincinnati.
OH-02 is also R+20 and includes all of East Cincinnati (including all of the black-majority areas).
OH-03 is Columbus plus a couple close-in Democrat voting suburbs, and D+53.
OH-04 is Jim Jordan's district, R+21, rightfully so since he is the leader there; he gets mostly rural areas and a chunk of suburban Columbus.
OH-05 is R+19, includes the clay-soil Northwest Ohio region, with some towns and most of Toledo to show for it.
OH-06 is based in Youngstown, is just over R+10 but should expand on that margin as that area continues to trend red.
OH-07 is R+12 and includes Akron and southern suburbs of Cleveland.
OH-08 includes the northeastern chunk of Cincinnati, Kings Island, and many of the northeastern I-71 area suburbs. It is over R+24, the safest (R) district on the map.
OH-09 is R+14 and captures much of the Lake Erie coast of Ohio, with slightly liberal towns like Lorain, Sandusky and East Toledo included. It includes some Delaware County suburbs so it might trend bluer.
OH-10 includes all of Dayton and is R+11. Nothing much to say there.
OH-11 is Cleveland and is D+59, not much to say there either.
OH-12 is R+11 and is based in Canton and southwards towards much of the rural inner part of the state.
OH-13 is also R+11 and includes the western Cleveland suburbs all the way down the highway corridor to near Columbus.
OH-14 is only R+9 for the moment, but the area is 87.2% white and trending redder as we know, so it should solidify over the years.
OH-15 is another rural district that includes Athens (Ohio University) and southern GOP-leaning Columbus suburbs. It is a R+19 district.

[Will Hunting]

Everything makes so much sense here. And the affluent North part of Fort Worth is kept red (24). If you found a way to put the city of Denton (120K population, 1 major state flagship university and 1 other decent sized vast-majority-female university) in 25 instead of 26, you could make it a pure swing district.

Also, solid job on extending the 3rd district from SMU to Plano but cir venting the ghetto areas between it. They belong in (32) in that map and it shows.

Only thing is I'd probably extend 24 westward at least to I-35. That Northern Fort Worth area has the same demography as Keller, Southlake, etc.

I kept Denton in 26 just to make sure 25 stayed red but yeah, it'd definitely make more sense to be in 25. Same reason I didn't extend 24 west, that would mean 26 is pulling red areas from 25 and making 25 bluer, and I was aiming for a 5-5 map.

I'm trying to draw the Houston MSA now and it ing sucks

[Will Hunting]

Here's my Ohio maps and breakdown that I spent 2 days working on.






Self Analysis:
OH-01 is shored up to R+20 and includes all of downtown Cincinnati.
OH-02 is also R+20 and includes all of East Cincinnati (including all of the black-majority areas).
OH-03 is Columbus plus a couple close-in Democrat voting suburbs, and D+53.
OH-04 is Jim Jordan's district, R+21, rightfully so since he is the leader there; he gets mostly rural areas and a chunk of suburban Columbus.
OH-05 is R+19, includes the clay-soil Northwest Ohio region, with some towns and most of Toledo to show for it.
OH-06 is based in Youngstown, is just over R+10 but should expand on that margin as that area continues to trend red.
OH-07 is R+12 and includes Akron and southern suburbs of Cleveland.
OH-08 includes the northeastern chunk of Cincinnati, Kings Island, and many of the northeastern I-71 area suburbs. It is over R+24, the safest (R) district on the map.
OH-09 is R+14 and captures much of the Lake Erie coast of Ohio, with slightly liberal towns like Lorain, Sandusky and East Toledo included. It includes some Delaware County suburbs so it might trend bluer.
OH-10 includes all of Dayton and is R+11. Nothing much to say there.
OH-11 is Cleveland and is D+59, not much to say there either.
OH-12 is R+11 and is based in Canton and southwards towards much of the rural inner part of the state.
OH-13 is also R+11 and includes the western Cleveland suburbs all the way down the highway corridor to near Columbus.
OH-14 is only R+9 for the moment, but the area is 87.2% white and trending redder as we know, so it should solidify over the years.
OH-15 is another rural district that includes Athens (Ohio University) and southern GOP-leaning Columbus suburbs. It is a R+19 district.

