The Michigan Republicans are in the enviable position of controlling the governor’s office and both houses of the legislature, as they were back in 2001. The state has a fairly restrictive redistricting law that stresses respecting city and county boundaries and forbids really abusive gerrymanders, so the state’s districts will probably look more or less like they do on the current map, which is Republican-friendly but has nothing outrageous.
The state will lose one of its seats, and like most people I assume that they will throw Dem incumbents Gary Peters and Sander Levin into one district. Most of the population losses have been in the inner Detroit area, and they probably can’t mess with Hansen Clarke’s MI13 or John Conyers’ MI14 too much as it is easy to draw two compact majority-black districts for them. The Republicans must face a major decision: do they try to hold all 9 seats they currently have and risk losing a bunch of them in a blue wave year, or do they sacrifice one of them to shore up some of the others? They have one glaring problem: Ingham county. As in Ohio, the seat of state government and a huge public university create a big blue menace in the middle of a bunch of Republican-held districts. Obama won it by 50k votes, about 2-1. Michigan Reeps attached it to Republican areas further east in Mike Rogers’ MI8, thus creating two swing districts instead of one red one and one blue one. This worked out for them except in 2008 when Mark Schauer took MI7 south of Lansing from Tim Walberg. Maximizing the number of winnable districts worked well for the Reeps for most of the 00s, and for that reason I expect them to try it again. However, the state as a whole has been trending blue for some time and I think they would have an easier time holding the House if they try to push up their floor instead of their ceiling. So here are two scenarios: one in which they sacrifice a seat in the Lansing area and one in which they try to hold everything.
Scenario 1: Throw Walberg under the bus!
Here they create a Democratic sink in the Lansing area primarily from Walberg’s district to make things easier for Rogers and Justin Amash. The state map:
Everything north of the top edge is in Dan Benishek’s MI1. The Detroit-area closeup:
Notes on districts follow. In each case O or M followed by a number indicates Obama’s or McCains’s 2008 margin in thousands of votes.
MI1 (blue): Loses Arenac and Gladwin which combined are O1, and the northern part of Bay which is probably more like those two counties than the rest of Bay, which was O9 overall. Gains Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, and Leelanau which collectively are M1. There isn’t much opportunity for mischief here since the district is shoved into the northern end of the state and the northern lower peninsula has very few counties where either candidate won by as much as 10%. It would still be R+3.
MI2 (green): Rookie Bill Huizenga’s district loses Benzie and northern Allegan and gains suburban and exurban precincts north of Grand Rapids. The current district is the reddest in the state at R+7 and this would not change much.
MI3 (purple): Amash’s district will probably be pushed south to some extent as MI1 needs to expand, which will likely push MI2 into MI3. Here the lost northern suburbs and exurbs are replaced with most of Allegan, which was M6 (roughly R+9). The current district is R+6 and the new one would likely be about the same.
MI4 (red): Dave Camp is the chair of the Ways and Means committee and I think the Reeps will ensure that his district, currently just R+3, is not weakened. Here it swaps out marginal areas near Traverse City with similar areas near Saginaw Bay (see MI1 above), loses a few (bluish?) precincts near Saginaw, and picks up O0 (that’s Obama by less than 500 votes, roughly R+3) Clinton and the southern part of O3 Shiawassee.
MI5 (yellow): Dale Kildee’s district will be pushed east if Levin and Peters are thrown together. The thumb has to go somewhere, and it can’t stay in Candice Miller’s MI10. Here it loses (bluish?) suburbs and exurbs south of Flint, and gains M1 Huron, M2 Sanilac, and most of O2 St.Clair. This district is currently D+11 and would probably be D+9 or D+10 under the proposed map. It serves the same purpose: a blue sink with Flint, Saginaw, and Bay City.
MI6 (teal): Fred Upton’s district makes up for the loss of much of Allegan with M1 Branch and M2 (roughly R+10) Hillsdale, along with less-populated parts of purple Lenawee. Overall PVI of zero before and after. Kalamazoo (O25, D+7) is this district’s big problem, but you may not be able to legally make a blue sink that takes in both Lansing and Kalamazoo.
