2020 New York Redistricting

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

You can lock in a fairly Likely map with only Katko's seat being a weird mix. The reason to give Katko Oneida is for the simple reason for hoping that he gets primaried out by Tenney especially after impeaching Trump. Also people really need to take into account for incumbent homes.

What would such a map look like?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I've been playing around a bit with a fair NY 25 seat map again, and I think I prefer this to my previous effort.
[maps]

I really like your first map, it even qualifies as a very good non-partisan I think.
Only thing I'd really change is switch out the second Brooklyn-Queens district with a Brooklyn-Manhattan district, with the rest of Manhattan going into a Manhattan-Queens district likely bordering New Jersey.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How does Tom Reed retiring influence redistricting?

Might make your map above more plausible.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens to Kathleen Rice? Does her district get eliminated?

Doubt it, the district that gets eliminated is likely going to be upstate.  The estimates for the state itself was off quite a bit from the actual census, so the county data obviously was as well and might be difficult to tell the impact on where until we get further numbers.

NY-23 is the obvious pick and the most natural one as well for elimination.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens to Kathleen Rice? Does her district get eliminated?

Doubt it, the district that gets eliminated is likely going to be upstate.  The estimates for the state itself was off quite a bit from the actual census, so the county data obviously was as well and might be difficult to tell the impact on where until we get further numbers.

NY-23 is the obvious pick and the most natural one as well for elimination.

I was thought it'd be NY-22 since it's in the middle of the state and everything can expand into it.

True. I actually meant NY-22 but put the wrong number in.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wasserman is probably drawing that map with an eye to the 2014 midterms, where Louise Slaughter had an extremely close shave.

Good point.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I haven't played around with NY yet, but is there anything that could wipe out Republicans on Long Island? A Republican vote sink on Long Island seems like a wasted opportunity with NYC so close.

Look at the results for Suozzi and Rice in 2020 - very good, but with high Republican floors. Drawing 4 Dem districts on LI is likely a dummymander.

Smart play is to draw one packed GOP sink and then baconstrip LI, with at least two seats crossing the NYC-LI line.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/244004fd-b6f8-4cc1-a909-0603b1811821
does this work as a Dem gerrymander?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The NY gerrymanders don't look anywhere near as ridiculous as the GOP ones in the South do.  It's a lot easier to gerrymander when a state is 2-1 Dem than 53-47 GOP I guess.  If Dems fail to gerrymander this cycle they are a lost cause and deserve to lose.

The real comparison is a place like Tennessee, to be honest. TN is about as R as NY is D.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If anyone has any questions I will try to answer them. If not, that’s OK too.

How did you get the 2020 results, those are not on DRA I thought? Or are they?

A friend processed the data from shape files.

I wonder when DRA looks likely to add 2020 election data for NY...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If anyone has any questions I will try to answer them. If not, that’s OK too.

How did you get the 2020 results, those are not on DRA I thought? Or are they?

A friend processed the data from shape files.

I wonder when DRA looks likely to add 2020 election data for NY...

The main takeaway for me personally would be Staten Island.

Why so?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If anyone has any questions I will try to answer them. If not, that’s OK too.

How did you get the 2020 results, those are not on DRA I thought? Or are they?

A friend processed the data from shape files.

I wonder when DRA looks likely to add 2020 election data for NY...

The main takeaway for me personally would be Staten Island.

Why so?

If memory serves me correct, Staten Island is roughly 7% in favor of the GOP in the 2012/2016 data. I want to see how blood red southern SI got in 2020.

Aaaaah. I see. Yeah. Staten Island was R+6.83 iirc, on 2012/2016. 2016/2020 should have a bigger R+ PVI. Of course that could be calculated easily.
I think it should be in the ballpark of R+7.85 or something like that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A fair map doesn't split SI Imo.

I could see a fair-proportional map doing it, but yeah, there's no real situation where a map guided by fairness does it outside of that specific context.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The VEST team has finally compiled recent election results for NY, a delay mainly caused by the Empire State's lack of a central data archive. Said data will therefore soon be in Dave's, allowing us to finally analyze maps accurately.

