North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Johnston really should not be in a district with Wilmington.

Everything there is Raleigh centric.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Johnston really should not be in a district with Wilmington.

Everything there is Raleigh centric.

Johnston is in a district with Wilmington in the current map.

No kidding!

Its not like it was the first thing that started my war with the NC GOP, oh wait, it was!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's a mostly clean NC map.

You realize the purpose of the court order is to "undo" the current partisan gerrymander...correct?

Its a much better map though then many of those posted so far in this thread. You can make some small shifts and turn 2 or 3 of those Republican seats into swings and do some shifts in the Triad to create a solid D seat there.


A lot of the so called "fair" maps posted so far in this thread, focus on getting the numbers right and yet preserve some of the most egregious aspects of the current map, like stretching 9th out to the Sandhills, putting Johnston in with Wilmington etc.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's a mostly clean NC map.

You realize the purpose of the court order is to "undo" the current partisan gerrymander...correct?

Its a much better map though then many of those posted so far in this thread. You can make some small shifts and turn 2 or 3 of those Republican seats into swings and do some shifts in the Triad to create a solid D seat there.


A lot of the so called "fair" maps posted so far in this thread, focus on getting the numbers right and yet preserve some of the most egregious aspects of the current map, like stretching 9th out to the Sandhills, putting Johnston in with Wilmington etc.

Not sure what the problem with the 9th district including the Sandhills is. Stretching from Charlotte to the Sandhills is a problem, but there are zero Charlotte-Sandhills maps posted on this thread so far... except for the one from nerd73 that you just praised (which also keeps the problem in the current map of splitting the Sandhills down the middle). Most of the maps have been pairing the Sandhills with Fayetteville, which is pretty natural, and pulling that district entirely out of the Charlotte metro.

Aside from generic partisan excess, the GOP maps (with exceptions like the first map in cases like the 9th) have three major problems, that should be completely avoided
1. Asheville being taken out of the 11th
2. Putting Johnston in with Wilmington
3. Stretching the 9th out to Fayetteville.

I would much rather split the Sandhills then have two districts running parallel to each other between Charlotte and Fayetteville.

Nerds map is better because it doesn't engage in any of this, it also creates a better looking and more competitive 7th in SE NC, where it always was and should have been before the Republicans messed with it to get rid of Mike McIntyre.


Nerd's map needs modifications obviously. 13th should be a Dem seat in the Triad. Two of the following four (NC-02, NC-06, NC-07 and NC-08, should and could be turned into close swing seats. Pushing 13th North to make it Democratic, sheds some of its Southern territory to the 9th, pulling it back Westward and making it more Charlotte centric. You can then shift its Eastern territory to the 8th or 7th and use Fayetteville to turn one of the 7th or 8th into a swing seat. You can do the same with the 2nd or Sixth by shifting some territory in the Triangle area. 

Such a map would be better than any of the GOP maps and better than the Dem gerrymander that came before it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

They look nice in isolation but it depends on what you are going for in that area and how it affects the rest of the map.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It should be noted there is a good chance if a court draws the maps that the numbers get reworked in a East to West pattern like PA was.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Thats it, put them all in jail. Let the courts draw the maps!


Of course they are going to keep putting Johnston in with Wilmington, because David Fing Rouzer is a former State Senator, and his base is Johnston.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's where the map stands right now at the end of the day. Of course  work will still continue but...this map is somehow worse then the previous preliminary one!

- Cracked Sandhills
- Separated Greensboro/Winston-Salem
- Raleigh seat that goes beyond Wake
- Parallel central districts
- First missing Greenville (they want to protect the  incumbent)
- No Boone for the 11th
- Johnson to Wilmington was clearly an option but it was dropped to carve up the sandhill region
- Seats are renumbered going E -> W, but this 4 and 7...

According to Stephan Wolfe, the GOP did something similar to that NC state senator from last time and whispered for half an hour while they carved up that neat sandhill seat you posted Nyvin.

If this style of map ends up as the final product, I suspect we will get the courts or special masters involved. The GOP employed their traditional "support AA caucus, lessen overall dem power" when drawing the state legislative maps. This plus their appeasement of all the urban legislatures with unpacked seats meant they could get away with maps that locked in the barest of majorities. This won't happen for the congressional map. In every possible way, the map posted at the end of today discriminates against AA Dem voters.

This is really not a bad map overall.

It is a horrendous map.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You know why they want to keep stretching out the districts right?


