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June 23, 2021 02:15 PM UTC

First Look at Congressional Redistricting Map in Colorado

  • 47 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The nonpartisan staff of the Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission released its first look at a potential new map for 2022. A press conference was scheduled for 4:00 today to provide more information.

In the meantime, have fun examining this VERY PRELIMINARY MAP that almost certainly won’t look anything like the final version. For example, the whole “community of interest” thing is a little tough to explain in some of these areas.

 

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47 thoughts on “First Look at Congressional Redistricting Map in Colorado”

  1. The Colorado Sun has an article here:  up pretty quickly, with descriptions mainly focused on geography, not voter history or trends.  Promises it is a "developing story," so updates will be found there, too.

    Public comments ought to be interesting.  Biggest surprise to me was dropping Pueblo and a southern tier of counties into District 4.

     

        1. Welcome back, R & R.

          A couple re-districtings ago, Castle Rock was in the 3rd District. I recall attending a town hall there by then Rep. Scott McInniss. 

      2. It's not  *really* CD7. Perlmutter will obviously be running for the district labeled #8, since it's a strong blue district and includes his hometown of Arvada, as well as D7 staples like Westminster and Thornton.

        What is being labeled as CD7 should be treated as CD8. I think it's questionable to have Lakewood in there, but everything else checks out.

        1. If the cd7 and cd8 boundaries stay as drawn, we Dems in Lakewood in Lakewood will have to work harderto overcome the entitled Highlands Ranch/ Castle Pines types. That’s do-able. We’ve been blue since 08.

          Jeffco as a whole still leans Dem, still the largest group are unaffiliated-leaning Dems. 

    2. This was a guarantee to happen. Everybody expected that Longmont and either Weld or DougCo (here, DougCo) would be taken out of D4. You need to replace that population somehow. Pueblo already wanted out of D3 anyways, and the rest of Southern Colorado out to the San Luis Valley was just a natural conclusion.

      1. Right. Moving Pueblo from CO-03 to CO-04 was inevitable, unless you combined Larimer and Weld, which makes some sense, but then what do you do with Pueblo.

        The only real variable is which suburban belt counties should be split to create the new, CO-08. You could rotate clockwise or widdershins, but you still need to figure out which counties to split.

    2. Not to worry, Fluffy. With the help of PewPew Trump will soon be Speaker of the House and your household budget will fall upwards.

      Alternatively, you could start buttering Ken’s buns…s.t.a.t. 

  4. CO-3 looks like a wash to me. Glad it adds Summit, Grand, Chaffee, Eagle and Clear Creek, but with the addition of Park, Teller and (especially) Fremont, I don't think the new district is any more competitive than the last version. Maybe with that bit of Eagle and Boulder there is hope to get rid of Boebert. I have a hard time figuring out the current exact borders in Eagle, but I think Edwards, Vail, Avon are now in CO-2 and together they'd be something like 10-15K new D-leaning voters. I think Nederland and Ward would also be in the new CO-3 but that's only like 2,000 or so D-leaning voters at most. Fremont is surprisingly big and very Trumpy…68 percent in the last election…17K voters. Teller and Park aren't far behind. 

    Kerry Donovan should be happy though…this version of CO-3 I think looks good for her to give it a shot. It'll still be tough by if she could get those ski-area voters out, she might have a shot. 

    1. As someone born and raised in Fremont County, I can tell you that they’ll move heaven and earth to rush to the polls to vote for Boebert. The county GOP hosted her for a dinner and absolutely ate her slop up – she’s the ultimate expression of what Fremont County wants America to be. It’s a horror show.

      1. Yeah I fear that too…Boebert is good at getting her Trumpy base out and Fremont and Mesa counties would be tough to overcome. Still I think a Kerry Donovan type could win if she can get those ski counties out. If she's able to make Grand blue leaning (it's barely red now) and bring out the numbers is Summit, Chafee, Eagle, Pitkin, Gunnison, Routt and Garfield I think she has a chance. 

        1. The more Kerry points out that Calamity Jane Boebert is all hat and no cattle, the better. I have seen nothing to indicate she knows a Palomino from a Hereford.

          1. Even if he is charged, convicted and sentenced in the Capitol insurrection, I'm sure the HD 60 vacancy committee will have no trouble finding someone just as batshit crazy to replace him.

