The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission passed its final maps last night, unanimously. Given that prior cycles had unfortunately ended in partisan accusations, a unanimous vote is a huge success! And, our grades suggest they are good maps too!
First up, AZ's Congressional Map. It gets an A overall and in Partisan Fairness, and Cs in Competitiveness and Geography.
We'd expect it to elect a 5D-4R delegation, though AZ-1, 6 and 8 are all competitive, with AZ-2 and 4 nearly competitive.
It has two Hispanic majority districts (AZ-3 (Southwest Phoenix) and 7 (South Tucson and the southwestern part of the state)). AZ-2 is home to most of the tribal population in the state.
The State Legislative map gets the same grades: A overall and in Partisan Fairness, Cs in Competitiveness and Geography.
It will likely elect a 16R-14D Senate, with five of the seats competitive.
It has seven districts with an HVAP over 48%, and one (District 6) with an NVAP over 50%.
We do flag that there is potential backsliding in Hispanic representation - we'd encourage folks who know the population and voting patterns in Arizona to look at this closely!
Again, this is a really tremendous job by the AZIRC. They should be proud of the transparency in their process, the compromises they reached, and the fair and relatively competitive maps they drew.
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.