2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: New Jersey

[S019]

I think 9-3 might be the way to go here (giving up a sink in the north), and before people scold me for ugly boundaries, remember this is a politician commission and they have produced ugly boundaries in the past, parochial concerns are far more important in the NJ commission than in others. 2 GOP seats in the north simply will be too weak and they will not last in wave years (same with the current 3 Dem seats in the north), so 2-1 should make everyone happy, as for the south, I'm guessing both sides want their respective incumbents safe, so they try something like this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/f2e6f695-f9a8-422b-9cb3-030ac4e59927

[S019]

You could, but it requires unpacking the 1st, which Norcross would never allow to happen, it is much easier and logical to cede the 2nd by giving Atlantic City to the 3rd, by hugging the coast, and for those who say that drawing a seat by hugging the coast will never happen, just see the current 6th. Anyways, no, and if you are at the point where you are unpacking the 1st, Kim is being shored up first before moving to draw out Van Drew. Not to mention the Republicans on the commission would block any map that drew out Van Drew, so no it just isn't practical or logical and isn't happening.

[S019]

No.  Redistricting will be a bipartisan incumbent protection that also creates a strong Republican district for Tom Kean to run in.

Yeah South Jersey is pretty clean and easy to work with. North Jersey is the main question. 10-2 is possible with both being SJ sinks but it make other people angry. It would definitely butcher Mercer county who don't have a county machine as college liberals never do.

Taking apart Mercer County is going to lead to concerns from Bonnie Watson Coleman, adding new blue areas to her seat makes her vulnerable to a primary and she would object to red areas being added. 9-3 with one North Jersey sink is the easiest thing to do, also a secure 10-2 requires a mess in the north that simply won't happen.

[S019]

Basically maximum incumbent protection in SJ.

Norcross loses white upscale libs in Cherry Hill, Kim gets Safe d and Van drew gets a Safe R.Smith keeps his home in Mercer. Keeps most of Mercer leftover to figure out what to do there.

This is an interesting take on the map, and better than my map at getting the job done imo, but I do have to wonder is it even necessary for Norcross to give up Cherry Hill? Based on this map, I think you could probably get away with picking up some light red precincts and still keep Kim safe?

[S019]

NJ redistricting isn't done by a trifecta. Its a bipartisan commission. At the very least expect Van Drew's/ Smith to keep an R seat. The main question is what happens with North Jersey.

At this point I feel pretty confident in 2-1 D North Jersey, I think 3 D's is a. a dummymander and b. would get strong opposition from the Reps on the commission, and 2-1 R is probably a dummymander, especially with how Morris and Bergen are shifting, and the Democrats would never allow it. 2-1 gives the GOP a sink that should be safe and that makes them happy and the Democrats keep 2 of their incumbents happy.

[S019]

This is probably more or less what a fair map is, but I think this is illegal. A lot of white liberals in places like Livingston and Montclair seem to have been thrown into the VRA AA seat, so the percentage there might be too low. Also this would never pass, because a bunch of incumbents were drawn out of their seats (Pallone and either Gottheimer or Sherrill definitely were), but I think this is meant to be a fair map anyways. Do you have demographic numbers for 2 and 6, given 2 is definitely a protected AA seat and 6 is either a protected Hispanic seat or a Hispanic opportunity seat?

[S019]

You can get to about 40% Hispanic CVAP by taking in the north side of Newark (where have all the Italians gone, long time passing?), or Elizabeth. Even by trying to take in both, and making some erose mess that carves out the gold coast, you are not going to get to more than say 45% HCVAP.  It may be legal to do the erose mess, but it is certainly not VRA required.

I might add that a substantial percentage of the Hispanics in the zone are Cuban, and thus about a quarter of them or so vote Pub (it will be interesting to find out what the Trump 2020 share turns out to be). It is just not there. I really think Hispanics and the VRA are on its last legs. That may be one of the very few silver linings of the Trump show. He has reduced the salience of color as a proxy for partisan preference.

44% is probably not good enough, especially if you consider the fact that you can make a much stronger seat and given only one seat is mandated, there really isn't justification for a weaker seat, and again even if it might legal taking away the Hispanic opportunity seat is not something that a fair map would do, as minority representation also matters on a fair map.

