North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Technically it should be neither, it would be a swing district but all of us know thats unlikely.

A fair map pretty clearly produces 6 Democratic districts and then a tossup, but yeah, it's unlikely. Anyway, the black belt seat, Charlotte seat, Triad seat, and 3 Triangle seats should go to Dems (plus a Sandhills toss-up). Dropping a Triangle seat for a Chapel Hill-Fayetteville seat (yielding 6D-8R) or dropping a Triangle seat for a Chatham-Alamance-Orange-Person-Randolph-Guildford-Rockingham tossup seat and a Sandhill tossup seat (yielding 5D-7R-2S) would also be acceptable.

Going for 9+ safe R seats, however, simply isn't going to fly.

Not really sure how you get 3 Democratic Triangle seats if you're going for a fair map? It'd be more like 2-1R or 2-0-1 at best.

District 1: Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Pittsboro
District 2: Durham, RTP, Wake Forest, Henderson
District 3: Raleigh, East Wake, Johnston County

Yea, thats D gerrymander straight out of 2002.

I am not going to get trapped into this R versus D gerrymandering dance of death.

How?

The Raleigh-Durham MSA has 2,105,771 people. That's 2.9 congressional districts. Adding in Caswell and Person Counties brings it up to 3.0. Starting out, you obviously have to pair Wake and Johnston Counties.

This is where the first problem comes in. Wake+Johnston is 1.7 congressional districts. You have to drop 0.7 of a cd and give it to the rest of the metro area in the north and west. Conveniently, the cities of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, and Wake Forest add up to 0.7 congressional districts. Since they are closer to Durham/Chapel Hill than Johnston County, they should obviously be paired with the former.

The second challenge is dividing Caswell, Person, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, Durham, Orange, Alamance, Chatham, North Wake, and West Wake into two congressional districts. Obviously, Caswell, Person, Orange, Alamance, and Chatham should be lumped together based on geography. However, that's only 0.6 of a congressional district. You can choose to get the remaining 0.4 of a congressional district by splitting the city of Durham (not ideal) or take it from Cary/Apex/Holly Springs (much better.)

This leaves behind a district of Durham, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, and Wake Forest.

What else would you do?

Well unfortunately I don't think that the MSAs are fundamentally great guidelines in this circumstance.

First of all, Durham and Raleigh are both relatively small cities. Johnston, for example, is very much an exurban rather than inner urban county--the kind of place where a lot of it is fairly rural still (NCYankee please correct if wrong). Franklin is similar.

Granville and Person are even less metropolitan; Southern Granville isn't too far from Durham but the northern portion is pretty dang rural. Person is pretty much just in the metro because it's small and has a weak economy --> more commuters. Even Chatham has areas (Western half) which aren't really oriented towards the Triangle.

The Black Belt counties you put into the Durham district are not good fits. Granted, Henderson is part of the CSA, but it's a lot more like Roanoke Rapids or Rocky Mount in most matters of culture or economy. No clue why you put Warren in there. Plus the 1st district needs those Black voters to continue to perform under the VRA.

I actually don't think there's anything objectionable about putting Johnston into a district with Wake if you do it smartly--i.e. not sinking it in with Raleigh but putting in Wake Forest, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, along with other exurbanish areas like Franklin.

I don't think anyone here is complaining about Johnston being with Wake, its probably one of the better choices, its just obviously not with Raleigh.

I miss typed above and said Wake where I meant to say Raleigh, that might be some of the confusion. In fact in another post I said basically use parts of Wake to make a Johnston based seat a swing district.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Technically it should be neither, it would be a swing district but all of us know thats unlikely.

A fair map pretty clearly produces 6 Democratic districts and then a tossup, but yeah, it's unlikely. Anyway, the black belt seat, Charlotte seat, Triad seat, and 3 Triangle seats should go to Dems (plus a Sandhills toss-up). Dropping a Triangle seat for a Chapel Hill-Fayetteville seat (yielding 6D-8R) or dropping a Triangle seat for a Chatham-Alamance-Orange-Person-Randolph-Guildford-Rockingham tossup seat and a Sandhill tossup seat (yielding 5D-7R-2S) would also be acceptable.

Going for 9+ safe R seats, however, simply isn't going to fly.

Not really sure how you get 3 Democratic Triangle seats if you're going for a fair map? It'd be more like 2-1R or 2-0-1 at best.

District 1: Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Pittsboro
District 2: Durham, RTP, Wake Forest, Henderson
District 3: Raleigh, East Wake, Johnston County

Yea, thats D gerrymander straight out of 2002.

I am not going to get trapped into this R versus D gerrymandering dance of death.

How?

