2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

A man can dream, can't he?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1452727461578424325?s=20

Lawyers be like: my time has come...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm honestly relieved this is the map we got. It's still a gerrymander, of course, but it's not one that tries to undo the 2018 gains - in fact it consolidates them, and even adds one Dem seat on top of that. If the 2020 trends with Hispanics continue, that's very worrying down South, of course, but I have to hope Dems will be able to keep the 3 South Texas seats, which would make the map 14-24. Not too bad for a still GOP-leaning swing state.

Ye fortunately most of Rs gerrymander is just cancelling out their own geography issues.

And it's not like the work they did to shore up the seats are guaranteed to hold against potential future trends anyway.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

Probably not...hard to beat out CDs centered on the Bronx. But it definitely is in good contention for the title of most Democratic district in the South.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

Probably not...hard to beat out CDs centered on the Bronx. But it definitely is in good contention for the title of most Democratic district in the South.

Yea I see that now. I was misinterpreting 538’s eating and reading them like cook PVI

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2021-10-01/new-austin-congressional-district-would-help-protect-gop-incumbents/
Found this article by chance. It's only 73.8% Biden? There are districts more Dem than that in Texas (TX-30, for instance) and there are even more Dem seats in the South (Georgia-5).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

Probably not...hard to beat out CDs centered on the Bronx. But it definitely is in good contention for the title of most Democratic district in the South.

Yea I see that now. I was misinterpreting 538’s eating and reading them like cook PVI

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2021-10-01/new-austin-congressional-district-would-help-protect-gop-incumbents/
Found this article by chance. It's only 73.8% Biden? There are districts more Dem than that in Texas (TX-30, for instance) and there are even more Dem seats in the South (Georgia-5).

ya see whay had happened was I saw on 538 had it as "D+44" and I was thinkin in PVI and was like"whoa" cause that is just about the highest you can get in PVI. Turnsout I was just bad at comprehension

Well, we all make mistakes.
In any case, it seems clear that TX-37 is going to be among to be a very important place for any future Dem statewide win, as it represents a high-turnout area that Ds need the vote margin from.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I just had one little thought. If the Dems gain the state legislature and governorship by the middle of the decade, they could try a mid-decade redistricting, given it should be easy enough to make a 24-14 or so map in the other direction.

Revenge for 2003...

The legislature did not redistrict in 2001.

Yes. The 2001 map was from federal court, if I recall correctly.
That screws up 2000s analogies a bit but if Ds do win control later on in the 2020s, we might still see a Dem mid-decade redraw. And the results might still evoke 2003.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I just had one little thought. If the Dems gain the state legislature and governorship by the middle of the decade, they could try a mid-decade redistricting, given it should be easy enough to make a 24-14 or so map in the other direction.

Revenge for 2003...

The legislature did not redistrict in 2001.

Yes. The 2001 map was from federal court, if I recall correctly.
That screws up 2000s analogies a bit but if Ds do win control later on in the 2020s, we might still see a Dem mid-decade redraw. And the results might still evoke 2003.

I expect the Texas House to flip this decade, buoyed by the county-split rules when drawing House districts. But I would be more surprised if both the Texas Senate and Governor flip. Just seems too good to be true.

If TX has became D enough that the State Senate has flipped, the governorship has very likely flipped also, given the quality of the GOP lines.
But if TX has became a persistently 2-3% Dem margin state by the mid-2020s, Ds could pretty easily take the governorship if it is open and might flip it even if it isn't - given the polarization that has been increasing on gubernatorial level.
The key word is 'if'. I think 2020 demonstrated TX was still fundamentally a right-leaning state, and so while we might reach 2-3% in the late 2020s, it'd be very hard to do it in mid-2020s.
The single biggest issue with a reverse-2003 mid-decade redistricting is that Ds are probably quite unlikely to take the governorship in 2026 at the moment (based off best of knowledge) and so we'd have to wait until 2030. In which case, it is too late. No use in mid-decade redistricting after the 2030 election cycle. Just focus your energies on gerrymandering the state post-2030.
Note that all this assumes the state continues to trend strongly, strongly Democratic, and I can't say in good faith that this is certain, though I'd be equally hard-pressed to see it shifting back to the GOP.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I just had one little thought. If the Dems gain the state legislature and governorship by the middle of the decade, they could try a mid-decade redistricting, given it should be easy enough to make a 24-14 or so map in the other direction.

