2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[Torie]

VA is one place the geography of which is not that kind to the Pubs, with most of their vote surplus tucked away in the western part of the state. The Dems have 5 safe seats, and it is only a matter of time until the western burbs of Richmond + Charlottesville seat ceases to be much of a swing CD, which would make 6. The Pubs also look wan in the white part of the Norfolk metro area, so that may be on the road to the Dem's 7th seat. The Pubs could make things more erose to shore up the west of Richmond CD but excising Charlottesville, but that is about all that they would seem to have in the gerrymandering cupboard.

[Torie]

Splitting both Southside and the Shenandoah is a big nope.

Its much better to just accept the unfortunate placement of Roanake and split that area in most scenarios.

Is that illegal too? Or is it just a thought crime like chopping Bucks in PA? I don't give a damn about convention, particularly when it leads to non compact districts. I suspect the CD's would then look like two parallel fajita strips. I find those ugly. It might also take down the Pubs to just 3 safe CD's, if uniting the Shenandoah creates another Pub vote sink, by taking away from them the CD that starts with Loudoun (sp), by having to take in Charlottesville.  Why on earth would the Pubs agree to that? The west of Richmond CD will still be trending Dem even without Charlottesville. Richmond plus NOVA plus Norfolk are just one big Pub hate fest these days.

[Torie]

Looks like I drew a CD that goes almost all the way to its headwaters. I guess we shall see if both parties consider those puny little hills akin to the Sierras, or even the coastal range in CA to which you refer. Hell maybe you are right. You have a map for this area out of curiosity?

[Torie]

Thank you. I think you are consigned the Pubs to three vote sinks however, and there are two CD's chopping into NOVA. So again, there are choices to be made. There is no free lunch.

[Torie]

Now that the VA Supremes are starting over, I thought I would draw a map per my metrics. My metrics outside or urban versus rural and metro area cohesion, disdain COI considerations, because most of it is spin city disingenuous BS, and go for avoiding chops, and compactness, subject to adherence to the VRA as I interpret it, and on that one it is spin city too, and I am quite confident I have it right and the spinners wrong to the extent they actually believe the spin.

And this is what I came up with, drawing maps the way I like to draw them.. I can hear the howls of indignation about the chopping up of the Shenandoah Valley already. Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn. And no, I did not check the partisan stats until the end, although obviously I know pretty well the partisan lay of the VA land in general. 

The partisan colors are Trump 2020. The colors for governor 2021 probably did flip a couple of shades, I understand.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8abc3a86-b744-44af-9f49-959a7e636d03

[Torie]

Trende was and is a brilliant choice foe the Pubs. He will kill in the crib any arithmetic hocus pocus voodo argumentation from the Dem expert in the name of making the map more "fair" for the Dems, and COI spin. Congrats to Sean.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/1461758918728769537
lol.

So seems like he wants to finish the maps quickly.

30 days is a legal deadline.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/1461758918728769537
lol

Trende is a never Trumper type, I wouldn't bet on him being too kind toward Amanda Chase in VA-7.

IIRC

1. He's really not into maps that split counties/municipalities more than absolutely necessary.
2. He's ideologically somewhere between Youngkin and Romney, definitely not a Trumpist.
3. He would likely prefer to draw more districts winnable for traditionalist outer suburbs R's vs. rural populists.

#1 would help D's significantly in the HoD because their college towns downstate are all currently cracked and help R's significantly in the State Senate, because there's a bunch of Fairfax to Loudoun/PWC/Stafford crossings in NOVA on the current map and D's got nowhere in outer NOVA narrow Biden seats in 2021.  Also the SWVA Dem seat is drawn to connect as many college towns as possible.  They are too small to control a district in the upper chamber, so if it becomes a compact Roanoke seat, it becomes Likely R.  

On the congressional level, he could be very tempted to do the all-Fairfax VA-11+all-PWC safe Dem seat+Loudoun to the mountains Lean R narrow Biden+yuge Youngkin seat.  Similarly, there could be a way to do a Trump+3/Youngkin +15 version of VA-07?

On this one Trende is going to be a technocrat nerd who is not naive of the partisan games. What he will not do is gerrymander to make a map "fair," except where matters are otherwise close to equipoise. Trende and moi I suspect have the same kind of mindset on this stuff, for better or worse.