Wonderful news!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

We’re expecting a 22D-4R here, right? I drew 3 upstate R packs that gave Trump 60% of the vote, and one Long Island 57% R pack. This makes the other 3 LI seats solidly blue. Malliotakis is really easy to give a 62% Biden seat. Just give her the woke white liberals in Brooklyn. Karoo would be a goner in a Tompkins County-Cortland County-Onondaga County configuration with a tentacle to pick up Utica city. That pushes his seat to 59% Biden. The. Draw a Biden +6.5% seat for Stefanik by giving her Saratoga County and the blue parts of Rensselaer. Shore up Delgado’s seat by moving it 6 points left by picking up Binghamton. Maloney gets shored up by contracting more into Westchester County and getting a Biden +10 seat.

I think 23-3 is the expectation more. It's risky to give Stefanik and especially Katko seats that aren't blue enough, given their personal popularity however. That's why Stefanik's seat is often used as a sink. Katko is another deal, given that he got a full 10% more than Trump in 2020. You either have to really pack Dems to make the seat blue enough where he won't just win in 2022, which might be impossible, or you could make an arm from the Western NY R sink into his neighborhood to draw him out and then package the rest of Syracuse into other districts.

It doesn't help the case for cracking Stefanik's seat that it is in a corner of the state far away from major urban centers and with a pretty high R baseline.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yeah the thing is about Williamsburg , is that literally nobody besides AOC who is all the way in the Bronx actually wants those Crane Husband progressives so you might as well dump him with Staten Island.

Is it possible to dump most of Williamsburg in NY-11?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yeah the thing is about Williamsburg , is that literally nobody besides AOC who is all the way in the Bronx actually wants those Crane Husband progressives so you might as well dump him with Staten Island.

Is it possible to dump most of Williamsburg in NY-11?

Probably not as far as there, mostly to Dumbo. Nadler and Maloney still need to expand out so Manhattan can keep 3 districts.  But the point stands, just let these annoying progressive primary voters have a district where they control the dem primary rather than keep giving scares to everyone.

I dunno if Maloney wants her seat to expand even more outside Manhattan. If anything, any further movement outside of Manhattan could sink her in a future primary.
She needs more of Manhattan, not less.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A little fair map of NY, in a thread all about gerrymandering.
[snip]

Nice map.
I am fine with the images, please keep them up.
Thank you.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yeah the thing is about Williamsburg , is that literally nobody besides AOC who is all the way in the Bronx actually wants those Crane Husband progressives so you might as well dump him with Staten Island.

Is it possible to dump most of Williamsburg in NY-11?

Probably not as far as there, mostly to Dumbo. Nadler and Maloney still need to expand out so Manhattan can keep 3 districts.  But the point stands, just let these annoying progressive primary voters have a district where they control the dem primary rather than keep giving scares to everyone.

I dunno if Maloney wants her seat to expand even more outside Manhattan. If anything, any further movement outside of Manhattan could sink her in a future primary.
She needs more of Manhattan, not less.

I didn't mean more of outside of Manhattan but if you draw it all the way to Williamsburg you block any expansion down South and East. Can really only go to Park Slope.

The other question is who to give the Orthodox to. Nadler can take some and I guess Jeffries can take the rest.

Ah, I see. Yeah, there are areas that are better for her and worse for her. I can see why Williamsburg would be a good addition in this context.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Personally I don't expect a 23-3 map; it requires a lot of messing around with NY-25 and NY-26 and a lot of ugly lines which I can't see the entire caucus agreeing to. A 22-4 map, on the other hand, is very feasible and is probably what I'd bet on, since weird lines need to be drawn in the east for good incumbent protection anyway and two flips downstate don't really disadvantage any incumbents. Here's what I hope the map might look like:






(I know more about NY than PA, but still not that much, so it's possible I've done something very wrong here. Also don't pay too much attention to the NYC lines, I attempted to keep the districts basically similar but it's very possible that I double bunked incumbents or something. All the upstate Democrats definitely live in their districts though.)

