2020 New York Redistricting

[Oryxslayer]

High Court will hear the Appeal November 15th.

[Oryxslayer]

What is this case even about? Didn't the GOP already get what they wanted with the court-ordered map last cycle?

This case comes from the Dems and concerns whether the commission body followed proper procedure or not, and if not, all that followed is unjustified and should be redone. The GOP appeal is to try to get the High Court of Appeals to overturn the lower ruling in favor of the Dems, despite the body seemingly shifting in favor of Dem Partisans since 2022.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/NYElectionNews/status/1704134078109286749?t=XlFN10ppYwaYmP3V...

I think this de facto means the court reserves the authority to stop the commission or prevent its work from being implemented,  but it's confusing since it's a legal pause without actually pausing.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1708950582608707949?t=eJKw1RqJ389u89FZ-...

So they way how the "stay but not a stay" has been detailed was tha commission can begin work but not implement anything.  To that end, Democrats are beginning the necessary step of public input.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1712595688972828718?t=OslPhkTXdnkcMoMIO...

The situation becomes more confusing.  Unlike most state, NY seemingly has replacements that take a temporary seat in the event of this. And so everyone who was trying to probe the courts lean now has to do it with less information.

Renwick takes the seat, appointed by David Paterson. She's from the Bronx,  services the Bronx,  and is married to the former DA of the Bronx.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1724428596817559989?t=fybigMgPRkwkc7tRx...

NY case tomorrow over whether the state should be remapped by the Dem Controlled commission.  

[Oryxslayer]

Will it be decided tomorrow or will this be a multi day event?

You guys should really know by now that opinions take weeks if not months to produce.

[Oryxslayer]

I wonder what they'll do for Long Island. It seems like it's just fundamentally more Republican now. The current map really isn't bad for them there. Weakening NY-04 might allow Despacito to survive, Garbarino is pretty strong, maybe LaLota's seat could be flipped if LI reverts to its pre-2021 partisanship. Suozzi will probably flip NY-03 though because of Santos stink.

At this point they should concede NY-02 and NY-01 in order to make NY-03 like Biden + 13.

There's no reason for Ds to concede NY-1 if they get to redraw. Compared to original map, it only makes sense to concede NY-11 into a Staten Island pack and even then if the court will let them get away with it, why not go for the 22-4? That said, I would make NY-4 bluer from the originally drawn map.

Staten Island is easy to pair with inflexibly D+80 areas of Brooklyn, some of which did not swing against Hochul at all. There's no reason for them to concede it. Doing 3-1 in LI might turn into 1-3 though, which is why 2-2 could be the way to go. Move Despacito's seat to Biden+16, Santos to Biden+17, both will flip. Creating 3 Biden +10 seats in LI is very risky at this point.

The thing is, you can do the Nassau stuff this without bothering with Suffolk really, or getting too ugly. Just go back a few pages. Oyster Bay is very easy to pack.

Here's my attempt to harmonize the Hochulmander with the map passed by the special master, while also taking into affect the reshuffling of priorities that occurred in response to that map, some of which I listed above. For example, NY-18 was made and remains a Ulster county seat - cause that's Ryan's base - and NY-17 is drawn to both be sensible but also insert a lot of new voters and make the seat bluer - to specifically get rid of Lawler. Colors are the 2020 election results:








The linchpin of much of the downstate portion of the map is NY-10, which once again heads deep into Brooklyn., but not in a crazy way like the first map. And there is now a justification one can defend, and its a justification that all but forces NY-11 to go up towards red hook:



Also it's a reason that has the ironic effect based on 2022 results of removing a bunch of progressive and Niou areas even though the Asian VAP goes way up. This is cause the Brooklyn Asians were less progressive and did not vote for her based on precinct results, her areas besides NYC Chinatown were Park Slope and the downtown Brooklyn. Those regions are mainly tossed in NY-11.

The partisanship in selected districts, going from Hochulmander -> Court Remap -> This Map. As you'll see, the 2022 results drove actions in certain seats:

NY01: Biden+10.8, Biden+0.2, Biden+8.5

NY03: Biden+14.2, Biden+8.1, Biden+15.5

NY04: Biden+12.1, Biden+14.5, Biden+18.1

NY11: Biden+9.5, Trump+7.6, Biden+11.9

NY17: Biden+13.3, Biden+10.1, Biden+17.8

NY18: Biden+8.2, Biden+8.3, Biden+12.2

NY19: Biden+10, Biden+4.6, Biden+9.6

NY22: Biden+18.1, Biden+7.4, Biden+13.1

[Oryxslayer]

And on the staten Island point from the last page:

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

Grouping SI with parts of Manhattan works too.  It can be done without looking erose.