[Torie]

Below is my wild guess as to what the twin Masters will draw.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f32e4d43-c8f0-4dea-afe2-7e7f4691050a

And here is a less change version from the current map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/7d034f6e-447b-47f0-8ec0-c6e07ce19485

[Torie]

Below is my wild guess as to what the twin Masters will draw.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f32e4d43-c8f0-4dea-afe2-7e7f4691050a

You really don't care about applying the correct congressional district numbers, do you?  

No I didn't*.  You can correct that for me if you like. Thanks in advance.

*Other than of course the Fighting Ninth of fame and legend.

[Torie]

Here is the ball game. I thought the deal would be to keep two swing seats, VA-07** and VA-02, but with the Dems having the high ground in VA-07 that is trending Dem anyway, and the Pubs having the high ground in VA-02* that is not trending Dem that much, and where the Pubs did really well in 2021, with a snap back that was above the state average, and about 4 points (8 point margin)  more Pub than the state. Instead, VA-07 was made pretty safely Dem, but in exchange, the Pubs did get the high ground in VA-02, in the sense that it went from Biden +4.4% to Biden +1.4%, a PVI shift of 1.5 points. That is about the best the Pubs could expect, in a state where the spoils all other things being equal should be 6D-5R at best. It would be interesting to find out if Youngin won VA-07 or not when he won the state by 2 points. In a "fair" map from a partisan divide of the spoils perspective, the party that wins the state should win VA-07 by a similar margin. And for never Trumper Sean Trende, the Trumpers have only two safe haven CD's. I admire the man's skill, I really do.

* My map took the same approach of using the existing chop line in Chesapeake County, but then ceded territory to the west, rather than to the east, while this map does the opposite for a cleaner map, but with the same partisan result. And I thought moving the CD down to about Biden +1% was about the limit that would fly.

** The map calls what I call VA-07, VA-10.

[Torie]

A copy and paste from RRH:

JFC! Sean Trende nested the state Senate districts into the congressional districts and the state House districts into the state Senate districts!

https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1468698441572397068?t=Pe9JoPDgN-WQcYhHcmGPtw&s=19

[Torie]

Thanks to cinyc, we now have the approximate 2021 numbers for the CD's.

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1468801865164984323

Via Sean Trende's twitter account, there is a link to the Special Masters report which makes for fascinating reading. These guys set a new standard of excellence that one hopes will improve the quality of others charged with redistricting on a non partisan basis.

https://twitter.com/SeanTrende?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Torie]

That map isn't even that bad by 2021 standards.  The worst district is that Richmond one.  Now every state should come up with something like this.

Also, I don't care that much about the incumbents being moved about.  Redistricting shouldn't be about helping or hurting them.

No the "bitch" was not that the Masters hate incumbents, it is that the twin males hate woman. Interesting their report made a point that they deliberate avoided learning where the incumbents lived, and did not know as of the date they signed their report. That is probably why they did not sign the report under penalty of perjury, because they did actually know where the women lived, and lied about it.

[Torie]

What is the baseline for "neutral year" that you are using?

A neutral year means one where the two parties are tied nationwide. I don't see what other definition there could be.

Ds have a coalition very slightly larger than Rs (something mitigated by the fact Ds do better in their strongest strongholds than Rs do in theirs).  Neutral year to me means D+1.5 in the two-party vote or something like that. 2016 I would consider to be a neutral year.

Rs have not often managed to tie Dems in terms of the vote in recent decades, and D coalition is the majority coalition in the country, albeit by a very teensy weensy tiny margin.

I don't think moving the goalposts like this is helpful at all. Democrats win more often than not, yes, that's a fact worth considering in full and not artificially correcting for. The average year is not a neutral year, but a slightly Dem-leaning year. That doesn't change the fact that the partisan impact of a map should be assessed based on an actually neutral baseline.

Ah, I see.
That confirms my suspicion we were working with different definitions.

We might as well sh**t-can the whole system and move to the German system which achieves strict proportionality in a division of the spoils even while using a first past the post system for a substantial number of seats. Federalism is a real pain in the butt. I have more or less adhered to that view since I was a bit older than knee high to a grass hopper. "State's rights" was about appealing to me as celibacy. Still is, even though I have slowed down a bit.