MI7 (gray): Here we create a blue sink from what used to be Walberg’s R+2 district. He loses Branch, Hillsdale, Lenawee, and purplish areas of Washtenaw and gets stuck with O49 (D+13) Ingham. The new MI7 also has O5 (D+1) Eaton, O6 (D+1) Calhoun, O2 (R+2) Jackson, and the west end of Washtenaw. Obama won the whole thing by at least 60k, and it’s hopeless for a Republican. Joe Schwarz might be able to lose respectably here, but he wouldn’t be able to win.
MI8 (blue-gray): Rogers moves east, ridding himself of Ingham, Clinton, and southern Shiawassee and swaps in M1 (R+5) Lapeer and suburban/exurban parts of Oakland, Washtenaw, and Genesee. The district’s new areas are less red than M13 (R+10) Livingston, but it’s likely R+6 to R+8 overall whereas the current MI8 is just R+2.
MI9 (toothpaste blue): What’s left after you merge Peters and Levin is another blue sink with blue pieces of southern Oakland and Macomb. For what it’s worth Levin lives here and Peters doesn’t.
MI10 (pink): Miller has to pick up some vacated areas from the current MI9 and MI12, and she gets Rochester Hills, much of Troy, Mt. Clemens, and part of Sterling Heights. This area is probably less safe overall than the reddish areas of the thumb that she has to vacate, and I suspect that the district’s PVI would drop from R+5 to R+3 or R+4. But there isn’t much of an alternative if you want to merge Levin and Peters.
MI11 (pea soup green): Thad McCotter’s district moves east but retains its base in northwestern Wayne County. In Wayne, it drops Belleville and blue Redford and picks up Dearborn Heights. In Oakland, he keeps Novi and not much else, losing the exurban western areas to MI8 and picking up Waterford and the (more problematic?) West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills from MI9. The current MI11 has a PVI of zero and I suspect the new changes would be about a wash. I think the biggest problem with the new MI11 is that is Peters lives there. Having MI8 reach down to pick up W. Bloomfield might violate the compactness or community of interest provisions of the redistricting law, although it might be feasible to swap some northern parts of Oakland county for pieces of Washtenaw and Livingston that I have going into MI8.
MI12 (lighter blue-gray): John Dingell’s old MI15 moves slightly west, but still contains Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and is therefore a blue fortress. His home in Dearborn will probably end up in MI14 as the Detroit districts need to expand.
MI13 (faded pink): Clarke’s district has to cross 8 Mile to pick up part of Warren and Eastpointe. It’s 56% black.
MI14 (brown): Conyers’ district moves west to pick up Dearborn, Redford, and Inkster. It’s 53% black. Both MI13 and MI14 still have PVIs of D+fuhgeddaboutit.
Scenario 2: A 9-5 map, if you can keep it
Here Rogers keeps Lansing, and as before most of the other central and eastern districts have to move in the direction of the areas vacated by merging Levin and Peters. State map:
Detroit area map:
District comments. Unless otherwise noted, “changes” here are relative to the map discussed above, not the current map.
MI1, MI2: no changes.
MI3: Here Amash cannot pick up Allegan, as Upton will need the rest of it as a substitute for Branch and Hillsdale. He has nowhere to go but Eaton, and the result is a district that Obama won: Ionia was M1, Barry M3, and Eaton O5. Kent was O2, and Amash’s piece (Grand Rapids and everything south or west of it) is clearly more blue than the county average. Overall the new MI3 would be R+3 at best, and Amash would likely be vulnerable in a year that is average or better for Dems.
MI4: Here Camp loses northern Shiawassee and replaces it with suburban/exurban areas of Genesee and Saginaw. Probably minimal impact.
MI5: Picks up Lapeer and some of St. Clair, loses bits of Genesee and Saginaw, still a blue sink.
MI6: Picks up the rest of Allegan instead of Branch and Hillsdale. Probably about a wash.
MI7: This time it isn’t sacrificed. Relative to the current MI7 it has to move east, so it swaps out O5 (D+1) Eaton for O3 (R+1) Monroe and makes minor changes in Washtenaw and Calhoun. Probably still R+2, which doesn’t bode well for Walberg after his narrow win on the red wave of 2010.
