Another mountain west state that has an advisory commission, Utah's Independent Redistricting Commission also has selected the maps it will propose to the state legislature and we've got grades!
Public SH2 gets an A overall and in Partisan Fairness, and Cs in Competitiveness and Geography. It, along with the other Congressional proposals, would create a Democratic-leaning district around Salt Lake City.
Orange 3 gets a slightly better grade on Geography (a B) because it proposes more compact districts than the other two proposals.
Purple 4 gets the same scores as Public SH2, though its Democratic district around Salt Lake City is slightly closer to competitive than the other two proposals.
Green gets an A overall and in Partisan Fairness, with a C in Competitiveness and a B in Geography. It would elect a 24R-5D Senate, with two competitive seats.
It has one district, District 17 (West Valley City), with a minority population of over 50% and the seat leans R.
Orange also gets As Overall and in Partisan Fairness, and a C in Competitiveness, but it gets a C in Geography. It would elect 5 Democrats and has 3 competitive seats.
District 1 (just south of the airport) has a majority minority population, though it leans Democratic.
Finally for State Senate, we have Purple, which gets Bs overall and in Partisan Fairness, and Cs in Competitiveness and Geography.
It would elect 4 Dems, with 3 competitive seats, and 2 districts (1 and 5) have a minority population over 50%.
For Map Orange, we gave an A overall and in Partisan Fairness and Competitiveness, and a C in Geography.
Out of 75 seats, it would elect 12 Democrats and there are 12 competitive seats, though 9 of those lean Republican. It has 3 districts with an MVAP greater than 50%.
Next is Map Green, which gets As overall and in Partisan Fairness and Cs in Competitiveness and Geography. It would elect 14 Democrats, and has 8 competitive seats.
It has two districts with an MVAP over 50%.
Finally is Map Purple. It also gets an A overall and in Partisan Fairness, with Cs in Competitiveness and Geography. It would also elect 14 Democrats and has 10 competitive seats.
It has three districts with an MVAP over 50%.
These maps are pretty good. They do a good job of representing the partisan interests of the residents of Utah, and they were drawn by folks who were listening to citizens about what they hoped to see in their maps.
Note that our grading system penalizes a map that gets an F in Competitiveness by lowering the Partisan Fairness score by 1 letter. So this map has a B in Partisan Fairness, but deflated by low competition. It has 17 competitive seats and it would take 25 to get a C.
Note that the use of the ensemble to evaluate maps with four or fewer districts risks obscuring the influence that a single district change in either Partisan Fairness or Competitiveness can make to overall letter grades. (1/5)
And, more importantly, this matters to how residents who live in these states will experience these maps. Letter grades, in the cases of extremely low-district states, should be considered secondarily to other metrics provided. (2/5)
It is important, in these instances, for mapmakers to consider other criteria, such as Communities of Interest, Minority Composition, and state-specific criteria, in both line drawing and evaluation. (3/5)
It has three competitive seats that all lean R (OH-7 (Medina and Ashland), 10 (Dayton) and 14 (Youngstown)), but in certain years, could elect a Democrat.
It has one district with a BVAP over 40% (OH-11, Cleveland). OH-3 (Columbus) has an MVAP over 40%.
We have grades out for the Utah legislature's proposed maps. These maps are going to a public hearing on Monday, so folks in Utah should speak up about what they like and don't like in these maps.
It's important to emphasize that our ensemble is less useful in states with four or fewer districts - it's really important that folks look at other factors, including Communities of Interest, like those gathered by @Representable_ here: representable.org/map/ut/
We'd expect it to elect 33 R and 23 D, with the current Senate split 34R-22D. It would have only 1 competitive seat.
It has 16 districts with a BVAP over 40% and 1 with an HVAP over 40.
This map gets the same grades as the prior map draft, would elect the same number of Senators from each party, has the same number of competitive seats, and has roughly similar minority composition numbers.
The Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission continues its work, having released several new draft maps for public comment. They will be voting on these maps on December 30, so we encourage Michiganders to speak up about what they like and don't like in these drafts.