    2. According to the numbers provided by the staff with this map, CD3 has a 9.8% edge for Republicans.

      Here are the balances they give (based on voter reg and election results for AG in 2018):

      CD1: 55.9% in favor of Dems

      CD2: 26.6% in favor of Dems

      CD3: 9.8% in favor of GOP

      CD4: 23.1% in favor of GOP

      CD5: 20.4% in favor of GOP

      CD6: 12.7% in favor of Dems

      CD7: 2.9% in favor of GOP

      CD8: 7.3 % in favor of Dems

      1. This is true, but the AG 2018 result was also the closest statewide race in 2018. This new CD3 only voted 5% in favor of the GOP in the gubernatorial election.

        Likewise, CD7 would be a slightly blue district in the gubernatorial election.

        Here's what it boils down to – is Colorado in 2022 like Colorado in 2012? Or is it more like Oregon? That determines if CD3 is competitive and if CD7 is blue.

        1. There is definitely some thought that Trumpy voters are only going to vote when Trump is on the ballot. But Boebert is really Trumpy and she was able to keep a lot of his vote. Look at Mesa County (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-colorado.html) and (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-colorado-house-district-3.html)

          Same winning percentages..in fact it's very close across the board the only exception is that Mitsch-Bush underperformed a bit in Pueblo, but actually overperformed significantly in Garfield County. This is of course funny and telling because this is where Boebert is from. Her own neighbors voted against her so much so that Mitsch-Bush actually won more votes overall in Garfield than Biden did. 

          Boebert still has a ton of baggage and I think she's doing a terrible job especially with COVID, which is ravaging her district, not that you would know from her tweets or communications. She barely talks about the issues in her district at all. 

          But the Trumpy Mesa and Fremont county voters won't care about that…but are they going to vote next year without Trump on the ballot?

          1. There is definitely some thought that Trumpy voters are only going to vote when Trump is on the ballot.

            Wishful thinking. We are going to see a feeding frenzy of xenophobic, racist assholes (e.g., Ron DeSantis, Kristi Nome, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton) try to out Trump one another.

            Then they will await the Moment of the Magic Finger when Trump points to one of little stubby digits at his heir (or heiress) and all the MAGAts fall into line.

      2. Damn..I was worried about those CO-3 numbers. I suspected that the additional D-leaning ski counties wouldn't be able to overcome the hard R trio of Fremont, Park and Teller. I never expected to get CO-3 to be D leaning, but was hoping we could at least bring it down to a R+3 or 4. 

        I do think Perlmutter could keep CO-7 though. He is just very popular in JeffCo and while DougCo is R leaning they've been trending Democrat. And if they get some loony candidate like one of the Nevilles, Ed will be fine. My guess we'll end up with a 5-3 caucus. 

      3. In other words, they took a state that is currently 4-3 Democratic and moving increasingly leftward and still pushed to squeeze another Republican district into it. Wonderful.

        1. The difficulty is the high concentration of Ds in Denver, plus the moderate concentration of Ds in the suburbs. Suburban Rs, at least those who remain, are in the South Metro area or out in the exurbs.

          It depends on how you split three districts out of the suburbs, but it looks to me like you can get 2 Blues and a Violet. It may be possible to change the Violet to Baby Blue or Purple depending on how you rotate the 3 suburban districts – but not very easily. It may depend on which parts of the suburbs are moved to CO-04.

          I don't know why the new CO-08 includes so much of Weld county rather than Adams. 

        2. Really! This map is a disaster. I think we made a terrible mistake in passing the constitutional amendments setting up the commissions. 

          So the new CD 8 will be Democratic. That's nice but I really wish they would take some of those Dems from CD 1 and CD 2, and push them into CD 7 and CD 3, so that with electable candidates, we can have a 6 to 2 split relegating the GOP to Ken Buck and Stillborn. 

    1. Pueblo's pretty even territory, so it wouldn't do much at all to make the 4th competitive. Buck would win by a few points less than he currently does, but it'd still be insurmountable.

      1. I lived in CD4 for four years. Every year, Dems made gains over Ken Buck.

        Vic Meyer 2014 29.2% against Ken Buck

        Bob Seay 2016 31.7% against Ken Buck

        Karen McCormick 2018 39.4% against Ken Buck

        Yes, it’s a red district, but tinging pink and working on lavender. Like most of Colorado, Unaffiliateds are the largest registered voter group. There are many new  (former refugee) citizens and young Latinos that nobody has ever bothered to reach out to.  That’s what they said when I talked with them at the doors, anyway.

