Hey guys, real bummer for us redistricting nuts about Connecticut's process. We spend all our time coming up with maps containing radical changes, but Connecticut's Supreme Court (fun fact, it used to be known as the Supreme Court of Errors, which is the best name ever for a court) told the Special Master to do a least change map.
No Connecticut district is over- or underpopulated by more than 15,000 people, which makes a least change map very similar to the old map. Also, Connecticut has relatively large precincts, which does not make DRA an ideal tool to show a remap. So instead I'm going to describe what I think the population shifts will be and their partisan ramifications.
For the purpose of this exercise, I will assume that the special master will have two goals while moving people between districts. The first is to move as few as possible. The second is that he will seek to avoid splitting towns, but ultimately that's secondary to move as few people as possible.
The most overpopulated district is CT02, by 14,951 people. It borders two districts, CT01, which is underpopulated by 3,868 people, and CT03, which is underpopulated by 9,803 people. Thus, I will assume that CT01 will grab 3,868 people from Glastonbury, which is already split between the districts. Most likely, it'll grab the westernmost part of Glastonbury in CT02. Glastonbury is a Democratic-leaning town, but Tom Foley won it in his razor-thin loss to Dan Malloy in the 2010 gubernatorial race. Thus, this move would be a net win for Democrats. I'm also predicting that CT03 will pick up the remaining 11,083 people. The town of Durham is already split between CT03 and CT02, so CT03 will pick up its remaining 5,193 people. It needs 5,890 more, so I predict they will come from Madison, which is CT02's only town in New Haven County. Both towns voted for Obama and Foley, so these moves make CT02 slightly more Democratic.
Of course, this means CT03 would be overpopulated by 1,280 people. One of CT01 or CT03 would have to be overpopulated by 1,280 people because the eastern part of the state grew slightly faster than the western part. I put them in CT03 because Shelton is the only split town in CT04, and it is shared with CT03. Ideally, CT04 could pick up all its 8,079 missing residents from Shelton, but that would mean more people moving between the districts. As a result, it can only pick up 1,280 from Shelton, and has to pick up 6,799 from somewhere in CT05. Shelton is a Republican town (it voted for McCain) so this is a net loss for Democrats, though a small one.
The last piece of the puzzle is where the remaining 6,799 people for CT04 will come from in CT05. My guess is Newtown because it is the southernmost town in CT05. Newtown narrowly voted for Obama but gave Foley a sizeable margin. Thus, this move would shore up the open CT05 somewhat at the expense of the still swingy CT04.
This proposed map would only move around 23,031 people in the towns of Glastonbury, Durham, Madison, Shelton and Newtown. It only results in the split of one additional town, as Durham is no longer split but Madison and Newtown are. I'd like to see if the special master can do any better.