Can you post it with the county lines overlayed?

Ohio has a rule that each district needs either be entirely contained within one county or it needs to occupy an entire county, and there's also limits to how much county splitting is allowed in total.

[Will Hunting]

It also looks like you split Cleveland and Cincinnati. Neither city can be split under the OH cons ution.

Very specific and arbitrary, but for every county large enough for an entire congressional district, the largest city in that county can't be split if the city itself has less people than what's required for a district (you can split Columbus since it has enough people).

Also you can divide 18 counties 2-ways and 5 counties 3-ways in total, you can't split any counties 4-ways and that's the maximum amount of splitting you're allowed to do.

[Millennial_Messiah]

Can you post it with the county lines overlayed?

Ohio has a rule that each district needs either be entirely contained within one county or it needs to occupy an entire county, and there's also limits to how much county splitting is allowed in total.

Yeah I can do that. I guess in this case the only ones that would be relevant are Columbus and Cleveland, since I gerrymandered Cincinnati. I didn't take any of OH-03 out of Franklin County or any of OH-11 out of Cuyahoga (I actually just left that one as-is as per the previous map). Really no reason to anyways. But all of Franklin County is much more populous than just one district, so each of its adjacent districts got a chunk of the outer portion of the district. I tried to pick D+ precincts within Franklin County only for OH-03 while still keeping the district contiguous.

It also looks like you split Cleveland and Cincinnati. Neither city can be split under the OH cons ution.

Very specific and arbitrary, but for every county large enough for an entire congressional district, the largest city in that county can't be split if the city itself has less people than what's required for a district (you can split Columbus since it has enough people).

Also you can divide 18 counties 2-ways and 5 counties 3-ways in total, you can't split any counties 4-ways and that's the maximum amount of splitting you're allowed to do.

I didn't crack Cleveland. I actually just used the already-proposed OH-11 district. Even if the VRA didn't exist, I'd never crack Cleveland as it would be a big dummymander.

I did however carve up Cincinnati like a Thanksgiving turkey the population is 301k so you could probably draw a red district with all of it but it wouldn't be safe red like the 3 districts I made out of it. If I were on the state legislature I'd nix the "can't crack a city" law and if they protested I'd tell them to go to a Skyline or a Gold Star and eat Cincinnati chili.

I made the maps with basic understanding of VRA and the fact that all districts must be contiguous and have equal population, that's it. I didn't even crack most of the cities, just Cincinnati and Toledo.

[Will Hunting]

Yeah I can do that. I guess in this case the only ones that would be relevant are Columbus and Cleveland, since I gerrymandered Cincinnati. I didn't take any of OH-03 out of Franklin County or any of OH-11 out of Cuyahoga (I actually just left that one as-is as per the previous map). Really no reason to anyways. But all of Franklin County is much more populous than just one district, so each of its adjacent districts got a chunk of the outer portion of the district. I tried to pick D+ precincts within Franklin County only for OH-03 while still keeping the district contiguous.


I didn't crack Cleveland. I actually just used the already-proposed OH-11 district.

I did however carve up Cincinnati like a Thanksgiving turkey the population is 301k so you could probably draw a red district with all of it but it wouldn't be safe red like the 3 districts I made out of it. If I were on the state legislature I'd nix the "can't crack a city" law and if they protested I'd tell them to go to a Skyline or a Gold Star and eat Cincinnati chili.

I made the maps with basic understanding of VRA and the fact that all districts must be contiguous and have equal population, that's it. I didn't even crack most of the cities, just Cincinnati and Toledo.

You also can't make it so two districts are sharing portions of >1 county which I can tell your map does in a lot of places

The only VRA consideration in OH is the Cleveland district which is taken care of by Ohio's gerrymandering rules, no other district in OH has any VRA protection.

