2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: West Virginia

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In this state the deck is stacked heavily in favor of Republicans against Democrats. Under the three-district configuration, 538 wasn’t able to create any districts where Democrats had a legitimate shot of winning, and this would be even more so under a two-district configuration.

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Because WV apparently doesn't allow splitting counties, it would appear that the dividing line would probably follow the dividing line between the northern and southern federal judicial districts (which is generally a NW-SE line), with the exception of Greenbrier and Monroe counties being in the northern district instead of the southern district in order to keep the population difference between the two districts under 1000.

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As with many other places, the release of granular 2020 census data has thrown a big wrench into the compliance of previously drawn maps with population balance requirements. After toying around several times, I was finally able to come up with a configuration which (1) splits no counties and (2) has a population difference of only 90 between the two districts:

District 1:

Barbour
Berkeley
Braxton
Brooke
Doddridge
Gilmer
Grant
Greenbrier
Hampshire
Hancock
Hardy
Harrison
Jefferson
Lewis
Marion
Marshall
Mineral
Monongalia
Monroe
Morgan
Ohio
Pendleton
Pocahontas
Preston
Randolph
Summers
Taylor
Tucker
Tyler
Upshur
Webster
Wetzel

District 2:

Boone
Cabell
Calhoun
Clay
Fayette
Jackson
Kanawha
Lincoln
Logan
Mason
McDowell
Mercer
Mingo
Nicholas
Pleasants
Putnam
Raleigh
Ritchie
Roane
Wayne
Wirt
Wood
Wyoming