Much like it was in the latest congressional district map, Summit County would be split into two Colorado House of Representatives districts if the commission in charge of redistricting approves the latest map that was released Monday.

This is the first of up to three maps the Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission will release, and it reflects several decisions the commission has made prioritizing various communities of interest in recent weeks.

One priority was for the commission to keep communities with ski areas together, and another was to keep rural communities together.

These priorities are best exemplified in Routt County, where Steamboat Springs and its ski area were drawn into District 26, which also includes Beaver Creek, Vail Mountain and Winter Park. The rest of Routt County is grouped with nearby rural counties.

In addition to Steamboat, District 26 would include Grand County, most of Eagle County and the northwestern half of Summit County. The dividing line in Summit follows Interstate 70 until it reaches Copper Mountain, where the boundary appears to follow Colorado Highway 91, encompassing Copper Mountain, Heeney and Silverthorne.

The rest of Summit County — including Blue River, Breckenridge, Dillon, Frisco, Keystone and Montezuma — would fall into District 46 with Lake, Park, Teller, Chaffee and part of Gunnison counties. The only major ski areas in District 46 would be those in Summit County.

For the State Senate, Summit County remains intact in District 5 along with Eagle, Pitkin, Lake and part of Garfield counties.

Under the new maps, Democrats would likely remain in control of the Colorado General Assembly as there are more districts that have a voting history of supporting Democratic candidates in statewide elections since 2016.

Based on those elections, 15 of the 35 State Senate districts favored Democrats, 10 favored Republicans and 10 were competitive, meaning it didn’t favor either party by at least 10%. Of the competitive 10, five favor Democrats by more than 5%, three favor Republicans by that margin, and two are toss-up races with no clear favorite.

For the State House, 33 of the 65 proposed districts voted for a Democrat by more than 10%, and 22 voted for a Republican by that margin. The other 10 districts favored one party or the other by less than 10%, though Democrats received more votes in eight of those.

This is the first of as many as three staff maps. Independent Legislative Redistricting Commission members are holding more virtual public meetings Friday and Saturday before meeting again Sunday to talk about the maps. In that meeting, commissioners will make recommendations for potential changes on the next map.

Commissioners are also allowed to propose their own maps by having staff members create one with a change they are seeking.

The final map could be one of the staff maps or one of the commissioner-created maps, as long as the commission approves it with a super majority of eight votes on the 12-member commission. Any approved map needs the votes of at least two of the four nonpartisan commissioners.

The new state Senate and House plans were prepared using 2020 Census data, factoring in public comments and input from the Legislative Redistricting Commission.

Individuals who want to testify at the public meetings this week are asked to sign up in advance. Written public comments can be submitted at Redistricting.Colorado.gov/public_comments/new.

This story is from SteamboatPilot.com. The Summit Daily News and Post Independent contributed to this report.