Colorado early voting: GOP blows out Dems

The Hill ^ | Novermber 1, 2014 | Bernie Becker

[fieldmarshaldj]

It’s too bad Beauprez and a GOP legislature couldn’t redistrict both the federal & state lines for 2016. Make the 1st and 2nd hyper-Dem and leave the other 5 seats winnable for the GOP.

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

Gov. Bill Owens and the GOP legislature tried that in 2003, but the state courts struck them down. Sadly, I think the courts might do it again if a mid-decade redistricting was attempted.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I remember that. The Dems are free to do their worst, but heaven forbid the GOP has a free hand.

[AuH2ORepublican]

When the GOP tried to refedistrict in 2003 (a judge had drawn maps for 2002 when the split legislature deadlocked), the CO Supreme Court ruled that CO lines could only be redrawn once per decade.

[Impy]

Could you draw a 5-2 in CO or would a 4-3 be safer?

[fieldmarshaldj]

4-3 would probably be safer, though I think 5-2 isn’t impossible. However, noting the unfortunate Californication of the state, we’d probably have to shoot for the former. For a brief time in the ‘90s, had the GOP a free hand, they could’ve gotten a 5-1 delegation (as Boulder’s 2nd became briefly marginal — hell, even the 1st reached the point that the late Joe Rogers scared Patsy Schroeder into retirement).

[AuH2ORepublican]

5-2 would be safe enough if one is creative, such as connecting heavily RAT parts of Pueblo to Boulder through rural Hispanic counties and liberal ski counties.

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

I had actually used Dave's Redistricting App to create a 5-2 CO map a while ago. I turned CO-2 into a massive Democratic vote sink by taking in Boulder, then running down into east Jefferson County and a large chunk of western Adams County - basically all the stuff Ed Perlmutter represents now - and then taking it up to the most Dem precincts of Fort Collins and also swiping Aspen and as many of the liberal ski resorts as I could. I ended up with a 70%-28% Obama 08 district. With CO-1, I had it take in the most Democratic parts of Aurora. Finally, concerning Pueblo, I moved it into the CO-5. This was actually in the GOP plan passed in 2003 that was struck down by the state courts. The district still is strongly Republican, with McCain winning it 55%-43%.

I ended up making a new CO-7 that was basically the old CO-4 pre-2012 redistricting, just minus several heavy-GOP Eastern Plains counties but also without heavy Dem precincts in Fort Collins, so it balances out. CO-6 is much the same as it was, with Littleton, Columbine, some of Lakewood, much of southern Arapahoe County and northern Douglas County. I drew up a new CO-4 that actually has some similarities to the current CO-6, except it has much less of Adams County, doesn't have the northern part of Aurora, has all the Eastern Plains that I dropped out of CO-7, loops around through southern Douglas County and also takes in some of Jefferson County and drops down west of El Paso County to take in some Republican precincts in Pueblo County. The district ended up being a 50.5%-47.8% McCain district, but I think it's a bit of a mess. It just ends up with its toes in too many areas and would be a pain for its congressman to get around. I'll probably redraw it to make it more compact.

Here's some views of my map:



Anyway, I think a 5-2 map shouldn't be hard. If you pack in some of the Dem-heavy precincts from the Denver suburbs in CO-1 and CO-2 and crack what's left, you can end up with Republican majorities in the remaining districts.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Great stuff, thanks !