The Raleigh-Durham MSA has 2,105,771 people. That's 2.9 congressional districts. Adding in Caswell and Person Counties brings it up to 3.0. Starting out, you obviously have to pair Wake and Johnston Counties.

This is where the first problem comes in. Wake+Johnston is 1.7 congressional districts. You have to drop 0.7 of a cd and give it to the rest of the metro area in the north and west. Conveniently, the cities of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, and Wake Forest add up to 0.7 congressional districts. Since they are closer to Durham/Chapel Hill than Johnston County, they should obviously be paired with the former.

The second challenge is dividing Caswell, Person, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, Durham, Orange, Alamance, Chatham, North Wake, and West Wake into two congressional districts. Obviously, Caswell, Person, Orange, Alamance, and Chatham should be lumped together based on geography. However, that's only 0.6 of a congressional district. You can choose to get the remaining 0.4 of a congressional district by splitting the city of Durham (not ideal) or take it from Cary/Apex/Holly Springs (much better.)

This leaves behind a district of Durham, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, and Wake Forest.

What else would you do?

Well unfortunately I don't think that the MSAs are fundamentally great guidelines in this circumstance.

First of all, Durham and Raleigh are both relatively small cities. Johnston, for example, is very much an exurban rather than inner urban county--the kind of place where a lot of it is fairly rural still (NCYankee please correct if wrong). Franklin is similar.

Granville and Person are even less metropolitan; Southern Granville isn't too far from Durham but the northern portion is pretty dang rural. Person is pretty much just in the metro because it's small and has a weak economy --> more commuters. Even Chatham has areas (Western half) which aren't really oriented towards the Triangle.

The Black Belt counties you put into the Durham district are not good fits. Granted, Henderson is part of the CSA, but it's a lot more like Roanoke Rapids or Rocky Mount in most matters of culture or economy. No clue why you put Warren in there. Plus the 1st district needs those Black voters to continue to perform under the VRA.

I actually don't think there's anything objectionable about putting Johnston into a district with Wake if you do it smartly--i.e. not sinking it in with Raleigh but putting in Wake Forest, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, along with other exurbanish areas like Franklin.

I don't think anyone here is complaining about Johnston being with Wake, its probably one of the better choices, its just obviously not with Raleigh.

Pairing Johnston with any significant part of Wake that isn't Raleigh makes for a very uncompact district.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Technically it should be neither, it would be a swing district but all of us know thats unlikely.

A fair map pretty clearly produces 6 Democratic districts and then a tossup, but yeah, it's unlikely. Anyway, the black belt seat, Charlotte seat, Triad seat, and 3 Triangle seats should go to Dems (plus a Sandhills toss-up). Dropping a Triangle seat for a Chapel Hill-Fayetteville seat (yielding 6D-8R) or dropping a Triangle seat for a Chatham-Alamance-Orange-Person-Randolph-Guildford-Rockingham tossup seat and a Sandhill tossup seat (yielding 5D-7R-2S) would also be acceptable.

Going for 9+ safe R seats, however, simply isn't going to fly.

Not really sure how you get 3 Democratic Triangle seats if you're going for a fair map? It'd be more like 2-1R or 2-0-1 at best.

District 1: Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Pittsboro
District 2: Durham, RTP, Wake Forest, Henderson
District 3: Raleigh, East Wake, Johnston County

Yea, thats D gerrymander straight out of 2002.

I am not going to get trapped into this R versus D gerrymandering dance of death.

How?

The Raleigh-Durham MSA has 2,105,771 people. That's 2.9 congressional districts. Adding in Caswell and Person Counties brings it up to 3.0. Starting out, you obviously have to pair Wake and Johnston Counties.

This is where the first problem comes in. Wake+Johnston is 1.7 congressional districts. You have to drop 0.7 of a cd and give it to the rest of the metro area in the north and west. Conveniently, the cities of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, and Wake Forest add up to 0.7 congressional districts. Since they are closer to Durham/Chapel Hill than Johnston County, they should obviously be paired with the former.

The second challenge is dividing Caswell, Person, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, Durham, Orange, Alamance, Chatham, North Wake, and West Wake into two congressional districts. Obviously, Caswell, Person, Orange, Alamance, and Chatham should be lumped together based on geography. However, that's only 0.6 of a congressional district. You can choose to get the remaining 0.4 of a congressional district by splitting the city of Durham (not ideal) or take it from Cary/Apex/Holly Springs (much better.)

This leaves behind a district of Durham, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, and Wake Forest.

What else would you do?

Well unfortunately I don't think that the MSAs are fundamentally great guidelines in this circumstance.