[Torie]

The thing about the way VA-10 was drawn, is that it seems to track how the state as a whole goes in the popular vote. Youngkin won the state by 2 points, and VA-10 by 4 points. So if one makes it considerably more Democratic, that balance is lost. In that sense, it is a good partisan compromise. You don't include the entirety of both Loudoun and Abermarle in it.

[Torie]

How much was the Luria district made more Pub from the previous masters' map? The lines with a crude resolution do not seem to have changed.

[Torie]

Here is a link to the VA CD map now law in DRA:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5298ec04-4c21-4270-8071-8ddc0b3631f1

I was interested in how much was in play be moving the tiny county in population (7,348) of Rappahannock out of VA-07 and into VA-10. The answer is 60 basis points in margin Biden over Trump in VA-07, in a pretty strong lean Dem seat either way at the moment. That was enough for the Masters to change the lines. They both were  really sweating it out, line by line, precinct by precinct, and balancing, and they both did it with honesty and skill, and tried as best they could to be nonpartisan. And both have enhanced their reputations - a lot - in my view.

[Torie]

But yeah if Luria actually knew where her campaign money was going instead of Marc Elias she could have tried for this. As stated I actually prefer the court's VA03 but this VA02 is better than the VA03 is worse. This would give Luria a Biden +5 seat instead of Biden +4 and the Biden +2 she is about to get. The Great Dismal Swamp definitely seems to somewhat be a barrier in the region.  The special masters definitely seemed open to legitimate COI gripes like the Richmond suburbs/Albemarle county.  Blatant partisan campaigns such as Salem or Norfolk were not getting through. Overall too much of her argument against the VA02/VA03 was just the fact she was drawn out. No one important cared about that.

Instead Luria's lawyer of Marc Elias threatened to sue the VA supreme court under its own map and demanded she get a Safe seat with all of Norfolk instead of Chesapeake. I wonder how much he managed to bill Luria for that

*Speaking about Salem. The funniest thing is Griffith specifically argued that Salem and Roanoke should be split which is a joke argument.

The special masters report made clear that they did not want VA-02 to be any more Dem and it was at the cusp of being too Dem as it was. The idea was that VA-02 was to a Pub leaning CD, and VA-07 Dem leaning, and they flat out wrote that. So Elias was DOA right out of the gate. They wanted a 6-5 map when the Dems won the state in the single digits.

[Torie]

Wow, this is interesting!

On paper, the median district got slightly more Republican (Biden +9ish 1st draft to Biden +7ish final draft), but Democrats would probably prefer a setup where Spanberger, with her track record of winning highly competitive elections, can run in the median district instead of Wexton, who severely underperformed Biden?  Note Clinton actually did better in 2016 in final draft VA-07 than in 1st draft VA-10.



VA-05 takes all of Charlottesville and Albemarle, but is still just safe enough to stay Republican for the decade (Trump +11 2016 to Trump +8 2020).  

VA05 actually doesn't have all of Albemarle. A small portion remains in the north

Also Wextons current seat basically is a Frank Wolf Mander in Fairfax County.  For example even Mark Warner ran like 7 points behind Behind in cities like Great Falls.

As to that "small portion," I think we may have finally found an instance of that massive vote fraud Trump was looking for.  

[Torie]

Just for fun, I revised the VA map enacted to ruthlessly follow the Torie metrics (minimizing chops and their size, hewing to metro areas, compactness, without fear or favor), subject to checking compliance with the VRA when done. After drawing it, and concluding that the Richmond centered CD was black performing, so it could remain very compact, the result is that VA-07 turned into a CD that Trump carried by 2.5%. The way things are going, the Dem incumbent Spanberger I think would have held that CD as I drew it this year.

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::a57ae27d-0a5a-447a-8ba7-c2b08e4f9b04

[Torie]

and concluding that the Richmond centered CD was black performing

I refuse to believe you didn't notice that it's majority-white VAP.

You are correct. I did notice that. And yet it is fully VRA compliant - 100% odds. Why do you think that is, if you don't know and had to guess?