Revenge for 2003...

The legislature did not redistrict in 2001.

Yes. The 2001 map was from federal court, if I recall correctly.
That screws up 2000s analogies a bit but if Ds do win control later on in the 2020s, we might still see a Dem mid-decade redraw. And the results might still evoke 2003.

I expect the Texas House to flip this decade, buoyed by the county-split rules when drawing House districts. But I would be more surprised if both the Texas Senate and Governor flip. Just seems too good to be true.

The Senate almost certainly will be the last to flip, very unlikely to happen before the 2031 redistricting. My guess is that the Democrats control the House and the Governor's mansion (plus some other line offices, such as LG) after 2030, and that's enough to get a non-gerrymandered map passed, resulting in a flip of the Senate in 2032 when all seats are up for reelection as well.

If we really want a 2003 redux, we could just have a court map post-2032, that reflects the GOP lines but adds two new seats, and then Ds, taking a trifecta in 2032, pass a gerrymander in 2033. If that occured that aligns perfectly with the chronology of what led to the 2003 redistricting, even including the previous hackish gerrymander that courts largely preserve (TX's congressional map was wildly gerrymandered in the Ds favor during the 1990s).
One (to some extent quite valid) complaint that Rs had at the time was that Rs had basically no avenue to winning a majority of the House delegation despite winning a majority of votes time and time again.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Interesting fact:

Under the new state House maps passed by the GOP, Trump "only" won the majority of seats 85-65. And at that, most Biden seats should be relatively safe and there's very few actual marginal Dem seats (most are in the RGV so if that slips for the Dems it'll cost them). After that, the remainder should stick with them for the decade barring a major suburban reversion of the GOP becoming competitive in downtowns of big cities.

Dems on the other hand have tons of potential marginal pickup opportunities later in the decade, especially in these growing and diversifying suburbs.

I would almost be surprised at this point if Dems don't flip the TX State House at some point this decade

Yeah, I would be surprised if the State House doesn't have a D majority at any point this decade.
How did the median district in the State House vote?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Kinda a random thought, but the more I think about it, the more I think TX-03 could be a potential problem down the road for the GOP than TX-24.

Using Atlanta as kind of an example, TX-03 seems more like a Gwinnett County type-place- rapidly growing, diversifying, and gentrifying so will likely trend hard left by default over the course of the decade.

Meanwhile, TX-24 very much feels like northern Cobb county, an already largely established wealth white suburban community of the metro. If the district flips, while some of it could be attributed to shifting demographics and generation turnover, it’ll ultimately be from peeling off more college educated whites.

We saw in the GA runoffs for instance GA-7 vote decently to the left of GA-6 after GA-6 voted to the left of GA-7 in the 2020 Pres election, where the circumstances caused Biden to do better with college educated voters than a Dem would normally do. GA-7 also grew significantly more than GA-6 this decade population wise. GA-7 and TX-3 seem like the kind of places that are the future of the Democratic Party more than GA-6 or TX-24.

Also iirc TX-3 and GA-7 were both in the top 5 of most left shifting districts from 2016-2020 Pres

Here's a recommend.
I completely agree with most of what you posted here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/954cda1e-2251-4b9b-a2a0-2b0f92e27bac
Y'all, thoughts on this map I drew a few hours ago?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

That’s weirdly specific? Why do they want to do that? Are they trying to establish a pattern? If they look through mine they’d be baffled at it with all the weird maps

Looking for a pattern is the only explanation that thus far makes sense to me.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ya'll wanna work on fair maps to submit to the committee.

Not that it'll affect anything, but better to do smtg with your interests ig.

My House plan from 2021

FF map, ig my only thing is don’t Harris and Dallas have to be their own “cluster”?

My understanding is that Rockwall County, because of the land it has, has to be paired with either Dallas County or Collin County.
In the 2010s, it was paired with Collin. In Jimrtex's map, it would be paired with Dallas.