Awesome!

As a Marylander, I'm proud of you!

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by: davybaby @ Fri Sep 11, 2009 at 23:39:56 PM CDT

I'm usually against nakedly partisan gerrymander

but after seeing this map I say go for it! I would be thrilled to see Maryland get a safe 8-0, but with much cleaner-looking congressional districts than we currently have.

25, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 00:57:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I love that you stuck Andy Harris in a black-majority district

The green district looks unnecessarily complicated. Would you consider trading the green parts of PG, Howard, and AA for the purple parts of Balt City and northern Balt County? I hope that works, for population. Then you would get a Baltimore-centric district and a Howard-centric district.

25, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 00:43:12 AM CDT

but ..

it would not get you 58%+ Obama in all districts, and would not be as incumbent-friendly.

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 09:04:24 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

giving metro-DC more political power

Currently only 3 Maryland Congressmen represent Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties. This plan will make it 6. It will be interesting to see how that changes things. I have a feeling Baltimore, used to being at the center of state politics, won't like it.

25, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 00:55:43 AM CDT

yes, but ..

under this map, the state is still split into basically 4-Balto. based districts (1,2,3,7) and 4-DC suburbs based ones (4,5,6,8).  The MD-3 part in Montg. Co. is only 18% of the pop. of MD-3, while the MD-2 part in PG Co. is only 30% of the pop. of MD-2.

Additionally, you can argue that MD-1 is now more "Baltimore-based" than before, thus giving Baltimore an ADDITIONAL voice (as MD-2, 3, and 7 continue to be Baltimore-based -- city and its immediate surroundings).

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:53:37 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I would have said the 2002 map

was a brilliant Democratic gerrymander, the way they packed Republicans in the western and eastern parts of the state, guaranteeing Democrats 6 of 8 seats.  But this is truly astounding.  Lumping the panhandle in with Montgomery and snaking the Eastern Shore into Baltimore gives us 8 solid seats.  With Republican strength collapsing in Maryland, there's no reason we shouldn't go for that.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Maryland Dems shore up Kratovil's seat in 2012 (and despite what others are predicting, I don't see Andy Harris coming back to beat him next year).  However, I don't expect them to go out of their way to bounce Bartlett, unless he retires, in which case they may decide to go aggressive on MD-08.

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by: skaje @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 01:54:44 AM CDT

With this map in 2002

Morella would have beaten Van Hollen. Van Hollen can win easily in this MD-08, but to Morella had been winning elections with Democratic votes for years. We needed a ridiculously strong Democratic district to unseat her.

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by: davybaby @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:29:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

exactly ...

but we don't need it anymore ...

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:55:14 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Perfect

This is perfect.  The Republicans wouldn't stand a chance in any of these districts.  Even district 1, which would be the least Democratic of the 8, would still have a Cook PVI of D+5.

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by: D_user1 @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 02:36:32 AM CDT

East looks gerrymandered as hell

Maybe you could try giving the Southern half of the Eastern Shore to District 5, giving the rest of Cecil to District 1, giving District 8 some more of Baltimore City, and then shifting everything else down. I haven't tried it, but I think it would retain the same majorities but look prettier.

I think we all agree on the West, and I think, overall, this is a good model. It's just a matter of playing around with it a little in the city to give the map some flow.

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by: xcave @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:41:56 AM CDT

from what I understand

Dem. legislators in MD have historically loathed the idea of splitting the Eastern Shore, so politically that would probably be a no go.  I took a lot of different considerations- incl. political - when drawing this.  

But you're right on the mechanics -- such a plan could indeed be "prettier".

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:46:54 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

and also I think..

Kratovil would not appreciate the E SHore split like you suggest; I tried to make the map in a way where I think each Dem.. incumbent would be (relatively) happy w/ the way it's drawn.

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 09:01:17 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Why not have MD-01 cross the water into Baltimore?

That's no more screwed up than the current map...

