2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Tennessee

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at a clean TN 8-1 map.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Cleanish Nashville crack. Wouldn't look like a gerrymander to your average person.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I know it's not a perfect comparison, but GA-6 and GA-7 were both 60R-37D (-ish) districts in 2012 as well.   Not necessarily guaranteed to be safe.

TX-10 and TX-21 (Austin crack districts) each gave Romney around 60% but only barely went to Trump last year.

So just to repeat stop looking at the percentage change in the vote Trump won each district that takes in Nashville by more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. That's the trend to look at not how the percent changed. 2020 had a lot higher turnout than 2016 so these percentage changes are skewed and look worse than they are. If the best the dems can do is turnout more voters and lose by more than these should be safe.

Without knowing how much higher turnout was in 2020 that's kinda a useless metric though.  If  turnout is brought high enough pretty much any raw margin will increase, unless the district is trending so fast it's bound to be gone anyway. 

Besides that doesn't even tell the whole picture, once turnout is down again in the next cycle, does the raw margin stay the same or does the percentage persist with the lowered margins?

What no it's not. You can easily calculate how much higher turnout was. How is the percentage change better a metric then? It's pretty obvious that Tennessee isn't trending like the other two examples you mention. Obviously, when turnout is lower it means the percentage margin will go up. I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. Tennessee is not trending dem.

TN isn’t but Nashville metro area pretty clearly is, and that’s the part being cracked.

Considering these districts will all be pretty good mix and urban/suburbs/rurals, Trump + 20 should be fine for the decade; districts like GA-6 or TX-7 were purely suburban and therefore more prone to trends. If any of these TN seats fall then there’s either a massive unforeseen political re-alignment or the GOP is in the trash nationally.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2021/12/08/jim-cooper-heres-what-happens-if-legislature-slices-up-nashville/6424567001/

A theory making the rounds is that any slice of Nashville will be so indigestible that Republican officials are gagging at the thought, like eating anchovy pizza. But guess what: they would still get solidly Republican districts, although winnable by only 15 points instead of 30. That’s still near-certain victory. A sweetener is that their worries of being primaried diminish.

Cooper really should not frame it this way.

IDK it's lowkey one of the bigger 2026/30 risks either party is taking if they go through with it.  Imagine if TN of all places ended up 5R/4D after a midterm wave!

That still seems pretty unlikely; if I were the GOP I'd rather take that small risk than cede a seat to Dems for the entire decade. If that were to actually end up happenning the GOP would already be in teh deep minority nationally most likely

[ProgressiveModerate]

Another attempt at a clean and safe 8-1 TN. Davidson County is going to have to be split at least 3 ways, like in this map, however, you'll prolly want a 4th district to take in part of the general Nashville metro area just to be safe. Considering how fast Nashville is growing and it's blueifying, I think this is a decade rental and next decade they'll have to cede the seat back, especially if TN gains a 10th district. While Memphis would normally be able to be cracked due to depopulation, VRA likely saves it for at least another redistricting cycle or two assuming VRA isn't overturned.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Suprised no one has pointed this out but isn't this map illegal because district 2 is discontinous.

Not really for any partisan reasons, it could easily be made continous with the rest of the map barely being impacted, but just pointing it out.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Contiguity requirements are a matter of state law. And I think the rules vary. County dis-contiguity is uncommon but municipal dis-contiguity I see often, particularly fragments of towns, after the heart of a town has been swallowed up by a city.

Nationally districts have to be contiguous by land though, with the only exception being Islands or when there's clear road/ferry/transit between points A and B (i.e. if Satan Island were attatched to lower Manhattan).

I could be wrong but County Contiguity isn't valid on the Congressional level.

Like think about how much uproar a hypothetical 5-1 Louisiana map if it tried to justify continuity with St. Martin Parish. This is the same thing, just on a much smaller scale as these precincts/blocks are tiny and have very few people, and don't affect the overall map.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Contiguity requirements are a matter of state law. And I think the rules vary. County dis-contiguity is uncommon but municipal dis-contiguity I see often, particularly fragments of towns, after the heart of a town has been swallowed up by a city.

Nationally districts have to be contiguous by land though, with the only exception being Islands or when there's clear road/ferry/transit between points A and B (i.e. if Satan Island were attatched to lower Manhattan).

I could be wrong but County Contiguity isn't valid on the Congressional level.

No such requirements ?

I could be wrong but I thought contiguity was settled law in the most general sense (i.e Dems couldn't attach the Maryland Panhandle or the penninsula with a seperate random chunk of deep blue precincts outside DC). Ik some states have additional stricter rules

[ProgressiveModerate]

Contiguity requirements are a matter of state law. And I think the rules vary. County dis-contiguity is uncommon but municipal dis-contiguity I see often, particularly fragments of towns, after the heart of a town has been swallowed up by a city.

Nationally districts have to be contiguous by land though, with the only exception being Islands or when there's clear road/ferry/transit between points A and B (i.e. if Satan Island were attatched to lower Manhattan).

I could be wrong but County Contiguity isn't valid on the Congressional level.

No such requirements ?

I could be wrong but I thought contiguity was settled law in the most general sense (i.e Dems couldn't attach the Maryland Panhandle or the penninsula with a seperate random chunk of deep blue precincts outside DC). Ik some states have additional stricter rules

No as far I understand it probably has to do with VRA districts. Basically a VRA distrift should be contigious otherwise it violates the 14th.

So it's more of an unwritten rule then that just no one has bothered breaking? Like hypothetically that'd make it extremely easy to gerrymander by just putting all of your opponent's strongest precincts in 1 district.

If not I guarantee you there will be a supreme court case over this in my lifetime