My attempt at redistricting Illinois and not doing a very good job.
I love playing with Dave’s App and I love redistricting Illinois. Please don’t shred me to pieces redistricting people! Teach me.
Also this does not take into account incumbents.
CD 1
Blue
Wh(34.6%); Bl(49.7%); Hisp(12.8%)
I’m sure it can be tweaked a little bit to make it completely majority black.
CD 2
Green
Wh(37.4%); Bl(55.9%); Hisp(4.2%)
CD 3
Purple
Wh(67.8%); Bl(20.8%); Hisp(8.9%)
CD 4
Red
Wh(20.1%); Bl(9.9%); Hisp(64.6%)
CD 5
Yellow
Wh(71.8%); Bl(7.5%); Hisp(16.9%)
CD 6
Teal
Wh(63.4%); Bl(7.5%); Hisp(21.9%)
CD 7
Silver
Wh(46.7%); Bl(35.7%); Hisp(11.4%)
CD 8
Slate Blue
Wh(38.1%); Bl(5.7%); Hisp(50.6)
CD 9
Cyan
Wh(66.3%); Bl(4.1%); Hisp(15.8%)
CD 10
Deep Pink
Wh(67.3%); Bl(8.7%); Hisp(12.2%)
1. You have a lot of people still in “district 0”. If you expand the “tools” bar at the top, there is a button marked “find unassigned districts” and when clicked will zoom in on them one at a time.
2. It looks like you’re trying to create a bunch of Dem districts by unpacking Chicago but it’s hard to tell without ethnic data for the districts and 2008 county vote data. The only two obviously red districts are the light-brown one on the west side and the light green one in the south. I’m not sure about the neon-green one north of St. Louis or the dark purple one next to it.
given the following
1) Dems control everything
BUT
2) Chicago lost population… and the suburbs boomed
3) but almost all the suburban boom has been Hispanic migrants.
It would help to have partisan numbers in Dave’s redistricting application before the State Legislature starts the ball rolling on redistricting, which will be as early as next month if news reports are to be believed. (Under state law they have to have a redistricting law signed before July 1 before it falls to a non-partisan commission to draw the map, with the infamous name drawn out of the Abe Lincoln stovepipe hat). Yes, we indeed do things really funny in the Land of Lincoln!!
But in the meantime, I am playing with Obama 08 and Quinn 10 numbers. That gives a very good Democratic year where Democrats overperformed in the suburbs, and a very good Republican year, where Quinn won entirely because of Chicago and lost badly (but not too badly) in the burbs. I think averaging the two will give a rough approximation of Democratic strength out in the burbs (or at least the range of possible outcomes).
I think given that Chicago has lost population, and particularly teh South Side and the West Side, and given the need to probably draw two Hispanic VRA seats, a 12-6 or at most a 13-5 map is the most we can hope for. Even a 12-6 map would still mean four more seats than Democrats currently hold, which would be a mean achievement. But I am going to try for a 13-5 (Shimkus/Johnson in the south), (Schock/Tea Party guy who took over the 17th), Manzullo/Tea Party guy who took out Melissa Bean, put a fourth district going from Urbana-Champaign north to outer Chicago exurbs to grab all those Republican voters, and a 5th district in Du Page. Then I think if you create a cities district linking Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, and U-C you have a new Democratic seat in the central part of the state. Ditto with Rock Island and Rockford. And then you can have fingers reaching out to DeKalb and NIU, Aurora could be put into the new 2nd Hispanic seat so not to weaken Lipinski (who has to be favored by Madigan so he will get treated with kid gloves), and then you could give Elgin to a new seat going to Waukegan to elect Melissa Bean if she wants to come back.