New Hampshire 2020 Redistricting

[Nyvin]

Since the DRA can now make maps with townships and wards rather than census tracks (and also with 2018 pop estimates) I figured it's a good time to go over NH.

Congressional redistricting in NH is pretty dull, so I actually am focused on State Senate and Executive Council.

Starting with State Senate -





https://davesredistricting.org/join/3c594804-cdc8-4d67-8993-f179b75dc749

All districts aimed for 2018's district size (55,984).

Clinton won 12 districts by more than 5%,  Trump won 10 Districts by more than 5%.   The two remaining seats are Carol county's SD-2 (purple),  and SD-11 north of Nashua (light grey).    

SD-11 would be trending D pretty fast, and SD-2 would be trending R pretty fast.   That means, barring any sudden changes, I'd expect the map to produce a 13D-11R delegation in normal years, and in wave years pretty much anything can happen (it is New Hampshire...).

Some notes on the map -

With the Seacoast, it's either draw 3 safe D seats or draw 2 safe D and 2 (probably R-tilted) swing seats.  I choose the former, but either is possible.

With a 2018 population of 111,675, Manchester almost exactly divides into 2 Senate districts.  This is the part of the map where Dems go from their current 14 to 13 (from 3 to 2 in the Manch. area),  but their remaining two seats are much safer.

Connecting Sullivan County with Lebanon is almost perfectly one district and pretty ideal for Democrats, I really think they should push for that next year (the southern Grafton Co. seat is still a dem vote sink!).

I don't particularly like the Nashua + Litchfield district, but Nashua is a real pain to balance population with (UGH!).

I'll do the executive council tomorrow.

[Nyvin]

Here's what I would try for in the Executive Council

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c53a88cd-36ec-4329-8738-c94dcedd91bd



Districts sized to 2018 pop estimates.

[Nyvin]

According to 538's Atlas of Redistricting, it is possible to redraw NH's congressional districts to be more compact - this redistricting method could split only 1 county instead of the current 5, and would involve shorter boundaries.

County splits in New Hampshire don't really mean anything.   Most of the local government is handled at the township/city level.   No one in NH really associates where they live in the state with what county they're in, except maybe Coos.

Also, at least in the southeast, minimizing county splits actually splits up common COI's like the Manchester area, Dover/Durham/Portsmouth, or the area of western Hillsborough and eastern Cheshire. 

[Nyvin]

Assuming control is still split, what is the process to resolve a deadlock in NH?

In 2001 it went to the State Supreme Court to decide the maps.

Currently the court is split 2R-2D and 1 vacancy.   The Executive Council can reject the Governor's nominations,  which they did last year when Sununu tried to put up Gordon MacDonald.   

If Sununu is able to fill the vacancy and he wins in 2020 (or Republicans get a majority in either leg chamber),  then I expect they'll push the map drawing to the judges and hope for a favorable map from them.

[Nyvin]

Congressional redistricting, like I said, will be boring most likely.   The district configurations, overall, are unchanged since the 70's (maybe before?), and I see absolutely no reason either party would want to change that now.

I fully expect the same Belknap + Carroll + Manchester area + Seacoast config of some sort or another for NH-1, and everything else for NH-2.    Very similar to what we have now, just re-arranged to equal out population.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/b84c3904-19e7-4a70-9578-612989aac5c5

I got these two within 100 people of being perfectly balanced with 2018 population estimates. 

[Nyvin]

Here's something slightly more aggressive for dems if it's possible in the state senate.





10 seats where Clinton won by over 5%, and then another 4 tossups that were all within 2% for either candidate.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a21a369d-6896-4064-a5ec-3d7bfd4fa56b

This also gets rid of that horrible Nashua-Litchfield district with the river crossing.

[Nyvin]

Given that Republicans took control of the entire state, I thought I'd take two shots at potential maps. The goal for any Republican map in the state should be to guarantee one Republican seat (or get as close as possible to doing so). I don't think it's really possible to draw two Republican seats.

The first map is a "weak" gerrymander. Compared to the existing map, I put the core of Manchester in the second district and move up north with NH-01 to make it a little more Republican leaning. I get that NH-01 is R+6 and NH-02 is D+5. However, I think that Trump would have lost NH-01 this year as I have drawn it here.

davesredistricting.org/join/613f4380-c935-43bc-ac42-4e66a9dfa227

The second map is a "strong" gerrymander. I put the cores of all the major Democratic areas (Dover, Manchester, Nashua, and Concord) in the 2nd district and tried to squeeze out all the Republican areas in southeast and around Concord that I could. I get that NH-01 is R+12 and NH-02 is D+11. Trump should have won this NH-01.

davesredistricting.org/join/413420fb-d908-453a-b0ec-1c1f5c0c7047

I doubt Nashua and Manchester end up in the same district, much less expect that either would have it's wards split on the congressional map.

I'm not really even convinced the Republicans would be up for making two safe seats rather than two tossups (or one tilt d, one swing?).   Maybe they will though, who knows.

One way or another, New Hampshire is darn near impossible to perfectly gerrymander, especially the congressional districts, there's just too many independent voters.

[Nyvin]

Since Republicans have a trifecta and NH trended quite heavily D in 2020, I think Republicans will just try to gerrymander 1 district. So here is how an R gerry probably looks like:



NH-01: Trump+8, R+5
NH-02: Clinton+9, D+5

Given trends, the 2nd district would be safe D, while the 1st should still be a tossup?

I don't think it'd be tossup for long with the way Hillsborough is trending, you also have New London and the Monadnock region in NH-1 too.