MI8: Again relative to the current map, it swaps out O0 (R+3) Clinton and part of exurban northern Oakland for northern Shiawassee (O3, D+1) and southern Genesee. This appears less favorable for Rogers than his current district, and would likely move it from R+2 to R+1 or even.
MI9, MI10: Trivial changes.
MI11: Loses much of its Wayne turf including Dearborn Heights, Westland, and Canton and retains more of western and northern Oakland. Possibly better for McCotter than the MI11 from the first map, but this time he is in no position to get any favors from Rogers who is saddled with a shaky district.
MI12: Has more of Dingell’s old stomping grounds. Still a blue sink.
MI13, MI14: no changes.
In the first map, the Reeps give up Walberg’s seat to make Amash somewhat safer and Rogers much safer. Alternatively, they may be able to have Rogers take on a bit more risk (albeit much less than he has now) to make McCotter somewhat safer. The second map is a dummymander in my opinion. Amash, Walberg, and possibly Rogers would all be at serious risk. McCotter would almost certainly be vulnerable to a challenge from Peters, although this is also true of the first map as shown. Politically Michigan is much more like Wisconsin than Ohio: it has lots of purple and not much deep red, and it’s difficult to do a Republican gerrymander.
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There is no way they can maintain every seat safely, so they have to save what they can. Of course, there is the chance that they don’t see it like that and end up dummymandering themselves, which is fully conceivable.
It seems a shame to waste those Reddish counties in the Thumb on Kildee. You can put Lansing and Saginaw in MI-5 without splitting townships, but it requires splitting 3 counties. It would be a major coup if they could justify it… I’m just not sure if it would fly.
I’ve given up on redistricting Michigan until the census data comes out on it. The estimates available in the app ended up pretty far off, since they predicted growth, and the final result was population loss.
I’m not sure how the justiciability of the district lines works, but I’m not sure you’ve done enough to conform to city and county lines. Not having any district that’s wholly within Oakland County looks suspect to me (although I’ve run into the same problem before myself). Having parts of three different districts in Macomb looks even more suspect.
I liked your final sentence though. It strikes me as apt. Imagine how much more difficult the Republicans’ job would be if Raczkowski had beaten Peters!
can a Democrat win that back in a good Dem year?
It sure is hard for the GOP to gerrymander MI like they can with OH and TX. And they’ll be in a tough spot. Either harm Amash or Walberg, or they get a probable dummymander.
I like to point people to Nate Silver’s Electoral History Charts (in particular, “Relative History” whenever they talk about “trends”.
Of the two scenarios, number one is by far the better one for the region, but I would want to look at Census numbers, here. The indications are that west Michigan has picked up some significant population shifts. Kent County is easily 600+ so that means there is only 100 and change to add to the district.
As a matter of practical politics, community leaders would keep Plainfield Twp (that’s the eastern half of the notch in the map) with the southern cities and twps. That shift would have some nibbling around the eastern edge of the County.
For an alternate you may also consider keeping Kent intact, and trimming off the eastern townships in Ottawa. They would give the more than enough power to CD-3, and still allow for CD-2 to keep Allegan county, since Allegan and Ottawa share Holland MI.
CD-3
Good job at putting together these maps but the mystery has been solved. L Brooks just said in the Oakland Press Gary peters is out of his US seat and Peters crashed Brooks invite only county address to suggest Peters will challenge Brooks in 12 for Oakland Exec. This clearly means Levin will get the meat of Peters district and Conyers will extend all the way to 12 mile, at least but could span to Pontiac. Clearly Southfield, Oak Park and Lathrup Village will end up in the district conyers now has. Dingell and Snyder donate to each other and Dingell supported Snyder for gov, he is as good as safe. Candice Miller will see and expansion from Levins district and will probably take Republican corner from Peters district.
Nice map, though Miller’s new district looks too close to Bonior’s old district for Republican comfort, and I’m not sure Dave Camp would want to dump Traverse City (which is pretty strongly Republican at the local level).