I will laugh if we ever see something like the above. In a twisted way it makes a lot of sense, and couldn't have been passed with the 2020 incumbents, but is also very clearly a pretty partisan move.

NY-10 after 2020 took in the Hasidim of Brooklyn, that is now very unlikely. Back then there were two White incumbents in Upper Manhattan rather than one, and now Jeffries's CBC allies are bolder and empowered to desire the whole of Republican Brooklyn. NY-10 after the special remapping takes in Park Slope and other downtown Brooklyn Working Families strongholds. These areas did not vote for the primary winner Goldman, and represent a fertile base where future progressive challengers will emerge from.

Goldman wants to be protected from Progressives despite there being no more upscale Liberal areas easily available for him: White Staten is weirdly the best option. Nadler previously had to negotiate with Maloney for every neighborhood in Manhattan - now there is only one and the master gave Nadler incumbency over the Upper East Side. NY-11 currently takes in south Chinese Brooklyn - that is maintained for continuity. But the growing NYC Chinese community was uniquely mistreated during the congressional special master's remap, splitting it between four districts. Lets remedy that with an access district which will probably elect a Chinese-American, perhaps the same one who if not sidetracked in this manner will challenge Jeffries's African American ally in the mayors office.

Its also not a change so easily undone. Besides the fact that the Chinese population of Brooklyn is growing, all types of minority constituents raise loud voices and legal claims if their access seats are destroyed during remapping processes. Something like this would be effectively reducing NYC's White districts from 3 to 2, and Staten-Manhatten would remain the simplest option in future redistricting processes to pack Whites and not dilute a minority seat into a White one.

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway in terms of the case, the 3 opposed to Dem power last time seemed opposed again, and the block of 3 known to be in favor were favorable once more. Troutman is the swing, she's hard to read and seemed open to both, but the other justices seemed to be acting like she was in the Dem power camp. An opinion is anticipated before the December holidays.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/NYElectionNews/status/1734357408510578744?t=7kE6tOASzK4_NaqQ...

News probably coming in a few days if not tomorrow, cause next week is holiday time.

[Oryxslayer]

I hope we do see Goldman want to drop the Progressive neighborhoods like one expects, cause then there might be an attempt to put forward a draft testing the waters for the Chinese access NY-11. The discourse around an effort like below will be interesting to watch, especially given how much attention has been directed to Brooklyn's Chinese in recent years.

[Oryxslayer]

There was a time when redistricting reform was a GOP cause, largely cause of how much the Dems controlled in Southern legislatures, and how powerful and unchecked early computerized mapping was. The cause has flipped with the party who most benefits from it.

In the end, I think the attachment to it just stems from a individual perception of zero-sum politics, a game most frequently played but not exclusive to the Southern states. And the Dems historically and the GOP now have oversized presence of southern legislators. Which as a individual perception is not something that can exactly be reasoned with in legislative negotiations, even as it becomes increasingly nonsensible. The political coalitions and Post-Milligan suits are rendering the fight to gerrymander in many southern states irrelevant, since Dems are slowly locking in adequate representation without going through the legislature, and the rest of the map is blood red.

[Oryxslayer]

Here's an interesting part of the opinion. I have noted before that one of the big communities that got screwed by the court order was Brooklyn Chinese, cut up between 3 to 4 districts depending on the definition. This is of course because of the direction taken with NY-10, and the desire to restore compactness to seats that paired similar yet geographically divergent ethnic groups. Alongside the obvious desire to counteract gerrymandering and maintain the status quo in Staten Island.

But that therefore allowed the Dem plaintiffs to use the treatment of the Chinese as evidence, and the court all but says there should be some reconsideration taken in regards to that community in light of the evidence and consequences from the court map. And as we have already discussed, creating a seat with a large chinese population, or plurality if it's paired with Chinatown in Manhattan, basically requires the ferry link of Staten - Manhatten. Cause you are de facto cutting the NYC White seats from 3 to 2, and Staten is so White and so large it has to go in one of those 2.

[Oryxslayer]

Except I don't think Schumer's 2022 numbers are a very good baseline - turnout was clearly lopsided in favor of Rs in a way that is unlikely for 2024, plus local dynamics pretty heavily favored Rs. Same way that Whitmer numbers in MI aren't a good baseline for Biden in 2024.