Anyways, this map was drawn to mostly minimize county and town chops, except in Long Island, where the lack of political geography makes that basically impossible. Rochester and Buffalo get their own Safe D seats in exchange for an additional R pack upstate. All blue districts are Biden+10 or more: the least blue district is Delgado's new (and substantially changed, it now goes from his home in Rhinebeck out to Binghamton) 19th at Biden+10.2. Malliotakis is probably doomed in her new Biden+13 seat that goes up to Cobble Hill, and the new Biden+11 NY-01 should be an layup in most years for the Democrats. Katko's NY-24 gets fed all of Tompkins to make the district Biden+15; if he still wins, especially with Trump doing his utmost to keep him from doing so, he's honestly earned the seat. Other districts of note are Sean Patrick Maloney's NY-18, which goes from his home in Cold Spring up to take in the city of Albany and Paul Tonko's NY-20, which takes in much of the rest of Albany County and goes up to his home in Amsterdam and all the way up to Plattsburgh.

Thoughts?

That 3rd is a district I don't think I've ever seen drawn before.
What would be the dominant demographics in it? (especially within the White population)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That 3rd is a district I don't think I've ever seen drawn before.
What would be the dominant demographics in it? (especially within the White population)

The fruits of my attempt to have a district solely within Nassau and a reasonably black 5th A definite majority of it is in Nassau, over 500,000 of its people. It's 48.3% white, 20% Hispanic, 13% Black, 17% Asian. There are a number of liberal whites in North Hempstead, as well as some more conservative whites in Hempstead, Rockaway, and Howard Beach. It also takes in some very diverse Queens precincts which weren't really needed for any of the minority influence districts. I doubt a district like this would actually be drawn, although it would certainly be an interesting place.

I was talking about White sub-groups like Italian, Irish, Russian, etc. But that is certainly a way to look at it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

I'm impressed at how clean you made this. This definitely looks worth it imo.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wouldn't Cuomo 2018 numbers be effective enough to use to predict the likely Dem Floor for 2022 outside of Katko?

Upstate, prolly not quite the floor but like than bottom quartile, but tbf Cuomo did pretty well on long Island.

Upstate is weird in the sense that districts like NY-24, 22, and 18 all saw dramatic ticket-splitting in 2020 election. However, dramatic ticket splitting in both directions making it kinda tricky to gauge things. I think Biden + 12 seats should be enough to hold in most if not all years this decade, and anything over Biden + 20 should be relatively safe.

Well yes I obviously meant Cuomo 2018 anything north of Rockland. No way are Democrats winning Staten Island or Suffolk County.

Richmond County would probably be a heavy lift.

Suffolk county Biden only barely lost though; I would say Dems have a decent shot at winning the county on the Pres level again at some point (though Rs are still favored)

If the county's BOE had just counted votes faster, then Biden very probably would have won the country outright.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wouldn't Cuomo 2018 numbers be effective enough to use to predict the likely Dem Floor for 2022 outside of Katko?

Upstate, prolly not quite the floor but like than bottom quartile, but tbf Cuomo did pretty well on long Island.

Upstate is weird in the sense that districts like NY-24, 22, and 18 all saw dramatic ticket-splitting in 2020 election. However, dramatic ticket splitting in both directions making it kinda tricky to gauge things. I think Biden + 12 seats should be enough to hold in most if not all years this decade, and anything over Biden + 20 should be relatively safe.

Well yes I obviously meant Cuomo 2018 anything north of Rockland. No way are Democrats winning Staten Island or Suffolk County.

Richmond County would probably be a heavy lift.

Suffolk county Biden only barely lost though; I would say Dems have a decent shot at winning the county on the Pres level again at some point (though Rs are still favored)

If the county's BOE had just counted votes faster, then Biden very probably would have won the country outright.

What do you mean by this? Did they throw out some Biden votes for being counted too late after election day?

They were too slow to count the votes. By the time they ran out of time, there were still some votes left to count, that had to be left uncounted. These very, very likely would have flipped the county to Biden, considering that there was a major pro-R vote bias in New York that year.