South Shore of Massachusetts

[DPKdebator]

The South Shore is a region of Massachusetts that gets its name from being south of Boston and on the water. It is extremely homogeneous- every town is wealthy, white as Vermont, and has a plurality of Irish-Americans (overall, the region hovers around 35-40% Irish). The region is one of the most Republican in the state, and is typically a safe R bloc during state elections (many towns gave Scott Brown and Charlie Baker over 60% of their votes), but Democrats generally do somewhat better during presidential elections.

My question here is about how strangely the South Shore voted in 2016. Trump wasn't a great fit for the area (predominantly upper middle class), so naturally the Romney Republican region garnered many more Clinton votes. However, the change wasn't really consistent:

As shown above, Clinton won many more towns than Obama did. While most towns swung to Clinton, a few of them actually swung to Trump. Considering the region as a whole is very similar, why would some towns do a hardline Clinton swing while others swung to Trump? It can't be demographic change, since I go to the area frequently to visit family and the region itself hasn't changed at all over the years (fun fact: Hingham bans fast food restaurants and tall store/restaurant signs).

[DPKdebator]

I used to live in Braintree so I know the area well. It's exactly how you said, mainly wealthy towns swung towards the democrats this year while the poorer ones trended republican. The NE part of the south shore is extremely well off (Hingham, Scituate, Norwell, and Cohasset) same with duxbury a little further down. Braintree and Weymouth are beginning to feel the effects of Boston expanding through Quincy and yuppies moving in. The towns that trended republican are either working class like Rockland and Whitman or just rural like Halifax Hanson Carver and Plympton. All in all though I think Hingham Hull and Cohasset were the only towns to vote over 55% dem, which is why the south shore doesn't have its own congressional district and is kinda chopped between 3

The South Shore doesn't have enough people to support its own congressional district anyways, and a district centered on the area would have to include other places.

[DPKdebator]

I used to live in Braintree so I know the area well. It's exactly how you said, mainly wealthy towns swung towards the democrats this year while the poorer ones trended republican. The NE part of the south shore is extremely well off (Hingham, Scituate, Norwell, and Cohasset) same with duxbury a little further down. Braintree and Weymouth are beginning to feel the effects of Boston expanding through Quincy and yuppies moving in. The towns that trended republican are either working class like Rockland and Whitman or just rural like Halifax Hanson Carver and Plympton. All in all though I think Hingham Hull and Cohasset were the only towns to vote over 55% dem, which is why the south shore doesn't have its own congressional district and is kinda chopped between 3

The South Shore doesn't have enough people to support its own congressional district anyways, and a district centered on the area would have to include other places.

South shore + The cape maybe? Not sure the population of any of the towns down there now but I think the cape has over 200k and behaves much like the south shore until you get around the capes elbow in Chatham then it gets very rich liberal heading up to Truro and ptown

Maybe this could work?

This district has the South Shore + the Cape + most of the rest of Plymouth County (besides Brockton, Marion, and Mattapoisett) + Acushnet and Freetown. The district has a "natural" feeling look to it and doesn't look like it is the product of gerrymandering.

[DPKdebator]

Not to mention, it's virtually impossible to draw a Republican district in MA anyway, since the Republican voters are fairly spread out throughout the state. I mean, maybe you could make MA-09 a Tilt D rather than Lean D district, but that's about it.

That's pretty much the district that I posted above. Take out New Bedford, Fall River, and the islands and replace them with Plymouth/Norfolk/maybe Bristol towns.

[DPKdebator]

Not to mention, it's virtually impossible to draw a Republican district in MA anyway, since the Republican voters are fairly spread out throughout the state. I mean, maybe you could make MA-09 a Tilt D rather than Lean D district, but that's about it.

It's possible. Just really ugly. I've drawn a map with 2 with one snaking from Chester around Springfield and up to dracut and another one from Braintree down around Brockton then running through Foxboro out to around Douglas. Like I said ugly as hell. Would post it but idk how to 😂

Chester and Dracut are 100+ miles from each other, that's crazy!

That's gerrymandering for you.

[DPKdebator]

how do i post DRA maps on here? I actually drew a pretty good looking Massachusetts map

I would take screenshots of it.