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by: JimM @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 17:32:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

using Dave's application

I drew several dozen possibilities for a remap and several included crossing over the bay directly into Baltimore.  The problem is, it's hard to then draw other districts around it, since what really makes the new MD-1 as Dem. as it now becomes, is the western Balto. Co. part (African-Am. suburbs like Woodlawn, Lochearn, Randallstown, Milford Mill, etc.), NOT the Balto City part.... so if you draw directly across the bay to include parts of Balto City and then, necessarily, western Balto Co., you would have to draw some extreme gerrymanders (much more so than anything on this map) to then extend Sarbanes and Ruppersberger's bases in northern Baltimore Co. around the other side of the city ... bottom line, as gerrymandered as this map is, if you want MD-1 to be as Dem. (58% Obama) this is the "path of least resistance" so to speak; the alternative would be much more grotesque looking, despite initially seeming to be the best path.  

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 18:12:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Annapolis to MD-1?

Hoyer's never represented it before AFAIK (MD-05 starts on the other side of the South River) and he doesn't need it.

You could probably cut out the Baltimore City part of MD-01, since, as you rightly note, it's the Baltimore County portion that blues up the district much more. (That might still drop the Obama share a touch below 58% since the surrounding area is GOP-friendly even if Annapolis itself if Democratic.)

The district's in three pieces as it is, one of those in Anne Arundel and is not connected by the Bay Bridge. That area is very Republican and supported Harris, so you're right to have it buried by a big chunk of PG County.  

 

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by: Answer Guy @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 18:36:47 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't see how Kratovil can claim to be as fiscally conservative

While representing a (I'm assuming) relatively liberal area of Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

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by: mahimahi1414 @ Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 21:03:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's how they do it in Texas!

Nice work - that's how they do it in Texas!

A couple comments/suggestions -

1) It looks like you have a significant number of non-African American majority Baltimore City precincts in the 7th, and the same thing with the 4th district in the area around College Park. If some of those could be given up to other districts and the 4th and 7th could take on a few more Republican precincts, while remaining majority black, that might be a slight improvement and create a cascade to make the rest of the districts a tad more Democratic. Or maybe you already have it pretty much maximized?

2) If the 2nd traded its part of Prince George's County the 1st's bit of Baltimore City, would that retain partisan balance? That might be tough to draw without using touch-point contiguity though.

3) A general point on splitting the Eastern Shore - perhaps MD-1 could lose Cecil County entirely since that is not completely Eastern Shore. That would allow Kratovil to give up at least a bit more GOP territory without "splitting the Eastern Shore." E.G. you could trade Cecil County for Annapolis, even if you keep Kratovil's section of Baltimore as it is.

I did something similar to your map, but I don't have partisan data for it:

The main differences I see are:

1) I kept Frederick County whole in the 6th but took what I think are more Democratic parts of Montgomery County just outside DC. (My version of the 6th runs along the edge of the Potomac through Montgomery picking up literally no people until it gets close to DC). Would that be enough to compensate for not splitting Frederick?

2) CD-2 is a bit more focused on Baltimore, while CD-3 is a bit more focused on Howard, but Towson/North Baltimore City still remain with CD-3.

3) CD-1 crosses the Bay Bridge at Annapolis and moves into Prince George's instead of going into Baltimore. Not sure whether this would make it as Democratic as your version. ?

4) My CD-7 is 50% Black and 44% White, and my CD-4 is 50% Black, 37% White, and 8% Hispanic.