The more media markets, the more money it takes to compete in them, the more power the state GOP's big money donors have.


It also bakes in a GOP incumbent advantage beyond what the nominal top lines would suggest.


Edit: Also, Dowless could never have stolen a compact 9th, because that county wouldn't have been in it. The more counties, the more opportunities for these crooks to steal elections in some obscure county.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Oryxslayer and cvparty have produced the best maps I have seen so far in this thread. I cannot open Oregon Blue Dog's on this computer so I cannot say anything about that one.


Also the whole discussion about which Reps live where is emblematic of why the courts needs to draw this. Considering where incumbents lives in redistricting should be illegal. These maps are not drawn to serve them, they are drawn to best represent the people and the Representatives are then suppose to represent those districts. If they cannot do that, then they need to retire.

I would gladly vote for Holden over Rouzer in a primary if it were to come to that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Beautiful!!!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

[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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Democrats have always had this fetish of drowning out Johnston like Bob Etheridge's seat did.

[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

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

It is very easy to draw 2 safe D and 1 Swing district in this area, but he doesn't want to do that because he is trying to compensate for TX at our expense.

It is worth remembering that my hate boner for the NC GOP started when they f'ed up my district and put me in with Wilmington.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I feel so much like the mis attributed quote in the movie Patton about if he was stuck between the Soviets and the Nazis, he said he would attack in both directions.

If it isn't the Republicans dumping Johnston in with Wilmington it is the Democrats dumping it in with Raleigh. Replacing one set of crooks with another.

I would take LfromNJs light tan district, shed some of its Southern extremities and use parts of Wake to make it a swing district.

Also the MSA definition here is problematic as it skews too far Northward and leaves out a lot of territory that is in Raleigh's orbit to the South.

I would center the 8th in the Sandhills and Fayetteville making it straight up tied the last time I drew it, but it is likely trending R, though on the other hand the swing district above is trending D

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Reminder that fair map and non-partisan map are NOT the same and pro-Dem lines in the Triangle are perfectly fine if the aim is to have a map proportional to the state.

It depends on what you are doing in the rest of the state and if you are engaging in horesh@%t like the parrellel 8th and 9th etc, then sure, but those are not even justifiable in any map, any more then the Asheville 10th bs or the Johnston in with Wilmington garbage.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

You hop in a car in any direction from 70, it is very rural. Even along 70, stuff is rather spaced out until you get to Clayton and points Northward.

Smithfield has parts of it that look like fast growing exurbs, by the High School and the Wal-Mart, with a new road development that I had the misfortune of driving through while practicing to get my license, they basically extended a Stimulus era bridge and road project all the way to 301 right beside the Wal-Mart, this was formerly a short road called Ava Gardner Avenue that basically went nowhere. There was already a 70 bypass that siphoned traffic away from Market street and so West Smithfield is basically a ghost town, with an abandoned K-Mart, Furniture stores and a bunch of closed gas stations. Matthew also flooded this whole area out.

South Smithfield and points South to Four Oaks hasn't changed much in 20 years. Go passed the Walmart Area into Selma, and very little changed at all except for stuff that got tore down after multiple flooding events.

So yea, excluding the older parts of 70 that go through West Smithfield, all the action is along 70 and the rest of the county hasn't changed much at all and is heavily rural.

[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.

[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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And the dumpster fire continues.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

Best map I have seen all day.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

I don't think you are fairly representing my position. Also, I don't think you understand it much either.

I understand that you are an expert at subtle gerrymandering, and after a conversation with Adam years back, I take all your maps as suspect.

6 Dem, 6 Rep, 2 more or less even, is perfectly fair.

Nope

6 Dem, 7 Rep, 1 even, is sufficiently fair.

Nope

Why, 5 Dem, 6 Rep, and 3 more or less even, is fair, given the standings of the two parties in question.

Better, but still not there.

Problem is, Dems can't rely on NC-11 and can't rely on SE NC as much as they used to, so if you want actual proportionality, it's clearly better than not at this point to split Raleigh and increase the Dem seat count by 1.

Don't give me that crap, their are a plenty of Democrats who could win those seats on LFromNJs map. Quit nominating sleezeball adulterers and socialists and you wouldn't have as many problems. Of course that is the whole point in having more competitive seats, you actually have to not suck to win them. In that scenario, I would say that is truly fair. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

looks like Newby is up 230 now on the NCSBOE website.