North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Storr]

This is a map on there too, rofl



Maybe someone there is reading this forum...

Dear God....
I hate "stringy" districts, even if the district strings whole counties together. It's no old 1990s/2000s 12th District, but please....just no.

[Storr]

Guys....I'm sure no one would be upset at splitting Mecklenburg and Wake Counties, right? Whatever the folks are smoking at computer 1, I need some.
But, at least they eliminated the two Charlotte suburbs to Sandhills "fajita" strips.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195028349309071361

So the suggested plan my very well be our 'final' map before the judges bang their gavel.

Geez. 8 and 9 are terrible, but 5 and 10 are terrible, too. What's the reasoning behind them? It doesn't seem to be to separate incumbents or to preserve the existing map.

Indeed they are, but the 8th could be competitive with all of Cumberland County (Fayetteville) and increasingly competitive Cabarrus County (Charlotte suburbs). I'd love to see its PVI in the version including all of Cumberland.
EDIT: I found some kid on twitter that estimated the PVI on this map, if he's correct the 8th would be R+5 and 9th R+7. https://twitter.com/JacksonMartin42/status/1195024367559860225

The 7th is obviously terrible, but we knew that was likely. But the 5th and 10th are worse imo because there is no need to strip there. McHenry and Foxx would be stuck with a ton of people they haven't represented before, although solidly conservative areas, I doubt either are happy with that. I'm very confused as to why they stripped those two seats. On top of everything else, the incumbents live far apart.
I'm not as annoyed with the 8th and 9th because they were already stripped and we knew they were likely to remain so due to where the incumbents live.

[Storr]

Not the perfect place for it, but what's with the leftward shift of Cabarrus? Especially compared to Union or Gaston.

As a local I can give a guess.
Gaston is separated from Mecklenburg (and thus Charlotte) by the Catawba River and it has acted as a physical barrier to suburban growth. I could easily be wrong, but I'd assume Gaston is home to more native North Carolinians than the other counties that border Mecklenburg, thus it is very "WWC".

Union borders the historically Republican (and well off) part of southern/southeastern Mecklenburg. The suburban part of Union reflects it by supporting Republicans for local and national office. In addition, Union stretches far to the east (much further than Cabarrus), containing very WWC areas.

Meanwhile, Cabarrus doesn't border conservative areas or have a river separating it from Mecklenburg. In fact, the border is very close to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and University City (a huge mixed use development with office parks and a hospital). A few hundred feet across the county line, Concord Mills is the most visited tourist attraction in the state and there's nothing in any other area counties that can compete with it in encouraging suburban development. Cabarrus also has easy access to Charlotte along recently expanded ten lane I-85 (the route to Charlotte from suburban Union is along notoriously clogged NC-16 and US-74). Basically, it's the most convenient and closest suburban area not in Mecklenburg to Charlotte, and thus has had the most suburban development. As a result, it has attracted more newcomers (many who are minorities and many from relatively liberal states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and California who tend to be less conservative than native whites) than other non-Mecklenburg Metrolina counties.

[Storr]

I don't think 11-3 would be possible. 10-3 was only possible with some of the worst looking districts ever.
 What I assume will be the starting point will be what exists for 2020: 2 triangle area D seats, 1 D Northeastern VRA seat, 1 D Triad (Greensboro + Winston Salem), and 1 D most of Mecklenburg County seat. The new court drawn 2nd district should be a D Suburban vote sink for the rest of this decade, so the GOP won't have that worry much about shoring up the Triangle. The big question for the GOP to decide is what to do about Charlotte's Suburbs, currently in the 8th and 9th districts, and Fayetteville. The strips from the Charlotte area to the Sandhills worked for the whole of the 2010s. But the new 14th district throws a wrench in the current map. As can be seen in the D Gerrymander already made, combining Cabarrus, Union, and non-12th Mecklenburg County creates a Tossup/Lean R seat that's trending in the wrong direction for Republicans and putting Cumberland County (Fayetteville) in any seat whole/mostly whole sways it significantly to the left. Assuming the GOP wants to avoid that, I assume they will keep those Charlotte area suburbs separate and split up Cumberland somehow.
I could see both sides agreeing on (well, the GOP deciding to be generous) a Fayetteville to Southern Wake seat (with the two other Triangle seats stretching to the north) creating a fairly solid 8R-6D map. Though NC-09 would likely still be the weakest link since it would continue to have some of Mecklenburg County in it. NC-08 would likely still trend left slightly due to Cabarrus County. NC-01 the opposite due to it not including any of Wake County, but I doubt it would be enough for either to become competitive.

[Storr]

Here's a subtle GOP gerry, with the idea being avoiding court intervention with a relatively compact map.



NC-01, NC-02, NC-04, and NC-12 are safe D, while NC-14 is a D-leaning seat. NC-06 is very likely R, while NC-13 is safe R now but might move more towards the Democrats over the decade.