It’s almost impossible to create a safe Democratic vote dump in either Michigan 6 or 7, but it is easy to create a map like this:
Since Kalamazoo County has lost less population then most counties in Michigan, its easy to just take out the Allegan County portion of the district and add Battle Creek/Marshall to the 6th. The real problem with creating a Democratic district in the southwest is that Kalamazoo County is really not that Democratic outside of Kalamazoo, which is massively Democratic (only Osthemo and Portage have Democratic leans outside of the city), and Michigan’s county-splitting rules would never, presumably, allow a district that includes Benton Harbor, but not the rest of Berrien County. A Democrat like Mark Schauer or Kate Segal should be able to win a district like this once Upton retires, though.
The only flaws I really saw in these maps were from quirks of local politics. (Well, plus the usual caveat that 2008 was odd, because of people getting offended at McCain’s pullout.)
It isn’t hard to draw nine districts where a moderate — or even a generic — Republican would easily win the general election. But the freshman are not moderates, and if they can’t find ways to become recognized without becoming polarizing, they in particular won’t be able to hold their seats.
Huizenga understands this, and basically went into hiding during the general election. That will be enough to keep him in office, but maybe not if the district itself becomes closer, and he continues to draw a real challenger — so he will be nervous about any weakening.
Benishek had made some obvious missteps, but it may just be a learning curve. And as you pointed out, there isn’t much the Republicans can do either to strengthen it or to rescue nearby districts.
Amash is more at risk. Like Bachmann or Foxx, he needs a very safe Republican seat. And if he does lose, Republicans (but not radicals) can expect to win the seat back two years later. Redistricting will weaken either this seat or one of its neighbors, and this one is the natural target. Republicans won’t want to weaken the district too much for ambitious state legislators, but it may be too much for Amash.
Walberg is obviously at risk — and probably so is any likely successor. The district has plenty of moderates who won’t vote for someone they consider extreme, but it also has the hotbeds of radicalism, so that an actual moderate would have great difficulty getting through the primary. Even Joe Schwarz only did it with a heavily divided field; it is not a coincidence that he was among the first Club For Growth primary victims — nor is it a surprise that Walberg lost to his first serious challenger. He came back in 2010, but it isn’t clear that he could survive a neutral year. There really isn’t any way to make the district safer for moderates without making it swing or lean D, and there really isn’t anyway to make it safe for radicals without seriously damaging Rogers’ district.
Meanwhile, even Upton may need shoring up — he held a swing district pretty well, but now that he is worried about primary challenges, he is tacking heavily to the right — and may need extra Republicans from one of the freshman to shore him up in the general election. Tacking hard to the right is sensible if he expects Hillsdale from Walberg.
Camp should be fine unless elections get entirely nationalized, but don’t count on his being able to do much for the freshmen. McCotter and Miller have geography problems, but will probably be OK given a Republican gerrymander. Rogers’ district is already a pretty clear gerrymander; he should remain safe, but not so safe that he can comfortably help McCotter or Walberg.
As a Lansingite, I’d love nothing more than to be in a district that better represents the historical layout of the area. I really doubt they’d sacrifice Walberg, though. I think Dem or Republican, the natural tendency is to try and max out your map each time and pray that it’ll stick. The GOP has essentially maxed itself out, here, and McCotter and Walberg’s margins of error will need to be reduced, regardless, to maintain their hold on their districts. McCotter’s area is maturing and getting more African American. Walberg’s area in Eaton County is becoming more urban in its northeastern corner (Delta Township), and our mayor is actively promoting regionalism, which is drawing all of the surrounding townships closer in priorities to Democratic Lansing proper.
I can’t remember the last time Dems had total control of the process. Given that the GOP has held the state senate since the mid-80’s, I’d guess that if they had complete control at any times, it was immediately after the 1980 Census, and even then, the Dems were up against an electoral wall in the state senate.
I’m wondering if the GOP wouldn’t throw Kildee and Levin together by drawing a 1-5mile strip through the most Democrat area of Peters district and uniting them that way. If you take out Flint and most of Genosee county I think that the rest of the district would be swingy or even GOP and would leave GOP incumbents better off. You would also eliminate a Dem uberdistrict and change the lean of the Peters district to a probably Republican pick up..
Why not draw the 3rd just swingy enough so Amash can lose in a presidential year when GR turns out, forcing Sikkema out of his think tank retirement or making some other representative of the mainstream party take the seat. Long term they’re better off.