[S019]

Not sure what I'd call this map, I suppose it is a fair map in the lfromnj sense of the word?
The main thrust of it is county integrity I guess.
I have two compact performing majority-minority seats, and one white plurality seat. I created a whole Northern Jersey CD formed of Sussex, Warren, and Morris counties.
I really like my 9th. Combined with the 8th (which only takes Elizabeth to keep performing, and is otherwise contained with Essex and Hudson) and the 10th (similarly contained within those two counties), and the fact that Morris, Sussex, and Warren together form a whole count CD, I think the overall result is quite nice.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/0e8b0804-fadc-4670-8233-bc0d21682e25

I don't think this is fair given Western Essex was linked to Middlesex, west Essex clearly belongs with Morris, I think Union+taking more of Middlesex in from 12 could work, but the current 6th does feel somewhat like a leftover seat, but I think Essex to Middlesex is just a bridge too far, Woodbridge and Livingston have very little in common.

Fair Map^TM

My main issue with this is what is either a tri or quad cut of Essex, and also I don't think a fair map would eliminate the Hispanic opportunity seat in Hudson County. Also the Passaic cut looks a bit unclean, I would leave Wayne with the West Milford seat, its more Clifton, Paterson, and Passaic that I would throw into the Bergen seat.

[S019]

I highly doubt anything with less than 8 Dem seats get passed, Democrats are on track to get back state Supreme Court control by the time redrawing happens and Murphy is Governor, both of those should lend itself to the tiebreaker being D favored and Dems would control all of the levers of power, with 10 incumbents to satisfy (remember this is a politician commission, so incumbent concerns matter), there's no way they're sacrificing more than 2, if they have the votes, which they in all likelihood will. In fact, the person that Murphy nominated to replace LaVecchia clerked for RBG and two other Clinton appointed judges, even if she doesn't have a political party per Wikipedia, it's very clear where she leans.

The most that Republicans can hope for is a safe North Jersey seat, a safe South Jersey seat, and two competitive south Jersey seats, I personally think the end result is 9-3 with a safe R north Jersey seat and the 3rd and 2nd shored up for their respective parties. 10-2 would probably be an absurd gerrymander that would break norms and if the tiebreaker sides with the Democrats, then there's absolutely no reason for them to cede 5 or more seats to the Republicans, even four is probably a stretch in that case.

[S019]

Despite his ~scandal~ there isn't really any need to sacrifice Malinowski, here's a pretty safe and non-crazy 10-2 map with all incumbencies preserved and all but one Dem districts leaning more Democratic than NJ at large (in 2020 at least):

NJ-01: Biden +21
NJ-02: Trump +14
NJ-03: Biden +17
NJ-04: Trump +15
NJ-05: Biden +12
NJ-06: Biden +16
NJ-07: Biden +20
NJ-08: Biden +43
NJ-09: Biden +20
NJ-10: Biden +64
NJ-11: Biden +16
NJ-12: Biden +22

That NJ-01 is not passing

[S019]

Chris Smith is drawn out of his district.

Do you have 2016 data on this map? This seems like one of the more realistic 11-1 maps that I've seen, though it does some weird things with the Northeast NJ districts. The fact that politicians are on the NJ commission means that incumbent concerns will matter almost as much as a legislative map, so substantially changing the Northeast NJ seats like that probably won't fly, and also you probably want to get 2 out of 3 of the Northwest NJ seats to Clinton+10 or more, so that it would probably survive even a bad year, especially given Northern New Jersey isn't really known for being inelastic, if you're going to go for 10-2/11-1.

[S019]

Chris Smith is drawn out of his district.

Do you have 2016 data on this map? This seems like one of the more realistic 11-1 maps that I've seen, though it does some weird things with the Northeast NJ districts. The fact that politicians are on the NJ commission means that incumbent concerns will matter almost as much as a legislative map, so substantially changing the Northeast NJ seats like that probably won't fly, and also you probably want to get 2 out of 3 of the Northwest NJ seats to Clinton+10 or more, so that it would probably survive even a bad year, especially given Northern New Jersey isn't really known for being inelastic, if you're going to go for 10-2/11-1.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5b843cff-03c1-4dec-a053-1abe8bf13f05

