2020 Nebraska Redistricting

[Nyvin]

Ooh, an official dummymander out in the wild. Don't see that too often.

NE-02 in the GOP map would still be Biden +6 in 2020, Trump +3 in 2016, and NE-01 would be Trump +11 in 2020, Trump +18 in 2016. As a liberal, I would be so owned if Republicans passed that map.

I was thinking the same thing, I was expecting them to put part of Douglas with NE-3.

In that map NE-1 has all of Lancaster still along with a dem chunk of Douglas.   That doesn't seem like a great R gerrymander.

Saunders is only 22k people, that hardly changes anything really.   The main part of NE-2 that changed was taking all of Sarpy.

[Nyvin]

I find the confidence with which people here and on Twitter are suggesting that a 2020 Trump+double-digit seat is a "dummymander" to be very weird. Literally sixteen points right of the United States; this is only a dummymander in a scenario where Republicans are getting apocalyptically destroyed in a way they haven't been since 1974, or if there's a huge realignment such that literally every map enacted this cycle becomes a "dummymander".

At the same time I have no idea why they're drawing incredibly tortured lines to move NE-2 from Biden+7 to (...checks notes) Biden+6? This plan is "status quo but with way uglier lines for some reason".

The GOP will be fine in 2022, but beyond that you can't really say it has zero risk.  An 11 point margin doesn't last forever.

[Nyvin]

So it looks like they're keeping the districts inside the respective counties for the most part, other than population equalization.

Douglas, Sarpy, and Lancaster counties actually have 56% of the state's entire population.  

I know it's a big leap, but assuming those three counties continue to trend left at a good pace, isn't it possible Democrats win a majority on the legislature?

If they do then that just shows how absolutely horrible geography is for Republicans in Nebraska.

Edit - Just did the math for fun; Douglas + Sarpy + Lancaster is 27.42 seats, a majority is 25.   

There's also the Grand Island seat that's trending D in Hall County too.

[Nyvin]

I still wouldn't say NE-1 is safe for the decade.   NE-2 would be trending D as well.