Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Nyvin]

Well thank y'all for your kind 8 seat maps, but the GA GOP doesn't even need to go close to that

https://imgur.com/a/cpbG9t6

It ain't pretty, but it gives you 11 safe R Trump +17 or higher districts. There's no need to come even close to an 8 seat map - drawing an 11 seat map isn't even too hard, though a 10 seater might be better to avoid VRA trouble.

That's absolutely hideous.  I think even the initial NC 2011 map was better than that.

A district going from the southern border to the northern border should never happen in Georgia, ever.

[Nyvin]

What's the case for 55% VAP being the upper limit? Given that the Supreme Court isn't exactly keen on defending the VRA, surely there's an incentive to push the envelope there? More generally, it looks like it shouldn't be that hard to remove largely white precincts from the 3 VRA districts and replace them with more Hispanic/Asian precincts from GA-6 and GA-7.

The east to west abomination won't satisfy the Gingles criteria, but it might be an effective way of packing GA-2 and freeing up space for other districts to bacon-slice the Atlanta metro.

It really feels like the national environment is moving away from bacon-strip districts.   They're just not feasible anymore with so much public attention on them.   The days of connecting inner metros with far flung rural areas are probably over.

[Nyvin]

Would this satisfy the VRA for GA 2? This packs more of Atlanta to be safer for the GA GOp but still has 4 black majority districts(actually all around 49% VAP)

That would make for some really ugly Appalachia seats up north though.

[Nyvin]

As for candidates of choice, that's a very stupid metric to use, hard to calculate as well.  So minorities elected by white electorates don't count?  Absurd.  

I appreciate your perspective on this, but on the Forum we're either drawing maps for the world as it exists or is likely to exist, not the world which matches our own preferences. The metric of a community electing the candidate of its choice may seem "absurd" to you, but I think it's more absurd to consider Allen Keyes being elected by a rural white district to be a better reflection of African-American voting rights than Steve Cohen successfully winning primary after primary with African-American voter support. It's about the right of the voters, not the right of the representative him or herself.

I am arguing against the current standard.  Again, you are a leftist who I won't convince.  There is an excellent chance the Supreme Court might change the standard.  The current one basically segregates voters on the basis of race, and legally mandates a certain number of whites be placed into districts where THEIR candidate of choice won't win, like with the Texas "fajita strips".  

IIRC, the strict present interpretation of the VRA emerged under the first Bush administration's preclearance policies as a maneuver to advance Republican positions in the South--at the time there were many John Barrow types who won 30% black districts. Although the GOP has obviously grown in power down here since, there are many cases where "race-blind mapping" would be unfavorable. A fair map of SC drawn under present rules would still give you just Jim Clyburn (with maybe a Joe Cunnigham in a good D year) but under your proposal you'd probably have 2 or 3 Democratic districts.

The VRA may seem like a burdensome restriction to you when trying to gerrymander Georgia, but recognize that it can also dramatically help Republicans.

Personally I think that a notion of race-blind redistricting is both illogical (basically ever single metric used to draw districts by, whether fair or unfair, is impacted by race) and unethical. Recognizing that minority groups should be fairly represented in the political process shouldn't be partisan.

I didn't say partisan blind, just race blind.  There would likely be de facto majority minority seats in some southern states, because an interest in packing Dems would still exist.  SC isn't going to give Dems more districts if they lack VRA requirements.  The only way this would backfire on republicans is a place like IL, where the south side of Chicago could be cracked way more.  

Over a dozen Republican maps were struck down for racial gerrymanders this decade alone.   If left to their own devices Republicans would draw as many districts to maximize the white vote and minimized the minority vote in every single state they control.  

"Race Blind" would only apply to not requiring VRA districts, you'd be a fool to think the Republican legislatures would be "race blind" in any sense of the word.   They'll find the data and then draw the maps based on that data,  even if it's behind closed doors (which it almost always is).

[Nyvin]

No real reason to post this, just thought it looked nice







https://davesredistricting.org/join/664342a1-f3ad-4993-9fe2-3828ddb87e3a

Seems almost criminal not to give Cobb and Dekalb their own districts, they're pretty much perfect for them.

[Nyvin]

No real reason to post this, just thought it looked nice







https://davesredistricting.org/join/664342a1-f3ad-4993-9fe2-3828ddb87e3a

Seems almost criminal not to give Cobb and Dekalb their own districts, they're pretty much perfect for them.