[Millennial_Messiah]

You also can't make it so two districts are sharing portions of >1 county which I can tell your map does in a lot of places

The only VRA consideration in OH is the Cleveland district which is taken care of by Ohio's gerrymandering rules, no other district in OH has any VRA protection.

yep. Neither Cincinnati nor Columbus, though they have a sizeable black population, have a black plurality unlike Cleveland.

Most of the VRA districts scattered throughout the country are untouchable even if the VRA was repealed, because of this thing called dummymandering. There's a few out there that are exceptions like in NC-01, GA-02 and the one Desantis is trying to fight in FL-05.

[Will Hunting]

yep. Neither Cincinnati nor Columbus, though they have a sizeable black population, have a black plurality unlike Cleveland.

Most of the VRA districts scattered throughout the country are untouchable even if the VRA was repealed, because of this thing called dummymandering. There's a few out there that are exceptions like in NC-01, GA-02 and the one Desantis is trying to fight in FL-05.

There's quite a bit. The black districts in LA, MS & AL would all get gutted without the VRA imo.

[Will Hunting]

Also in a 4-3 ruling, the WI supreme court has accepted Evers' maps over the state leg maps.

This isn't that big of a W since the maps Evers submitted were status quo maps that still favor the GOP, but if the WI supreme court accepted the state leg maps it would have been a permanent super majority for the GOP in the state leg, while Evers' maps keep WI-3 and WI-1 compe ive. The state legislature's proposed congressional map would have locked in a 6-2 map, even in a Dem waive year.

[Millennial_Messiah]

There's quite a bit. The black districts in LA, MS & AL would all get gutted without the VRA imo.

They'd get gutted for sure, but there'd be an opportunity for the Dems to win multiple pickups in a blue wave year. You'd be throwing out a D+60 type seat and creating a bunch of safe-but-not-wave-year-immune (R) districts. For example, while cracking Nashville was a slam dunk, there's no practical way to crack Memphis without turning ruby red seats pink.

Also in a 4-3 ruling, the WI supreme court has accepted Evers' maps over the state leg maps.

This isn't that big of a W since the maps Evers submitted were status quo maps that still favor the GOP, but if the WI supreme court accepted the state leg maps it would have been a permanent super majority for the GOP in the state leg, while Evers' maps keep WI-3 and WI-1 compe ive. The state legislature's proposed congressional map would have locked in a 6-2 map, even in a Dem waive year.

I saw that on 538 today. I don't like it; the other map looked prettier and less gerrymandered. But it is really a moot point because the other (better) map only shored up the Driftless and Kenosha-Racine seats by a couple points each. They were just fairer-shaped and fairer overall; for example, the Evers map/2020 map includes a chunk of southern Milwaukee in the SE WI pink district, which is just stupid. The driftless district is shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece in Evers's map while it more resembles a square in the other proposed map.

It's not going to matter because it's a state trending red and geography is just bad for Dems there just like in PA. Just like geography is terrible for the GOP in a place like Massachusetts or California. It's going to be 6-2 GOP even in Democrat wave years because the state is trending a pretty hard right especially in those two specific districts that are currently pink.

[Will Hunting]

They'd get gutted for sure, but there'd be an opportunity for the Dems to win multiple pickups in a blue wave year. You'd be throwing out a D+60 type seat and creating a bunch of safe-but-not-wave-year-immune (R) districts. For example, while cracking Nashville was a slam dunk, there's no practical way to crack Memphis without turning ruby red seats pink.

They wouldn't crack Memphis because it's in the corner of the state; geographically difficult.

AL and MS are easy to crack though. LA is trickier because it's a dense urban population, but AL/MS can get cracked and there wouldn't even be any purple seats.

[Millennial_Messiah]

Will Hunting just finished dinner and , will now proceed to draw a new ohio map given your posted requirements

[Millennial_Messiah]

Trying to find a way to make a Democrat district out of Dayton, but it's not really possible with the Ohio rules. . Only way that would be possible is carrying the Dayton county (Montgomery) on a thin line all the way to Columbus and taking a big bite out of Columbus... but that's not really good because it jeopardizes having 2 democrat likely seats in the Columbus metro.