First of all, Durham and Raleigh are both relatively small cities. Johnston, for example, is very much an exurban rather than inner urban county--the kind of place where a lot of it is fairly rural still (NCYankee please correct if wrong). Franklin is similar.

Granville and Person are even less metropolitan; Southern Granville isn't too far from Durham but the northern portion is pretty dang rural. Person is pretty much just in the metro because it's small and has a weak economy --> more commuters. Even Chatham has areas (Western half) which aren't really oriented towards the Triangle.

The Black Belt counties you put into the Durham district are not good fits. Granted, Henderson is part of the CSA, but it's a lot more like Roanoke Rapids or Rocky Mount in most matters of culture or economy. No clue why you put Warren in there. Plus the 1st district needs those Black voters to continue to perform under the VRA.

I actually don't think there's anything objectionable about putting Johnston into a district with Wake if you do it smartly--i.e. not sinking it in with Raleigh but putting in Wake Forest, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, along with other exurbanish areas like Franklin.

I don't think anyone here is complaining about Johnston being with Wake, its probably one of the better choices, its just obviously not with Raleigh.

Pairing Johnston with any significant part of Wake that isn't Raleigh makes for a very uncompact district.

You have two options that are very compact. Johnston, SE and Eastern Wake, Wilson, Wayne, and/or Franklin and/or Nash. Or Johnston, Harnett, Southern Wake and parts of Sampson and Wayne.

Again, the MSA definitions are wrong, two small and/or include too much to the North and not enough to the South.

[Sol]

Technically it should be neither, it would be a swing district but all of us know thats unlikely.

A fair map pretty clearly produces 6 Democratic districts and then a tossup, but yeah, it's unlikely. Anyway, the black belt seat, Charlotte seat, Triad seat, and 3 Triangle seats should go to Dems (plus a Sandhills toss-up). Dropping a Triangle seat for a Chapel Hill-Fayetteville seat (yielding 6D-8R) or dropping a Triangle seat for a Chatham-Alamance-Orange-Person-Randolph-Guildford-Rockingham tossup seat and a Sandhill tossup seat (yielding 5D-7R-2S) would also be acceptable.

Going for 9+ safe R seats, however, simply isn't going to fly.

Not really sure how you get 3 Democratic Triangle seats if you're going for a fair map? It'd be more like 2-1R or 2-0-1 at best.

District 1: Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Pittsboro
District 2: Durham, RTP, Wake Forest, Henderson
District 3: Raleigh, East Wake, Johnston County

Durham and Chapel Hill go together--they're a pretty logical community.

Yes but then you have to put Cary and Apex and Wake Forest somewhere else. And I don't think connecting them around to Johnston which is on the far side of Raleigh is fair at all.

There's a decent argument for putting Cary and Apex into the Durham/Chapel Hill district, actually, on account of RTP.

Right. But if you do that, it messes up the rest of the map. Durham-Chapel Hill-Apex-Cary-RTP is a district and (most) of the rest of Wake is a district. However, once you pencil in the Sandhills, Triad, and Black Belt districts, you have a bunch of awkward, stranded territory you have to work around--Johnston County and Alamance County being the most obvious examples.

North Carolina is a hard state to draw--it's population is both dense and even and as a consequence you kind of have to screw over some areas. IMO the best approach is to draw most districts as being just slightly off from optimal in order to most closely draw to communities.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

On 2018 population estimates and 14 seats, you can make a whole county CD of Orange, Durham, Chatham, Lee, and Randolph counties. It would measure out to be D+11.26 on 2012/2016 PVI.

[Sol]

North Carolina is a hard state to draw--it's population is both dense and even and as a consequence you kind of have to screw over some areas. IMO the best approach is to draw most districts as being just slightly off from optimal in order to most closely draw to communities.

Here's an example for yall. Has some drawbacks due to OMOV and stuff ofc; hate splitting Greenville and Goldsboro and IMO NC-1 goes too far west but I did this quickly to illustrate what I meant.

link

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

On 2018 population estimates and 14 seats, you can make a whole county CD of Orange, Durham, Chatham, Lee, and Randolph counties. It would measure out to be D+11.26 on 2012/2016 PVI.

You can also make a tossup CD out of Orange, Alamance, Randolph, Chatham, Lee, Rockingham, Caswell, and Person counties which might be better considering you have to work around Greensboro even if it brings back the Durham/Chapel Hill split.

[Sol]

Putting Randolph into that district isn't optimal either!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And the dumpster fire continues.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/950155b2-0f2a-47f0-9b49-283d89e455eb
quickly drew up this map.
All but the most black precincts in Wake are in the 13th. The 2nd has been made blue by the inclusion of said precincts. The 14th takes in parts of Mecklenburg and isn't too badly suited for Ted Budd. This has 6 Dem and 8 Rep districts, which is reasonably proportional to the state. The 8th is the most competitive district, at R+3 it would be winnable for either, and the two Wake districts are more Dem than the PVIs let on.