Dekalb and Fulton share the urban area of the city of Atlanta and its inner ring suburbs. Pretty reasonable argument to split it although keeping them whole makes just as much sense. Cobb has the argument to be split between South Cobb and the highway cities compared to North Cobb. This would allow one to form a 4th black majority district as Sol did earlier in this thread.

I am not saying your map doesn't work fine in the Atlanta metro(GA02 is streching it pretty far though)

Keeping Atlanta whole vs Dekalb whole is a worthy debate,  I'm fine with either, the Dekalb portion of Atlanta is so small I think Dekalb district works better.

GA-2 is, over all else, just a Non-Atlanta Black Belt COI,  so the shape of it doesn't really matter.   The black rural population just needs to have representation one way or another.   That's one district where compactness shouldn't play any role.

[Nyvin]

9-5 GA with 4 black Atlanta seats and preserving the Southwest VRA seat

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4b904aee-9df7-4fbd-9173-0fa4748d3cbf 9-5 GA

the 10th could possibly be a dummymander down the line, but the seat is extremely Republican outside of Gwinnett, so it should last, in my opinion. McBath's seat was converted into a Republican seat that could flip back by the end of the decade, but the rurals will outvote the Democratic part of the seat for now.

Props for making a 9-5 less reliant on baconstripping Northern Georgia than is usually the case.

That map is still pretty baconstripped (but a marginal improvement than the usual, yes.)

[Nyvin]

Draw the required VRA district in the southwest and it wouldn't be too bad,  1 and 12 probably flip in like 2-3 elections.

[Nyvin]

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1442601673315307521?s=21

Looks like 8-5-1.   The GA-6 district wouldn't be safe R.

They didn't baconstrip Appalachia.

[Nyvin]

Waaay too many 60-70%+ AA seats.

[Nyvin]

North Fulton and Forsyth are both stampeding left (I think some of the fastest trends in the country), even Dawson swung left from 2016 to 2020.   I don't think the GA-6 will last the decade.  

Of course they have to include Cobb county in GA-14.

[Nyvin]

Another vulnerable district in this is GA-12,  only Trump+10 and has all of the Augusta metro.   That's not going to be safe for the decade either.

[Nyvin]

What's kinda tragic about this map is how perfectly Cobb county is the right size for 1 congressional district and yet it gets split four ways.

[Nyvin]

The above poster, Mr. Leecannon, is on to something. Middle to upper middle class white (Asians too, whatever) Democrats (of which there are a substantial number) in the prosperous suburbs of Atlanta have no problems whatsoever voting for a black in either Dem primaries or the General election. Provided that a seat (e.g. and i.e. GA-07 as drawn here) is safely Dem because there are enough of such bourgeoisie white and Asian Dem professionals, Gingles does not apply at all to this particular patch of real estate, and thus the VRA has no application whatsoever. The fact that blacks are very thin on the ground but nevertheless elected a black in the existing GA-06 with similar demographics is dispositive evidence that racists are equally thin on the ground in the area. Case closed. It's time to move on. Any VRA case that is filed here should be not only dismissed but found to be vexatious and  sanctioned, with the lawyers subject to discipline.

Imagine how hardcore Democrats could gerrymander Georgia in 2031 with this in mind.

[Nyvin]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9af60f6a-d74d-44a4-96e8-462827096bef


Looks like a valid map with 5 seats at 50% BVAP to me.

[Nyvin]

Good chance control will be split by the end of the decade. The State Sen gerrymander is quite effective (assuming it is at not point overturned). The State Senate map has 23 Biden seats; 28 are needed to tie the chamber.

Assuming Dems hold all the Biden seats by the end of the decade (only liability might be SD-12 which is Biden + 16 rural black belt seat), they need to win at least 5 Trump seats.

The only seat that it seems like trends should almost certainly flip by the end of the decade is SD-48 which is only Trump + 3 and contains parts of northern Gwinett County and Southern Forsyth County. High Asian population too. Hope Michelle Au will make a return.

After that it becomes less obvious where to turn to. There are a few more seats in the Northern parts of Cobb that are like Trump + 12 and have generally been shifting left, but these seats are white and seem to have notable downballot lag. And even winning SD-48 plus these 3 wouldn't be enough to flip the chamber.

SD-01 and SD-04 are "only" Trump +13 and Trump + 14 respectively, but aren't located in metro Atlanta and hence haven't seen crazy leftwards shifts. SD-04 is mostly rural and may shift right long term.

