2020 New York Redistricting

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My Long Island map

Districts D +9, +12, +12, and +13

[patzer]

My Long Island map

Districts D +9, +12, +12, and +13

Can you make a 24-2 map or 23-2-1 without VRA issues?

After a bit of experimenting, it's very much possible to make an all-blue Long Island without eating into the 5th, but it looks considerably uglier.

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This was challenging but I managed to make a 25-1 map. Every district voted for Biden by at least 10 points in 2020, so hopefully that'd be safe enough though it could in theory be vulnerable if upstate NY were to drift sharply to the right. (And Katko's district is Biden +15 just in case...)

 DRA link: https://davesredistricting.org/join/c2523312-e33e-4a5f-b6da-d89198227202

All incumbent Dems except Carolyn Maloney should keep their seats. Maloney loses her seat at the expense of a new Asian-plurailty 9th (the existing 9th is renumbered as the 12th). In theory this isn't inevitable, you could keep Maloney around, but I figured a new majority-minority seat was more important. NYC itself probably has more stringy districts than is strictly necessary; I mostly just did the stringiness to try to retain all the existing majority-minority seats.

Amusing fact: none of the upstate New York Republicans are actually living in the 21st here. Stefanik's in the 20th, Tenney in the 22nd, Katko and Reed in the 24th, and Jacobs in the 26th. I'm sure some of them would move to the new 21st to fight out a primary though.

Seats without a Dem incumbent, for pickup opportunities: 1st, 2nd or 4th (whichever Rice doesn't run in), 7th or 11th (whichever Velázquez doesn't run in- I think Velázquez lives in the latter but the former has most of her old seat's territory), and upstate you have the 20th, 23rd, and 24th.

I hope they go for a 25-1 map like this, given that it's possible.

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It's ridiculously easy to make a sensible Staten Island/Brooklyn map that's all safe D though, if they give away any seats there it'll be because they want to cede them to Republicans.

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Thought I'd have another go at making my Long Island gerrymander as neat as possible. https://davesredistricting.org/join/b1b49423-bcb6-4e96-bac6-3598e2109ac7



5th and 6th are black and Asian VRA districts (44% black and 45% Asian respectively)

1st is Biden+9 in 2020, D+14 in 2016-20 composite
2nd is Biden+10 in 2020, D+18 in 2016-20 composite
3rd is Biden+9 in 2020, D+13 in 2016-20 composite
4th is Biden+10 in 2020, D+16 in 2016-20 composite

So... you've got 4 seats that are pretty safe but could conceivably fall in a landslide. Is it worth it? I don't know.

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What I find somewhat ridiculous about this is that the Dems passed a really ugly gerrymander, but they could easily have passed a pretty map serving the same purpose, for example

In which a few seats could be vulnerable in a bad year (18th and 20th are Biden+8, 19th is Biden+13, 22nd is Biden+11) but on the other hand the 23rd would be a potential pickup (only Trump+2).

Something like that surely wouldn't have been prone to a court strike-down and would generally have functioned as a 22-4 map anyway- but instead the Dems decided to go for ridiculous stuff like the 24th's narrow snake shape, the 19th's protrusions into Utica and Vestal, etc, all for the relatively small gain of incumbents being shored up a bit more. May backfire if the courts do feel inclined to strike it down.

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Wow, they really bacon-stripped the Orthodox and Asian communities in south Brooklyn.

At least Tompkins is in a competitive seat.

I have said it before and I will say it again: in order to not discriminate against the various NYC groups that are legally protected, you need to find Whites from somewhere to add into the seats to prevent minority packing, and the Orthodox are just the closest and most readily available. The progressives are also a viable option, but as shown by this map, you need to partially carve them both up for all the minority seats. There is a reason why the GOP's dream map had one of the LI seats reach into the region, rather than use a existing dem seat.

It's actually very easy to turn the 10th into an Asian-opportunity seat in South Brooklyn. Here's a go at modifying the Special Master's map to achieve this; only the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th districts have any changes at all. Incidentally all five districts are very much safe Biden, so this also functions as a more pro-Democrat map (I was surprised to discover this as I drew it without partisanship data; had expected the 10th to be competitive).