I think something like this would be better for the NHGOP, they can also kinda sorta claim it's a least change map-



https://davesredistricting.org/join/840ba65a-0ffc-4af0-b470-7971db586500

Using data from the NH SOS site,  NH-1 in this is 51% Biden to 47.4% Trump,  but Biden won the state so broadly it's tough to get much better than that without an obscene map.

NH-2 is 54.8 Biden to 43.5% Trump.

[Nyvin]

Pappas lives in Manchester and Manchester has been in NH-1 literally forever.   I mean, Republicans can do what they want but moving Manchester to NH-2 is a bold move.

[Nyvin]

Looking at the state senate, it seems R's can effectively pack the D's down to 10 districts, but that doesn't actually mean a guaranteed majority.   The D packs will be

1 Lebanon/Hanover
1 Keene
1 Concord
2 Manchester
2 Nashua
3 Seacoast

Their problem will be western Hillborough, especially if it keeps trending D.  There's really no way to chop up the areas that vote D.  Nashua is to the southeast, Manchester to east, New London area to the north, Keene/Monadnock area to the west, and western Hillsborough already votes D when looking at the 2020 presidential numbers.

They could "try" to only make 2 seacoast districts, but that would endanger SD-23 and they'd risk giving the D's 4 seats instead.  In the map I made SD-23 is only 53.9% Trump to 44.5% Biden.

This is what I came up with,  really trying to guess what NHGOP will do

https://davesredistricting.org/join/3c594804-cdc8-4d67-8993-f179b75dc749

[Nyvin]

Pappas lives in Manchester and Manchester has been in NH-1 literally forever.   I mean, Republicans can do what they want but moving Manchester to NH-2 is a bold move.

Doesn't NH require least-change in its CDs?

There's literally no state laws regarding the congressional districts at all (they aren't even mentioned in the state constitution).

There's a few paragraphs about the state legislative districts, mostly they can't divide towns and wards and have to be equal population, but that's about it.

Otherwise it's a free for all,  not including traditional norms and all.

[Nyvin]

This is what I came up with:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e56933aa-96f3-486c-9c3d-78bff76dfad2

Cleans up some county splits that I think are unnecessary, but it's otherwise quite similar to the current map. NH-01 now includes all of Rockingham, Strafford, Belknap and Carroll plus Manchester and a couple towns in Merrimack to balance population. NH-02 includes Hillsborough (except Manchester), most of Merrimack and all of Cheshire, Sullivan, Grafton and Coos.

NH-01 would be perennially competitive, and NH-02 would lean Dem most of the time, but be within reach for Republicans in a good year.

I honestly could see this map being passed, I think it's probably the best the NHGOP can expect or close to it without going crazy.

NH-1 would be competitive, NH-2 is probably out of reach for them in all but a mega wave year, which they really seem to be fine with.

[Nyvin]

NH-1 is Trump+1.7.   I actually don't think it'll last the decade given NH's overall trend, but they'll probably flip it in 2022 which is all they care about.

[Nyvin]

Interestingly, but I guess unsurprisingly, the Democrats proposed a mostly least change map, except the districts in Hillsborough County.

https://twitter.com/nhpol603/status/1476391567342641162

[Nyvin]

It's just funny that R's are going to town in NH of all places after showing restraint in so many red states.

Well 2 factors
Legislatively its a matter of survival basically. Congressionaly is the fact they want 1/2 seats.

NH Dems had to have been the most incompetent state party in the nation (outside of Florida) in 2020.   How do you lose control of both chambers of a legislature (when you have incumbents in them) when Biden easily won a majority of the seats?

Voters in NH hate the idea of paying state taxes, that's really all it is.

[Nyvin]

They're voting on the maps now...kind of out of nowhere as far as I can tell

https://nhhouse.edifymultimedia.com/

[Nyvin]

The vote failed 177 to 178 for HB52, which is the congressional map

[Nyvin]

oh, the 177 to 178 vote was to dismiss the Congressional map.

[Nyvin]

All eyes on the NH State Senate now...

From what I've heard the Senate is a lock to pass the map, if it was going to fail anywhere it would've been the House.

[Nyvin]

RIP Pappas. Seat will likely still be competitive from 2022 on though.

The seat he's in only went to Trump by 1.7 and is trending to the left. Pappas is in danger but he's not necessarily screwed.

Ironically it's almost exactly the same margin Trump won the current NH-1 by in 2016, of course Carol Shea-Porter won the seat that year so...

[Nyvin]

The NH democratic plan literally moved 1 town (Hampstead) from one district to the other,  I don't see why the court wouldn't put that map into place.

[Nyvin]

Sununu rejected the NH GOP's new map.  Not surprising since all they really did is slightly clean up the county lines (and they still aren't great), and didn't address the partisan aspects Sununu originally brought up.

https://twitter.com/AdamSextonWMUR/status/1518693549650415616

I'm kinda getting the impression what Sununu actually doesn't like is one of the districts being a double digit Biden win, but that's just my opinion.

[Nyvin]

NH-1 is Biden+1

NH-2 is Biden+14

I don't think Sununu will go for it since NH-2 is still out of reach for Republicans, but we'll see.  Sununu's wording makes it sound like he's more interested in the partisanship than the shape of the districts.

[Nyvin]

Filing starts on June 1st, which is next Wednesday, so they still have some time to pass another map, but it seems unlikely especially considering it's a holiday weekend.

[Nyvin]

Special Master's recommended plan -

https://davesredistricting.org/join/1571f14f-8a72-4d77-b574-448cd87e7b20

NH-1 exactly Biden+6

NH-2 Biden+8.9

Slightly better for the GOP than just moving Hampstead, so not bad for them really.