[lfromnj]

I mean putting Randolph with Orange/Durham is just a clear and obvious way to unsink those 2 counties lol and there is no reason to split Raleigh in half to get a 2nd Safe D district there. If you want to talk about a D court map, go ahead but that isn't a good map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I mean putting Randolph with Orange/Durham is just a clear and obvious way to unsink those 2 counties lol and there is no reason to split Raleigh in half to get a 2nd Safe D district there. If you want to talk about a D court map, go ahead but that isn't a good map.

There is at least one good reason for splitting Raleigh I can think of - unpacking Dem votes.

[lfromnj]

No there isn't if you want a more proportional map, then do logical stuff like putting Wautauga with Western NC having the Charlotte district take in North Mecklenburg so the main suburban district can be a bit more swing, then form a last swing district in the actual Raleigh suburbs instead of that absurd gerrymander which splits a major city to form 2 Safe districts.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No there isn't if you want a more proportional map, then do logical stuff like putting Wautauga with Western NC having the Charlotte district take in North Mecklenburg so the main suburban district can be a bit more swing, then form a last swing district in the actual Raleigh suburbs instead of that absurd gerrymander which splits a major city to form 2 Safe districts.

Unifying Raleigh forces the "rest of Wake" seat outwards and unless you put either Chapel Hill or Durham in there, you create not a swing district but a seat that is at least R+5 most likely.

[lfromnj]

No thats stupid, you can easily create a lean Rsuburban seat based on Cary/Apex instead of blatantly splitting Raleigh.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No thats stupid, you can easily create a lean Rsuburban seat based on Cary/Apex instead of blatantly splitting Raleigh.

Blatantly splitting Raleigh is better if it creates an extra bona fide Democratic district as opposed to one lean/likely R seat and one solid Dem one.

[lfromnj]

No thats stupid, you can easily create a lean Rsuburban seat based on Cary/Apex instead of blatantly splitting Raleigh.

Blatantly splitting Raleigh is better if it creates an extra bona fide Democratic district as opposed to one lean/likely R seat and one solid Dem one.

So its a D gerrymander then?

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Would this type of map ever get approved in NC? Its a 9R - 5D map

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::cf4d4eb1-0b6a-4d93-a24e-340dc8141612

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No thats stupid, you can easily create a lean Rsuburban seat based on Cary/Apex instead of blatantly splitting Raleigh.

Blatantly splitting Raleigh is better if it creates an extra bona fide Democratic district as opposed to one lean/likely R seat and one solid Dem one.

So its a D gerrymander then?

I thought we were talking proportional here? I don't mean "split Raleigh to create 8 Dem seats out of 14", I mean "Split Raleigh to bring the number of Dem seats from 5 to 6 or 6 to 7".

[lfromnj]

Proportional isn't fair if actual districts are involved, Nothing stays proportional for 10 years, what do you do if some trends cause the map to go 10 -3 or something?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

More generally I don't think of Raleigh as some kind of sacred CoI that must never be split. I see it as a strongly Dem unit that, if proportionality would be so helped, should and could be split within boundaries of reason. NC-12 already sucks up a lot of Dem votes from Charlotte, only 1 Dem district can be made from Triad, NC-11 shrinking doesn't help as much as one might hope, NC-09 winds up having to soak up heavily R turf in either Gastonia or Union counties, and SE NC isn't as Dem as it used to be, turning once might have ended up as a safe Dem seat as only lean/likely Dem at best.
Given all this, you almost have to split Raleigh if you want to have 6 real Dem seats.

[lfromnj]

Would this type of map ever get approved in NC? Its a 9R - 5D map

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::cf4d4eb1-0b6a-4d93-a24e-340dc8141612

No because you double bunked Bishop and Hudson. Bishop lives somewhere in south Charlotte while Hudson is from Cabbarus.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Proportional isn't fair if actual districts are involved, Nothing stays proportional for 10 years, what do you do if some trends cause the map to go 10 -3 or something?

In a state like NC, I don't think I'd consider it a serious possibility for a map tailored for proportional to go 10-3 for a majority of the decade, provided the seats are safe enough for both parties (which is not hard to accomplish).

[lfromnj]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f6494b97-7c53-4cb9-9b53-7927bac62d52
This is an oddball map I just made that is mainly aimed not at helping either party but at creating as many minority influence seats as is plausible while keeping some level of compactness and keeping counties whole.