Here's the link, pls tell me if it doesnt work. It should be set to 2016

So, after a quick look, I see several issues here, the first is in that trying to configure the northern seats in such a way, where you can get three seats, Pallone's seat has moved from Clinton+16 to Clinton+9, definitely winnable in a good year for the GOP. Also, the northern NJ seat, which is I guess is Gottheimer, but incumbent succession gets weird on this map for reasons I'll mention later, is around Clinton+8.5, which while better than the current seat is not wave proof, this could also fall in a bad year for the Democrats. So in a bad year for the Democrats, this map could once again end up as 6-6. The elimination of the Hispanic access seat is something I don't really see happening, and especially not the way it is here. Sires is from Hudson County, what seems to be the successor to his seat has left Hudson County entirely and bizarrely grabs blue chunks of Middlesex and has an awkward arm into Somerset, which includes Malinowski's home in southern Somerset. Sires, on the other hand has been drawn into what seems to be the successor to Pascrell's seat, and Pascrell's home of Paterson has been thrown into what seems to be Sherrill's successor seat. There seems to be a lot of musical chairs in the north, that along with the fact that there are not at least 8 secure seats (every Dem seat except 3 and if you want to try to hold all three, then one of 5/7/11, can and should be made secure). I honestly think this map gets at the heart of the issue of preserving all three northern seats, the incumbents do not live in the most convenient of places and reshaping the map to try to shore up all three creates major issues elsewhere.

[S019]

Which tiebreaker do y'all think the state supreme court will choose?

Probably the Republican, but it won't matter much, I believe at this point, the choice is between 9-3 D and 8-4 D, drawing 2 R seats in the north would be a dummymander probably, I drew two on DRA and they were like Trump+5 and Trump+8 in 2016, given Biden's gains in North Jersey, I wouldn't be surprised if both flipped in 2020. Andy Kim's seat really seems like all that is left to be decided, unless either the Republicans or the Democrats are really dumb.

[S019]

8-4 should be a minimum, Democrats have leverage here and should use it, especially after a Republican gerrymander was passed last cycle by Republicans using that same leverage. Any map with more than one Republican seat in New Jersey should immediately be thrown out.

[S019]

Anyone who supports a gerrymander and says "Well if Republicans supported fair maps we wouldn't have to do this" obviously does not care about a fair redistricting process in the first place.

I don't agree with this at all. Democrats do support a fair process, there's just no reason for them to unilaterally disarm.

If you support Democratic gerrymandering, then you do not support a fair process. Either you support a fair process, in which you would oppose all gerrymanders, or you support a fair process only when it benefits Democrats and support gerrymandering only when it benefits Democrats.

Supporting fair maps in GOP states and gerrymanders in Dem states just means that you're being a partisan hack. Any thinking that arrives at a different conclusion is delusional.

You are aware of the concept of unilateral disarmament, yeah?

Unilateral disarmament is a Dem hack meme. The GOP has disarmed a great deal already, passing on optimal gerrymanders in TX, GA, FL, MO, IN, etc. Their two big gerrymanders in NC and OH have been struck down. The three most egregious maps of the cycle in IL, NY, and MD were all passed by Democrats.

There is no great specter of GOP gerrymander that underpinned the 'we cannot unliterally disarm' sentiment. All that's left is delusional justification that Dem hacks are using to think they still some moral high ground in supporting blatant gerrymandering.

You are aware that states like Texas are already pretty maxed out for the GOP right? If they went after TX-32 or TX-07, it would've blown up in their faces, possibly as soon as as 2024. In Florida, they had reasons to not go aggressive (such as state rules), really only MO and IN chose not to crack blue districts on the merits of that decision alone. In any case, there is one party which supports independent redistricting and one that does not. I agree that gerrymandering is bad, which is why I support a bill to establish commissions in all 50 states.

[S019]

Anyone who supports a gerrymander and says "Well if Republicans supported fair maps we wouldn't have to do this" obviously does not care about a fair redistricting process in the first place.

I don't agree with this at all. Democrats do support a fair process, there's just no reason for them to unilaterally disarm.

If you support Democratic gerrymandering, then you do not support a fair process. Either you support a fair process, in which you would oppose all gerrymanders, or you support a fair process only when it benefits Democrats and support gerrymandering only when it benefits Democrats.

Supporting fair maps in GOP states and gerrymanders in Dem states just means that you're being a partisan hack. Any thinking that arrives at a different conclusion is delusional.

You are aware of the concept of unilateral disarmament, yeah?

Unilateral disarmament is a Dem hack meme. The GOP has disarmed a great deal already, passing on optimal gerrymanders in TX, GA, FL, MO, IN, etc. Their two big gerrymanders in NC and OH have been struck down. The three most egregious maps of the cycle in IL, NY, and MD were all passed by Democrats.

There is no great specter of GOP gerrymander that underpinned the 'we cannot unliterally disarm' sentiment. All that's left is delusional justification that Dem hacks are using to think they still some moral high ground in supporting blatant gerrymandering.

