Underrated consequence of gerrymandering; weakening bench of opposition party?

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

North Carolina isn’t Arizona. Whereas Arizona is just one massive city with little to no rural population, North Carolina has several medium to large cities but also a large rural population, and is general just much more inelastic

This, plus in AZ Dems can win the state leg just by continuing to flip suburban Pheonix and Tucson seats. In NC, just making gains in suburbs is unlikely to be enough to flip the state leg; Dems have to hold down and claw back in some of these rural areas where they've been losing ground for a while.

For instance, here's the State Senate map; Biden won 19 seats in 2020. Where are the extra 6 or 7 seats coming from that would allow Dems to win? SD-07, SD-18, and maybe SD-34 seem like the only ones with decent long-term trajectories.

NC Dems should focus on statewide races first. If they get the courts back they can get fair maps both for congress and the legislature. Eventually Dems will hit their floor in rural areas and can focus on maximizing their performance in the big cities.

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

North Carolina isn’t Arizona. Whereas Arizona is just one massive city with little to no rural population, North Carolina has several medium to large cities but also a large rural population, and is general just much more inelastic

This, plus in AZ Dems can win the state leg just by continuing to flip suburban Pheonix and Tucson seats. In NC, just making gains in suburbs is unlikely to be enough to flip the state leg; Dems have to hold down and claw back in some of these rural areas where they've been losing ground for a while.

For instance, here's the State Senate map; Biden won 19 seats in 2020. Where are the extra 6 or 7 seats coming from that would allow Dems to win? SD-07, SD-18, and maybe SD-34 seem like the only ones with decent long-term trajectories.

NC Dems should focus on statewide races first. If they get the courts back they can get fair maps both for congress and the legislature. Eventually Dems will hit their floor in rural areas and can focus on maximizing their performance in the big cities.

Agree, I think the fear is because the state leg is so powerful they will make more power grabs that make statewide positions including the state court less powerful, or try to do something like electing justices from districts that would prevent liberals from ever having a majority.

Rs have already grabbed the court by changing court elections from non-partisan elections to partisan election where Rs more often than not win.

They can’t really do those kinds of things if they don’t have a supermajority.

[Tekken_Guy]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

North Carolina isn’t Arizona. Whereas Arizona is just one massive city with little to no rural population, North Carolina has several medium to large cities but also a large rural population, and is general just much more inelastic

This, plus in AZ Dems can win the state leg just by continuing to flip suburban Pheonix and Tucson seats. In NC, just making gains in suburbs is unlikely to be enough to flip the state leg; Dems have to hold down and claw back in some of these rural areas where they've been losing ground for a while.

For instance, here's the State Senate map; Biden won 19 seats in 2020. Where are the extra 6 or 7 seats coming from that would allow Dems to win? SD-07, SD-18, and maybe SD-34 seem like the only ones with decent long-term trajectories.

NC Dems should focus on statewide races first. If they get the courts back they can get fair maps both for congress and the legislature. Eventually Dems will hit their floor in rural areas and can focus on maximizing their performance in the big cities.

Agree, I think the fear is because the state leg is so powerful they will make more power grabs that make statewide positions including the state court less powerful, or try to do something like electing justices from districts that would prevent liberals from ever having a majority.

Rs have already grabbed the court by changing court elections from non-partisan elections to partisan election where Rs more often than not win.

They can’t really do those kinds of things if they don’t have a supermajority.

They currently have supermajorities in both chambers, and good chance the gerrymandered maps allow them to retain it in 2024. Rmbr, in NC  a supermajority is only 3/5.

On the State Senate map, Biden only won 19 seats, Dems would need to win 21 seats to break the supermajority. Winning all the Biden seats shouldn't be that hard given the 2 marginal ones have been marching left, but still winning 2 Trump 2020 seats will be tricky. SD-18 is probably part of the path of least resistance.

Biden won 50 seats on the new State House maps (Ds need 49 to break GOP supermajority), but a ton of those Biden seats are marginal and there aren't many narrow Trump seats that are winnable; breaking the supermajority is a decently heavy lift

In the state senate, beating Lisa Barnes is a pretty tall order but they have a shot at defeating Michael Lee in New Hanover.

In the state house, there are four marginal Trump seats that are winnable. Tricia Cotham’s seat in Mecklenburg, two in Wake, and one in Buncombe. All are trending leftward and Budd underperformed Trump in each of them.

If they lose the three Biden-Budd sets in the Black Belt, Dems need at least two of the Trump seats to win. That is assuming they don’t also lose the north Mecklenburg swing seat or the Granville/Vance county seat.