I don't think Rs were really thinking much about the redraw when choosing to get rid of Santos but may of just thought of him as an electoral liability in the future - regardless of how NY-03 is redrawn, it'll be a seat where Rs have at least a remote possibility of winning, and Santos throws that remote possibility away.

The redrawn NY-03 is unlikely to be safe for Democrats as long as NY-04 isn't being made into an R sink at the same time.

Have you even looked at Nassau electoral geography? Pushing both districts a good deal to towards the Democrats is literally the easiest thing, cause you are more or less just restoring the allignment from last decade. The most reliable GOP voters are all fairly densely concentrated in the Southeast corner centered on Massapequa. It was previously in NY-02 but then the master divided it up between the two Nassau seats. And Dems are obviously throwing it right back in NY-02, which is gonna become a pack of varying strength depending upon what happens further to the east.

Like the map below has both Nassau seats over Biden+20 and nominally only plurality White. Obviously it comes at the expense of NY-01 only going from Biden+0 to Biden+6 and not like Biden+10 or more, but Nassau is not this GOP bastion that needs to be spiderwebbed.

[Oryxslayer]

Except I don't think Schumer's 2022 numbers are a very good baseline - turnout was clearly lopsided in favor of Rs in a way that is unlikely for 2024, plus local dynamics pretty heavily favored Rs. Same way that Whitmer numbers in MI aren't a good baseline for Biden in 2024.

I don't think Rs were really thinking much about the redraw when choosing to get rid of Santos but may of just thought of him as an electoral liability in the future - regardless of how NY-03 is redrawn, it'll be a seat where Rs have at least a remote possibility of winning, and Santos throws that remote possibility away.

The redrawn NY-03 is unlikely to be safe for Democrats as long as NY-04 isn't being made into an R sink at the same time.

Have you even looked at Nassau electoral geography? Pushing both districts a good deal to towards the Democrats is literally the easiest thing, cause you are more or less just restoring the allignment from last decade. The most reliable GOP voters are all fairly densely concentrated in the Southeast corner centered on Massapequa. It was previously in NY-02 but then the master divided it up between the two Nassau seats. And Dems are obviously throwing it right back in NY-02, which is gonna become a pack of varying strength depending upon what happens further to the east.

Like the map below has both Nassau seats over Biden+20 and nominally only plurality White. Obviously it comes at the expense of NY-01 only going from Biden+0 to Biden+6 and not like Biden+10 or more, but Nassau is not this GOP bastion that needs to be spiderwebbed.

What overlay are you using and what’s it represent?

The overlay is not native to DRA, its NY towns/hamlets/CDPs. This can be found easily at the census tigerline "place" shapefile and imported accordingly.

Such boundaries are VERY important on Long Island (and the rest of the downstate suburbs) IMO, cause the city lines native to DRA are bulky, uninformative, and don't really show the diversity of suburban communities in the region. I've had it imported in DRA since like 2021 when for some reason it was changed from the towns to the present lines, leading to a mass of squares upstate and uninformative blobs downstate.

[Oryxslayer]

SNIP

This would be a very sensible way to do it.

One thing that you might think would be a problem with this design (from Goldman's perspective, anyway), would be that more of the population is in the Staten Island part than the Manhattan part, so theoretically you might think Goldman could be vulnerable to a geographically-based "anti-Manhattan" primary challenge.

However, that is not really the case with that configuration. Depending on exactly how you drew it, there would be about 108k Biden votes in the Manhattan part of the district, but there are only 91k Biden votes in Staten Island.

That means that in a geographically-based Democratic primary, a Manhattan candidate would be favored over a Staten Island one even if turnout were strictly proportional to Biden votes. However, a primary would obviously be lower turnout than a Presidential election, and would surely be even more lopsided in favor of Manhattan because a greater proportion of the Biden voters in Manhattan would be high propensity likely voters, whereas a larger share of the Biden voters in Staten Island would be lower propensity unlikely voters who are not going to vote in a primary.

So insofar as the greatest hypothetical electoral danger to Goldman is probably a primary challenge, this would likely make him safer rather than make him less safe. So it is something he would have every reason to get behind or at least to be OK with.

Plus, I would bet the Chinese/Asian access seat could be configured in such a way as to take some of the progressive white areas from the Brooklyn African American seats, so the Democratic incumbents in those seats would have reason to be happy with this as well.

So Dems should really do this or something very similar to it in the remap.

if you go back a few pages, I think the idea for this sort of alignment emerged organically here, or at least that's where I first saw it and became enamored with this design. It just makes a lot sense as a solution to the gordian knot of NYC district politics. It's also close to the most Dem a reasonably looking district with Staten in it can be, which I'm sure some people appreciated more then the following analysis.

