{"id":30713,"date":"2024-02-17T12:55:26","date_gmt":"2024-02-17T18:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=30713"},"modified":"2024-02-17T13:02:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T19:02:34","slug":"a-closer-look-at-the-partisan-implications-of-gov-evers-proposed-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2024\/02\/a-closer-look-at-the-partisan-implications-of-gov-evers-proposed-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"A Closer Look at the Partisan Implications of Gov. Evers\u2019 Proposed Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court tossed the state\u2019s legislative district maps in December 2023, they invited the legislature and governor to once more seek an agreement on state legislative maps. The Court also simultaneously solicited proposed remedial maps from the parties to the original court case\u2014one of whom was Gov. Evers himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court ultimately accepted submissions from six parties, 4 liberal or Democratic and 2 conservative or Republican. Having had the chance to review all the proposals and fearing what the Court\u2019s new liberal majority might do, Republican legislators suddenly found themselves in the unexpected position of supporting Evers\u2019 own proposal. On February 13<\/a>, both houses of the legislature passed Evers\u2019 map submission, with near uniform Republican support and only one vote in each chamber from Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans explained their sudden support for Evers map as simply picking the worst of several bad options. In Senator Van Wanggaard\u2019s words<\/a>, \u201cRepublicans were not stuck between a rock and hard place. It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned or led to the guillotine. We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I write this, Gov. Evers has not yet signed these maps; although, he has indicated he likely will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The differences between the partisan lean of Evers\u2019 plan and the three other Democratic-aligned proposals are small but measurable. The Court\u2019s consultants calculated separate partisan bias scores and mean-minus-median-gaps for each plan in their report. For each measure, Evers map is not the best (of the four) for Republicans in either house, but it does have the most favorable Republican score when averaged across both houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consultants also calculate each plan\u2019s \u201cmajoritarian concordance,\u201d or the reliability with which it converts an electoral majority into a legislative majority. Considering both houses across 13 statewide races since 2016, the Evers map fails the majority concordance standard 6 times\u2014all in instances where a losing GOP candidate would\u2019ve still won a majority of legislative seats.[1]<\/a> No other plan fairs quite so well for Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another benefit to Republicans is a small reduction in paired incumbents, relative to the other Democratic-aligned plans. The governor\u2019s plan places 25 Republican Assembly incumbents into a district with another incumbent, compared to between 27 and 31 in the other plans. In the Senate, the Evers plan pairs 1 more Republican incumbent than the Senate Democrat\u2019s proposed map, but fewer than either the Law Forward or Wright proposals.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These partisan differences between the Democratic-aligned plans appear, if anything, smaller in the 2022 elections, when the Evers map would\u2019ve performed very similarly to the Law Forward plan. The graphic below compares the partisan lean of the tipping point seat in each house under three different election scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"partisan<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rightmost graph shows the share of the vote won by Tony Evers in his reelection campaign. Evers won the state by 3.4 percentage points, enough to give him a majority of the seats in both houses under all four of the Democratic-aligned proposals. (Note: These statistics cover all 33 state senate districts).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The middle graph shows the share of the vote won by Ron Johnson in his reelection campaign. Johnson won the state by one percentage point. That narrow victory would\u2019ve won a majority of the seats in both houses under the Evers and Law Forward plans. Johnson still would\u2019ve narrowly lost both houses under the plan submitted by the Wright Petitioners. Under the Senate Democrats map, Johnson would\u2019ve won a majority of seats in the Assembly and lost a majority in the state senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, state legislative races are decided by their own candidates\u2014not top of the ticket races. We can\u2019t simply add up state legislative votes in new districts, because many of the old races were not contested by both parties. Instead, I employ a statistical model<\/a> using top-of-the-ticket races to estimate state legislative results, had both parties run candidates. The results of that model are shown in the leftmost graph. In general, state legislative Republicans did about 1 point better than Ron Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, under my modeled estimate of 2022 state legislative races, Republicans would\u2019ve likely held a majority in every house of every plan, except for the state senate in the Senate Democrats proposal. (Again, this considers all 33 seats, not just the 17 odd-numbered districts being elected in 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2022 result is not a prediction of 2024. The larger presidential electorate, heightened attention, greater fundraising, and variable incumbency effects may change the contours of those legislative races in consequential ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, these three election scenarios give a reasonable sense of the range of outcomes in recent Wisconsin elections. With that in mind, here are graphs showing the lean of each legislative seat under the Evers proposal compared with the previous map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"comparison<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In these graphs, each tick mark shows the partisan lean of one seat. The larger, red tick mark shows the tipping point seat\u2014the one that determines majority control. This is another way of visualizing the statistics I discussed above. In both houses, the tipping point seat was won by both Gov. Evers and Senator Ron Johnson in their 2022 reelection campaigns. State legislative Republicans did slightly better than Johnson, but even in that scenario, the tipping point seat is far more competitive than in any scenario under the old maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"comparison<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here is a greatly simplified version of the above graph. In these graphs, I have simply counted the number of seats leaning to each party by double and single digit margins, under each scenario. The first row shows the Evers map, the second row shows the previous maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"assembly<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Under the old maps, Ron Johnson won a double-digit victory in 55\/99 Assembly districts and 19\/33 Senate districts. That falls to 46 and 15, respectively, under the Evers proposal\u2014short of a majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under all three scenarios and in both houses, the Evers map creates a situation where majority control will be decided by a set of more competitive districts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"assembly<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Click the image below to open an interactive map where you can view the Evers map and the previous district boundaries, with the districts shaded by my modeled 2022 legislative margin. For simplicity\u2019s sake, the rest of this discussion will reference only that election scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Evers map creates 42 Assembly districts with a double-digit Democratic lean and 4 districts with a single-digit lean. Here are where those changes take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n