You are aware that states like Texas are already pretty maxed out for the GOP right? If they went after TX-32 or TX-07, it would've blown up in their faces, possibly as soon as as 2024. In Florida, they had reasons to not go aggressive (such as state rules), really only MO and IN chose not to crack blue districts on the merits of that decision alone. In any case, there is one party which supports independent redistricting and one that does not. I agree that gerrymandering is bad, which is why I support a bill to establish commissions in all 50 states.

An Illinois level gerrymander in Texas would've added another few seats. IL Dems were ok with Biden +10 seats, while TX GOP wanted 20+. FL was unquestionably soft (even having Dem friendly decisions in some parts of the state) even within the bounds of the state rules.
How many states did Democrats throw the GOP the bone like the GOP threw Dems bones like in IN, FL, MO? 0!

I don't believe the establish commission in all 50 states support when it's juxtaposed against cheering for Democratic gerrymanders and against anger when commissions don't take favorable routes for Democrats. I believe Torie when he says it, but until other red avs start calling the NY Supreme Court to strike down the recent gerrymander, as GOP friendly courts have done in NC and OH, I'm going to believe that they're just ok with gerrymandering when it's done by Democrats.

The difference is that other than IL-17, none of those vulnerable seats are rapidly trending away from Democrats. Meanwhile if Texas Republicans reconfigured the 32nd to try to retake it, they would've carved up the Metroplex into a bunch of say Trump+10 or so seats, that was absolutely going to backfire with how fast that region was trending. Also I'd argue Democrats did throw the GOP a bone in MD, by keeping a district that was is winnable for Andy Harris, MD Dems could've easily drawn a secure 8-0. In any case, the NY map is bad, I agree, but my main qualms with it are upstate, which is needlessly ugly. The Staten Island decision, at least is kind of defensible giving it must take in something unrelated. Anyways, I will be glad to root for NY and IL's gerrymanders to be struck down, when TX and GA are drawing true fair maps.

[S019]

An Illinois level gerrymander in Texas would've added another few seats. IL Dems were ok with Biden +10 seats, while TX GOP wanted 20+. FL was unquestionably soft (even having Dem friendly decisions in some parts of the state) even within the bounds of the state rules.
How many states did Democrats throw the GOP the bone like the GOP threw Dems bones like in IN, FL, MO? 0!

I don't believe the establish commission in all 50 states support when it's juxtaposed against cheering for Democratic gerrymanders and against anger when commissions don't take favorable routes for Democrats. I believe Torie when he says it, but until other red avs start calling the NY Supreme Court to strike down the recent gerrymander, as GOP friendly courts have done in OH, I'm going to believe that they're just ok with gerrymandering when it's done by Democrats.

The reason the TXGOP wanted such an aggressive gerrymander is that a number of their districts are trending left at lightning speed. Anyways this is all very dumb because even with all the breaks Democrats caught the median House seat is just going to be very close to the NPV, i.e. the map will be fair. If the Democrats had been less aggressive, well, you do the math; the map would be right leaning.

Yeah absolutely, Texas is one of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the sense that it is trying to maintain basically the amount of seats that they drew for an R+16 state, that could very well be a neutral state come 2024. Other than TX-15, every Republican seat voted to the right of the state. Had the dam broken in Texas in 2020, yet Republicans still held onto the remapping process, something tells me that people would be seeing Texas as more aggressive (i.e. people intuitively associate aggressive gerrymandering with taking over seats and not simply shoring up seats that you should have no business holding anymore)

[S019]

Well, drawing CD lines in my current home state of NJ is always a challenge, but I decided to do the exercise based on neutral metrics, and that hack tie breaker retired judge really did snatch a seat from the Pubs, and in a grotesque manner to boot. I guess the Dems knew what was in the guy's brain in advance or something.

What were the 2020 numbers on that 7th?

[S019]

Well, drawing CD lines in my current home state of NJ is always a challenge, but I decided to do the exercise based on neutral metrics, and that hack tie breaker retired judge really did snatch a seat from the Pubs, and in a grotesque manner to boot. I guess the Dems knew what was in the guy's brain in advance or something.

What were the 2020 numbers on that 7th?

Per my map, Trump 2020 won by three points.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/af980daa-0afb-4e98-b88a-3d745c7455fd

That would definitely fall in 2026, if a Republican was President and there's a good chance it falls in 2024. I would say it's a lean Republican seat, but not really a stolen extra seat. It is definitely gone in 2028 though, while the state swung 11 pts right from 2017 to 2021, Morris County (my home) swung only 3 pts right.