Basically, it starts from the position that this new redistricting process has much less interests to balance than in 2021 outside of NYC (and can focus on neatness and partisan gain), but inside the city things are perhaps more complicated. Instead of an east-west Manhattan incumbent divide, we now have a north-south one. What does Goldman theoretically want and fear? Probably wants less activist voters, given that he barely defeated a more numerous slate of progressives in a heavily split primary.  Probably also would want a Manhattan-focused district, since a majority of Dem voters are in those Working Families Brooklyn brownstones.

Which leads us to wonder where he will find such voters. NY-10 can somewhat push north, but not to any meaningful degree. NY-12 very quickly hits the Harlem/Bronx/Heights wall of African American and Hispanic residents that are wanted and needed for that regions districts. NY-12 similarly can't go east into Brooklyn. Beyond the fact that this would hurt Nadler's base, it doesn't make sense to add a second geographic separator in the East River to the seat alongside Central Park. Which means no matter what, some Manhattan district is going to have to go south like now, just trading the neighborhoods around.

This isn't that surprising, it's what was done last decade and what was attempted again on the initial map. But there is ample reason to believe this option is no longer on the table. Beyond the absurd uncompactness of the old NY-10 being one of the maps clear problems, the neighborhoods in question are all now mostly with NY-08 and NY09. And those incumbents don't want to let go of their prizes, since the alternative are the progressive neighborhoods that almost got rid of Clarke last decade. Similarly, such a alignment will need a justification since on the surface it will be less sensible than previously. After all, the old NY-10 was a specifically Jewish district for the only NYC Jewish Democrat, and that's why it could squiggle over to Borough Park and neighboring areas.

Which led to the theory of giving NY-10 cover as a Asian seat to go into south Brooklyn. Give the progressive neighborhoods nobody wants to NY-11, and then squiggle NY-10 down to the southern Neighborhoods using the Chinese COI as an excuse. Except then on further analysis, it wasn't quite so obvious how this would immensely benefit Goldman. It would still be Brooklyn dominated, and drastically upping the Chinese population would likely lead to a more spirited challenge from Niou who he barely beat last time.

Which led us to this conclusion of reversing NY-10 and NY-11. And it seems to solve almost everyone's problem, as you partially explained. For Goldman, Staten-Manhattan is not a link that is anyway productive for progressives. The seat is Manhatten-Domianted by way of it's partisanship. Yes, Staten has more people, but their GOP lean mean Manhattan has more Dems in the Primary. And the Republican need to get votes out of Manhattan to even come close to winning means that Manhatten decides overall control. Like I'm very confident even Hochul won such a seat by 10K votes (NY an their data access issues...) thanks to the inflexibility of Manhattan Dems.

On the NY-11 side, you have almost a whole new district for the areas no incumbent wants. Obviously some significant chunk will be needed to justify it's creation without Staten as before, which is obviously to unite the growing Chinese neighborhoods and therefore include Manhattan's Chinatown. But you can also throw in some of the Working Families areas and give them to whoever will be elected. Now when I first got attached to the concept, the idea was that this would obviously elect Niou and lure her away from the mayors contest, but that has obviously changed with the mayor's scandals. Niou still could get elected to the seat, but the mayor is still gonna get challenged by a bunch of other people, even if she finds a different job.

[Oryxslayer]

One thing Dems will want to consider is which upstate district will get Spring Valley and Kirya Joels. These fast growing ultra-Conservative Jewish communities could shift a Biden + 10 seat right in the long run.

Why not put them in Bowman’s district (NY-16)?

I tried drawing what that might look like:

Something like this in Westchester is why I secretly suspect Latimer is not running against Bowman, he's against Jones and Lawler, which is why a lot of his statements has a more generic anti-testimonial progressive outlook. He just has to file there right now cause of Rye. The core of NY-16 is Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and whatever bits of NYC are thrown in. If you   look at the map of when Latimer had a Dem primary in 2017, it was diverse areas like and including these he lost, even as he won by like 25 points overall. So even if he draws the rest of the district in his favor, its still going to be a grueling primary. Its comparatively easier to make NY-17, the Whiter district where he enjoys primary support, into a super-Westchester Biden+20 or more seat by throwing even more of Rockland into NY-16 than you have. Far easier to win versus both Jones who tried to carpetbag and is out of office, and Lawler who would see the floor fall out. The Latimer allies on the commission only make this seem more likely to me, cause he can actually play this game with some confidence in it's outcome.