8th is 52% black; 9th is 47% black; 10th is 34% Asian and 42% white but I expect it'd probably be Asian-plurality in the Dem primary.

You're still dividing the Orthodox community with a map like this, though its core is in the 8th.

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In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

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In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

Grouping SI with parts of Manhattan works too.  It can be done without looking erose.

The erosity is primarily to ensure the new Asian district in my proposal.

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You could definitely also do the configuration Oryxslayer does; it just depends I guess if Goldman prefers Sunset Park and Bensonhurst or Staten Island.

It's probably not just about Goldman (though I think he'd be fine with either)- I think in general the NYC Dem caucus would probably prefer to see an Asian-American seat for Yuh-Line Niou to take than another predominantly white seat

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Doing 3-1 in LI might turn into 1-3 though, which is why 2-2 could be the way to go. Move Despacito's seat to Biden+16, Santos to Biden+17, both will flip. Creating 3 Biden +10 seats in LI is very risky at this point.

It's tricky but here's my best attempt at an Illinois-style heavy gerrymander in Long Island.

1st is Biden+10, 2nd is Biden+18, 3rd is Biden+15, 4th is Biden+16, 6th is Biden+20. 8th is Biden+20 as well but can easily be made safer than that.

The tricky part is that if you're trying to build up the margins in the Long Island seats by reaching into Queens, it's easy to end up heavily slicing up the 5th. But here I managed to keep at least the core of the 5th intact- it is essentially merged with the core of the 2nd to make the new 2nd, and 31% black VAP in the new 2nd should be enough to let Gregory Meeks comfortably hold on to the seat in such a scenario.

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One thing Dems will want to consider is which upstate district will get Spring Valley and Kirya Joels. These fast growing ultra-Conservative Jewish communities could shift a Biden + 10 seat right in the long run.

Why not put them in Bowman’s district (NY-16)?

I tried drawing what that might look like:

You have to remember that these areas have a tendency to swing dramatically, and while they are usually solid R Presidentially (not in 2016, but they were in 2004-2012 and in 2020), they very frequently vote Democratic for both state and federal elections other than President. So the Republicans cannot rely on them to make competitive seats, and the Democrats should be less worried about growth in them than you might think - although particularly if the Democrats get the right candidate in there (the Democrats really should be running Jewish candidates in any district containing Rockland County, and not doing so is electoral malpractice - even your average everyday Reform Jew should be able to get a solid minority or in some cases majority percentage of the vote in those enclaves, enough to put any district containing them out of reach for a Republican).

There's always the option of trying to make a Jewish plurality district by pairing Rockland with Manhattan (water connectivity only). Looks horrendous but it's a theoretical option for plausible deniability in gerrymandering.

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Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

One thing that would be worth considering is conceding a fourth upstate seat in return for making all of the others ironclad safe. Here, the closest Democratic district would be the 18th at Biden+20.4. Is it worth conceding a seat in return for making the others fully safe even in bad midterms/Katko-like performances? I'm not sure, but it's worth considering.

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In order to defeat Williams (who only won by 1 in a Biden+7.6 district), New York Democrats should not need to help out Molinaro (only won by 1.6 in a Biden+4.7 district), and I do not think they will.

It would also mean comfortably defeating Lawler, of course.

But yes, there would only be a need to do so if they believe that trends are working against them quite a lot.

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Isn't there historical precedence for a Staten Island-Manhattan district? It seems like it might be easy to uphold if the other NYC districts are kept tidy.

I have to say I'm struck by how weak Schumer's performance was in Long Island. There has to be some serious temptation to cede two R districts in Long Island. I imagine a lot will depend on how the NY-03 special turns out.

Well, for Long Island you can always cede one Safe R sink and another Lean R seat. In this map...

1st is Trump+1
2nd is Trump+14
3rd is Biden+31 (and very nearly Hispanic plurality)
4th is Biden+38 (black plurality)
6th is Biden+31 (46% Asian)

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Why do you think the current map is bad? If you have actual reasoning, I’m more than willing to hear it out.