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by: MattTX2 @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 10:52:40 AM CDT

thanks ...

you bring up some good points ...

in Balto City, only 19 out of 201 precincts in the new MD-7 are white majority, and about half of those are in the Hampden to Guilford area that connects the two bigger parts of MD-7 in the eastern and western parts of the city; some of those could indeed be given up, but not sure if you could make an "even exchange" w/ more GOP areas, as many of the white-majority precincts in the city still contain sizable numbers of Afr.-Am., while the exurban GOP precincts contain almost none ... so the end result would be (impermissibly) a district less than 50% black .. I've done multiple versions of this map (using  Dave's application is SO much easier than doing it the other way !) and like you say, it is basically maximized in Balto. City.

in PG, it's kind of counterintuitive to include areas like College Park, University Park,etc. into MD-4, but if you had those areas in neighboring districts, they would actually make those less Dem. b/c the Dem. % there is not as high as some of the Afr.-Am. precincts included into the neighboring districts .. in other words, MD-4 is made as low Afr.-Am. as possible, since it still comes out hyper-Democratic even w/ only 50%+ 1 black pop. .. ideally, I would have MD-4 at only around 45% black ... due to the particulars of the area, a black Dem. Representative would still be guaranteed under a 45% district, but b/c of VRA, I made it 50%+. now you could, for. ex. add College PArk into MD-2 and take out Linthicum/Brooklyn Pk. area in no. AA CO. and make MD-2 more Dem., but that would screw up contiguity, so in that sense, this area is "maximized" as well. ... that brings us to your 2nd point -- and I see the reasoning behind not including PG in MD-2 in the first place, but it is a matter of contiguity AND (to me,most importantly) keeping all districts balanced at 58%+ (which was harder than imagined; kind of like whack-a-mole when doing the design process, you change one part, and then another part necessarily changes b/c of equal pop.) ...

I think I saw your map earlier w/ MD-1 crossing over the bay into Annapolis and PG co. I thought it was a very, very good map.  you could probably come up with similar % if MD-1 pushed enough into PG Co., but not sure how the DC suburban/western MD districts would be affected (?) my MD-4 and MD-7 have almost the exact % of white/black/hisp. you have, btw .

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by: silver spring @ Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 18:53:30 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

how do you

put pictures into these diaries?  I can't figure it out, and I've got a redistricting diary I want to post but it's no good without pics.

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13

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by: StephenCLE @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 10:13:23 AM CDT

Use an external image host

There are several free ones.  

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by: andgarden @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 10:24:28 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Did you pay attention to where incumbents live?

If you lump two D incumbents' home towns they won't like it.  Van Hollen would be a resident of District 6 by this map, instead of his current District 8, so he would likely be the one to challenge Bartlett in this scenario.  Would they both be marked on sample ballots as incumbents?

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by: albert @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 10:37:28 AM CDT

Residency

Strictly speaking, you can run in a district you don't live in, as long as you're already a resident of the same state. Especially after redistrictings, incumbents run for office all the time in districts that no longer include their own home. (They usually end up moving to somewhere inside the borders of their new district.)

While it generally hurts one's election prospects to not live within the district borders....it probably wouldn't be a big deal here. That part of Montgomery County is pretty heavy with transplants who aren't going to care about candidates hurling "carpetbagger" accusations and with those lines aren't going to see any huge contrasts, and most Western Marylanders would probably want to vote for his opponent anyway, just as indifferent to what side of the line Van Hollen's home is on.  

Of course I forget which MoCo suburb Van Hollen lives in, but it wouldn't be too hard to tweak the MD-06/MD-08 border a little bit to accommodate him if anything like this map got drawn.
 

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by: Answer Guy @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 11:25:09 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't think so

Van Hollen lives in Kensington.

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by: davybaby @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 11:26:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

no, Van Hollen

lives in Kensington, which is in MD-8 on this map (I made sure all Dems. homes were in their respective districts, but just as important -- made sure that a huge chunk of the territory they currently represent remains in the new districts; it may not necessarily look like it when you look at the map, but population-wise, they all get to keep much of their current constituency)

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by: silver spring @ Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 13:48:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

OK, good.

I live just outside of Kensington, myself.  I just couldn't tell from the map which side of the line you had us on.  In fact, since I am just outside, I still might be over your line.

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by: albert @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 08:18:14 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I like this work

Very good work.

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by: abgin @ Tue Nov 10, 2009 at 06:39:55 AM CST