SD-17, SD-25, and SD-45 are all like Trump + 20ish and contain at least part of their district in metro Atlanta, but Trump + 20 is pretty red

SD-46 and SD-47 are both Trump + 18 and basically crack Athens. If Athens goes nuts maybe, but I have my doubt.

You're really picking at straws for the final few seats needed for Dems to win the chamber.

Some of those north Atlanta seats swung 9-10 points left from 2016 to 2020, even the Forsyth SD-27 swung 8 points left in four years.  Plus in Georgia the Senate terms are 2 years so they have to defend every seat every single cycle.   

If the Atlanta metro keeps trending the way it has, Democrats can flip the chamber by 2030.

[Nyvin]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

If Muan2 Rules dictate that that GA-12 and GA-9 are drawn then the rules are trash.

[Nyvin]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

There is no statewide "quota" for Section 2.   Bob Dole's amendment in the 1982 law (the one that gives the present day Gingles test) specifically denies that the means test for Section 2 gives any guarantee for proportional representation.  

Thus the black population in southwest Georgia would be judged by Gingles standards independently of the rest of the state, which is probably why the GAGOP still made GA-2 the way it was drawn.  It's drawn almost exactly like a Section 2 VRA district would be drawn according to all three Gingles standards.

If they could've just dropped the AA majority part of the district without fear of lawsuit they almost certainly would've, and given how Allen v. Milligan went they almost certainly would've lost the lawsuit had it come up.

[Nyvin]

This is probably the cleanest 5 black majority district map I can make.  I think the southern Cobb-Douglas-southwest Fulton seat (GA-11 on here) is mandatory in some form or another, the other three Atlanta AA seats just fall into place from that one.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a32d6e19-2cb6-4638-a0db-87879cba867f





I also did some small tweaks to GA-2 to make it >50% Black CVAP.

[Nyvin]

Here is a good summary of the first week which focused on the plaintiffs. The second week will seemingly focus on the defense and the state's rebuttal.

The state’s attorneys have argued that recent elections undermine claims that Black voters are not able to elect candidates of their choice, pointing to the wins of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in the Atlanta suburbs and President Joe Biden and U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in statewide races.

Am I just dense or something, but don't both of those statements work against the state's position?  McBath originally won in the old GA-06, which promptly got redrawn to make it so Republican that she moved to GA-07, displacing Bourdeaux, so two seats that had been Democratic went down to one.  And the argument about Biden, Ossoff, and Warnock just shows that Democrats are no worse than even on a statewide basis -- but they nevertheless have substantial minorities in the state legislature and our House districts.

Also wtf do statewide elections have to do with a gerrymandering case and black voters electing candidates of their choice?   Do they really think the plaintiffs are saying the congressional map affected the Senate or Presidential elections?

[Nyvin]

https://twitter.com/EvanPerc_/status/1717582161925271973

Yep, this is exactly what I was thinking (and posted). 

Can almost completely guarantee the new black majority district will be made of all of Douglas county, the southern half of Cobb, and the southwestern part of Fulton.

[Nyvin]

What is the reasoning of this case?  Isn't GA-13 already the least Black of the metro's VRA districts? 

No, it's 68% Black.

[Nyvin]

What is the reasoning of this case?  Isn't GA-13 already the least Black of the metro's VRA districts?  

No, it's 68% Black.

Hmm...per Wikipedia its only 57% Black, but I am seeing ~65% Black listed in some other data sources.

Given the areas it has, 57% Black is pretty much impossible, it's in the mid-sixties at least.  

Also it's not just GA-13,  they also put that chunk of Cobb County into GA-14 that's heavily black too, and parts of Henry that are black majority get thrown into districts 3 and 10.  

The whole map around GA-13 is a big, clever pack and crack.

[Nyvin]

I'm thinking if it's left to the GAGOP and not the courts, they'll probably just draw a long arm down into Gwinnett County from the northeast part of state and leave the map as 9-5.   

If the court appoints a special master in the end, then there's a lot more potential.

[Nyvin]

The congressional map most likely will stay 9-5 if Republicans draw the map, but the mandates for the legislative districts could be really major.  

The two additional black majority state house seats in/around Bibb county are guaranteed pickups for Democrats, there's no way out of that.  Also the amount of wiggle room Republicans have in the Atlanta metro for both State House and Senate seats is minimal.  They're going to face losses in their majority in both chambers for sure.  

That together with further trends in Atlanta means the legislature could definitely be competitive real soon, if not 2024 then certainly in the next few cycles.