The 19th and 24th districts have very ugly and easily avoidable shapes, why not this

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Was thinking of the matter of the hypothetical Brooklyn Asian district and I wondered, why not a Queens-Nassau Asian district too? In this map, both the 4th and the 6th would be over 40% Asian. 1st is Biden+10 and 3rd is Biden+19.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a3dca293-e5fc-4fce-ab53-aaf34678fdd4

Asians form over 10% of the population of New York so proportionally one would have expected there to be three Asian-access districts.

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9 might have too many liberal whites to be black functioning.

It's 47% black VAP, 33% white, and 14% Hispanic, which should be enough

What’s the partisanship of 10? - looks like it could be a bit iffy for Dems, but not a bad district in terms of COI

Clinton +24, Biden +18. 42% white VAP and 34% Asian.

Splitting Hempstead township 4 ways just feels wrong.

I was prioritizing the gerrymander over keeping townships intact!

Demographically those three districts are all quite heavily Asian-American, but Asian as a label encompasses a lot of very distinct groups. 4 and 10 are more heavily Chinese, but 6 is very diverse, with large Chinese, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi communities. Those areas may not necessarily feel the need to be included in one Asian access district if they have different political interests and establishments.

And I suppose here we see the disadvantage of DRA not separating between more specific groups.

For whatever reason New Yorkers also seem to have a really intense negative reaction to crossing the Long Island-NYC line, which is something I don't really get but seems to be the case. I proposed a similar double dip into Nassau but it was not so well received.

Given that Long Island is only entitled to 3.76 districts, it's necessary to cross that line somewhere of course, but I can see how going from 4 primarily Long Island based districts to only 3 might be something not everyone would be happy with.

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So how will Suozzi get shored up in the redraw?

The current config in Long Island is quite favorable to Republicans. In my default LI setup, Garbarino would just get more of Massapequa and NY-03 would be pushed to Biden +13.

That is if the Dems are ok with 2-2. If they want 3-1 it will be tougher.

The map I posted at the top of this page knocks the Republicans down to one Long Island seat and shores up Suozzi, but I doubt the commission would go for changes as major as that.

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Any map that has anything less than a completely safe Dem seat combining Staten Island and the white liberal areas of lower Manhattan should be summarily rejected for that reason alone. At least in other parts of the state like upstate and Long Island there are generally some sorts of tradeoffs (e.g. making 1 seat more Dem puts another seat out of reach whereas it might otherwise be competitive in a good year). But in NYC, there is no tradeoff whatsoever with making sure that the Staten Island district ends up safely Democratic.

Not to mention giving Staten Island to Dan Goldman allows for an Asian plurality Brooklyn district.

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Downside of that map is Jones didn't want to be forced into a primary with Bowman in 2022 so may feel the same now.

Lawler would probably try his luck in Pat Ryan's seat.

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Good, in fact great analysis. If circumstances were normal, I would agree with everything you said and more. Except, things are not normal. I think our point of divergence comes from me thinking Bowman is tarnished goods and anyone can defeat him right now given the electorates of the region.  I think it's important to remember in this regard that Bowman didn't come to congress by being a Progressive - that was Jones - he came in by being a fresh alternative to the self-tarnished Engel. IMO its not hard to see things repeating here, even if some of his issues only matter to Reps. Electability-focused and mainstream not-rock-the-boat voters are going to congregate to the alternative, especially in the NYT weighs in like they usually do. But nobody really knows for sure besides his campaign.

So if Latimer can get his ideal district like this - again my opinion - his friends really don't care what happens to the rest. In fact some may just be doing it cause they are anti-progressive, something seemingly common in NY Dem politics these days. But if Latimer is going to bulldoze through, then Jones friends are going to ensure he still has options.

There are options to help everyone- they're just less tidy. For example this would leave Bowman in the 16th, Jones in the 17th, Latimer in the 18th, Ryan in the 19th, and Tonko in the 20th- each with territory they would probably be happy enough with- thereby avoiding all unwanted primaries.




16th = Biden+21
17th = Biden+13
18th = Biden+17
19th = Biden+13
20th = Biden+14
22nd = Biden+12
24th = Biden+10
25th = Biden+17
26th = Biden+20