The one downside of this map is that it screws over Budd, who's double-bunked with McHenry. He might could primary Foxx or run in the 6th though.

Splitting Guilford County three ways isn't subtle imo.

But thank you for getting rid of the NC-08 and 09 bacon strips. The light blue Union to Gaston district with a strip in South Charlotte is pretty ugly, but at least it's all in areas of the same metro area, unlike the aforementioned current strips. 

[Storr]

I don't care if its 4 or 5, I want a d leaning map lol
NC dems should appeal the Republicans map no matter what they draw

True. Anything less than 6 safe dem districts is completely unacceptable

that's not what the court said last time.

NC is gaining a 14th seat. It should go to Democrats.

7R-6D-1T would be a fair map for a swing state that is always close nationally and votes in favor of both Democrats and Republicans for statewide offices, but definitely has a slight Republican tilt. Of course, never doubt the NCGOP's willingness to draw up the most horrendous maps possible. A 10R-4D map is relatively easy (the most favorable R leaning seat for Democrats would be likely R in a Biden midterm) if Republicans wanted to go down that path. No doubt it would be challenged in court, but having such a favorable map for a few cycles might be worth it in the NCGOP's estimation. That's basically the strategy they used in 2010 Census redistricting.

[Storr]

https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/its-official-14th-congressional-seat-coming-to-n-c-whats-next/


https://twitter.com/lekhashupeck/status/1386845242217861123

It was deleted within the article but I saw it myself before it was changed.

I wonder why it was deleted. But anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: if the Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point; Manning's 6th district covers most of it) isn't a CoI, then I don't know what is.

[Storr]

The suburban Charlotte NC-08 tossup seat is a welcome surprise. But a district stretching from Union County to Orange County? No thank you.

Edit: But my minimum acceptable NC congressional map for Democrats of 1 Charlotte seat, 1 Greensboro-Winston Salem seat, 2 Raleigh-Durham seats, 1 Northeastern rural DRA seat, and Fayetteville/Cumberland County and Asheville/Buncombe County each in one district undivided is satisfied. So I’m fine with the other weirdness/hackishness.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/DallasWoodhouse/status/1494078122626633731?cxt=HHwWhsC-3d6Ih...

Ya honestly I think the NCSC was always lost for Dems so it’s not like this was a ‘bad’ play politically. The real issue is that the NCSC is basically just an overlord oligarchy that can override practically anything the elected legislature does.

I mean, is that any different than the US Supreme Court? (I for one feel that the US Supreme Court is too powerful.)

[Storr]

Honestly, I don't like the three judge panel map. It's like Colorado in that it reaches competitive balance (roughly matching the partisan lean of the state), but does so in a really awkward way.

Did they choose to have the D seats in Greensboro and the Triangle go to the Virginia border just to make the map look better? I don't really like the idea of splitting Charlotte. Make one seat that composes most of the county and is safe D, (Mecklenburg County has a population slightly greater than 1 million) then make a rest of Mecklenburg  + Cabarrus seat which would be a tossup. It feels like they included that southern Triangle lead D/tossup seat just so that there was a competitive seat which could be used as justification for this weird map.

[Storr]

Updated State House map (very few changes).

Broke 70-50 for Trump in 2020. Rmbr, in NC 72 seats are needed for a supermajority.

There are a handful of narrow Biden seats in the "black belt" that could def be vulnerable, especially in cycles with low black turnout and/or black voters shifting right. Dems already lost the current equivalents to some of these districts in 2022.

There are a few competative suburban seats as well. Notably, Beasley in 2022 outran Biden 2020 in both of the competative Mecklenburg and both of the competative Wake County House districts. She also pretty notably outran Biden in the Chatham County based district.

This map makes it very hard for Democrats to get a majority though. To do so, they'd either have to make back huge gains in eastern rural NC which seems unlikely at this point, or have suburban shifts go on overdrive flipping some Trump + 20ish seats around greater Charlotte, Raliegh, Greensboro, ect.

Honestly Dems are having an increasingly poor vote distribution in NC. If you look at where Dems have made some of the biggest gains over the past decade in NC, it's been mostly in Safe Blue areas in Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte. Sure, they've flipped a few suburban seats, but a pretty underwhelmingly number considering the magnitude of their gains in these metro areas.

There's an interesting discussion to be had about how Democratic vote distribution compares between North Carolina and Georgia. Both are 50/50 southern states, but outlook for the party is considered much more favorable in the latter than the former. You could argue it's simply due to Georgia's higher minority population percentage.

I'd argue a good bit of the difference is due to how NC has 2.5 major urban centers, while Georgia has a single humongous one in Atlanta. It spreads Democratic voters along the route of the North Carolina Railroad (Interstate 85) instead of just centered around one huge city, like in Georgia. That difference makes it easier for Republicans to gerrymander without worrying about #trends (as much) in North Carolina, where in Georgia it is always necessary.