        Morgan County Dems, under the inspired leadership of April Bowen, went door-to-door and increased registration and turnout.

        So yes, it’s possible. That’s why Bucko is twisting his lips all up trying to keep his base happy without alienating unaffiliated voters. The addition of Pueblo could make a real difference.

    2. I think this could open up to the right Hispanic candidate. A Joe Salazar type could win in the new CO-4 maybe. The San Luis actually shifted siginificantly to Rs in the last cycle…whether that is a blip or a long-term trend remains to be seen. I would expect CO-4 to be still one of the most conservative districts though.

    1. He's in Arvada. Treat 8 as 7 and 7 as 8. Unless he decides he wants to run a battleground campaign for the first time in forever, but I press X to doubt.

  8. Ed lives in what would be CD7. He will be hard to beat, even if the new CD7 is mildly reddish. The GOP simply has no bench.

    Also, technically, candidates do not need to love in the district, only the state.

    1. I think Perlmutter is our best bet in the proposed new configuration of CD 7. Anyone else will have a hard time winning as a non-incumbent in a mid-term election.

  9. There are several things about this map I don’t like.

    1) CD8 has only 1 whole county in it (Broomfield) and is otherwise, small pieces of 4 others (Weld, Adams, Jeffco, and Boulder – and the pieces of Boulder are very small)

    2) I had hoped for a map that would put all of Jeffco in one district and all of Douglas in one district. This does neither.

    3) Cutting parts of Denver into Jeffco/CD7 seems weird to me, when it already has multi-county issue with ArapCo due to Glendale etc. The little bit of Denver that needs to be removed should be on the east side and include any islands of ArapCo it can. Glendale is too populace to cut out, but I am working on a map (now that the state’s mapping tool is available for us mere mortals to use) that includes Holly Hills in CD6 with a small portion of Denver, leaving the rest of Denver county in CD1

    4) CD2 takes part of Boulder County out and then adds part of Weld. Ending up with not have any whole counties in it, and at the same splitting Boulder county among 3 districts.

    5) This map does show that maybe the time has come to stop focusing on a east-west divide for the rural areas. The population shifts do not support that pattern anymore. I would argue that southern Colorado all the way across is more a community of interest than putting the San Luis Valley in with the NE corner of the state.

    6) CD5 is about as good as it can get. CD6 actually includes all of Aurora which is rather impressive. but they are the only districts I agree with on here.

    Over all, I think a trip back to drawing board is in order. I’ll do may part to present them with a more reasonable solution.

    One note about partisanship. I try very hard to ignore it when drawing these maps. Having districts with as few split counties/cities as possible is my goal. But I have to say I really don’t want a map that hands that lunatic, Lauren Boebert, an easy re-election!

    1. 1.) I agree with this concern, but I think it faces the same problem that CDs 6 and 7 did last time – there's way too much population in Denver surburbs that are in the same county as unrelated rural areas.

      2.) I don't see why. There's no reason to group Indian Hills and Morrison in the same district as Lakewood and Arvada.

      3.) Yeah I can get behind this.

      4.) Yeah Boulder County being split is weird, but those are super tiny precincts in terms of population. This was done so that there was single-digit population differences.

      5.) I think this map shows that the East/West divide is perfect. You have a mountain district that's almost entirely based on the mountains, and you have an Eastern Plains/San Luis Valley/Pueblo district whose only real intrusion into a place inappropriate is half of Commerce City.

  10. It may be necessary, but snipping out a piece of Denver won't go over well unless it's the part with Council District 9. They tend to lean red, anyway. CD-8 kinda makes sense, as Broomfield County was carved out of all of the surrounding counties. 

    1. Council district 9? As in, north Denver, Five Points, and Elyria-Swansee? That's some of the darkest blue territory in the city. There's only a single block group in the city and county of Denver that voted Republican in 2020 (between E Jewell, E Panorama, S Oneida and S Niagara, and it was a 1 vote margin). Council District 9 contains some of the most Democratic territory in the state. 

      The area that they suggested snipping out is some of the least Democratic-leaning in Denver (still all Dem block groups though).

      1. Oops! The district numbers have changed since I last looked at them, Mike. I was thinking of the district up around Harvey Park that was represented for so long by Terrible Ted Hackworth.  

  11. So I made my own proposed map and have submitted it to the Redistricting Commission. I don't know if those submissions are open to the public or not. But I also pasted it on my Facebook page because I know I can link to it there and I can also answer questions. The link is here: Dano's Facebook

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