Like you can make NY-17 have a wider Dem margin of victory than NY-16 through taking in literally all of Westchester except the bits important to NY-16's existence. And its very hard to see Latimer not wanting a district similar to this.

[Oryxslayer]

FWIW about NY-11: https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1735690406610829752

The issue is not NY-11 in the old map, but NY-10. The court wants something that isn't you know, blatantly evil and in your face like the initial version of that seat. And if you can't do that, like I described in the process of elim post above, you really have two options. Keep like the current seat and do NY-10 with progressive Brooklyn, or do it with Staten. And there is seemingly one option more Dem incumbents would like more than the other.

[Oryxslayer]

I doubt Democrats are going to do the Throgs Neck crossing of NY-03 again like Wasserman has in his map. That seat was drawn specifically for Alessandra Biaggi and she almost certainly isn't running again this year.

Yeah wasseman's map is literally the hochul-mander but cleaner. Which as we have analyzed here, is a fallacious place to start. The lack of once-fickle dem incumbents in many places means Dems can do things differently, often both neater and more partisan.

[Oryxslayer]

Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.

SNIP

2020 Pres vote by seat:

NY-01: Biden + 11.2
NY-02: Trump + 11.8
NY-03: Biden + 15.1
NY-04: Biden + 15.2
NY-05: Biden + 53.8
NY-06: Biden + 28.3
NY-07: Biden + 56.3
NY-08: Biden + 71.2
NY-09: Biden + 41.3
NY-10: Biden + 38.9
NY-11: Biden + 16.3
NY-12: Biden + 71.1
NY-13: Biden + 78.2
NY-14: Biden + 57.8
NY-15: Biden + 67.4
NY-16: Biden + 26.3
NY-17: Biden + 19.9
NY-18: Biden + 10.2
NY-19: Biden + 11.6
NY-20: Biden + 17.3
NY-21: Trump + 17.2
NY-22: Biden + 11.3
NY-23: Trump + 18.1
NY-24: Trump + 20.4
NY-25: Biden + 20.6
NY-26: Biden + 24.4

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

I guess I'll post the map that I have been working on in my free time this week, a map I have labeled with the term "circumstantially clean." What I mean by that is I am trying to follow current events and circumstances and use that as a guide. At the same time, I'm not creating something visually ugly or with districts that have numerous awkward protrusions, while also trying to follow county/neighborhood/town lines when viable.

And I would say beyond NYC (which you kinda self-admit is too much of a hassle, no shame there tbh) things are largely similar.



In depth analysis:



While the commitment to maintaining the current map's 'two Nassau two Suffolk' seat arrangement is admirable, it's not very practical for their desires. Southeast Nassau, the source of many 2022 issues, is getting thrown right back into NY-02. In exchange Nassau gets all the Huntingdon townships. NY-01 is still nested in Suffolk, and the Nassau seats are generally sensible. NY-03 specifically is intentionally designed to harken back to Suozzi's former seat. However, if the special election results are extremally close or a Dem loss, then this seat is probably going to get less compact, poach from NY-01, and get more Dem at the expense of her neighbor.

NY-01: Biden+9.4, NY-02: Trump+16.8, NY-03: Biden+16.3, NY-04: Biden+20.3



In NYC, partisanship matters less of course when compared to ethnic groups and the progressive/mainstream primary alignments. Things are divided up based on the prior analysis.

The AA districts are not gonna let go of the GOP and Hasidic parts of Brooklyn. They currently have them now, it raises the Black share of the primary, and neither incumbent is in a position to be overruled. Therefore, NY-10 goes to Staten and denies the Goldman challenge while at the same time eliminating the GOP seat. Staten's behavior may have varied wildly over the past 8 years, but lower Manhattan's does not budge. I'm fairly confident that despite everything, this is a Hochul+6 seat by over 10K votes for example, though it's impossible to get exact data in NY. This means NY-11 is a Brooklyn progressive/Asian seat that here is plurality White, unlike previously shown iterations, cause the NYC incumbents would want to chuck in more progressives and less of Sheepshead.

The progressive primary areas are similarly divided up and diluted. About 200K goes with each of AOC and the new NY-11, which are fine taking in those voters. 150K goes with NY-07. Velazquez has seemed to be fine with taking in these parts of Brooklyn in the past, and has history representing them. That said, Velazquez is getting old, and I'm still not sure if there's any version of a Bushwick + Progressive areas seat that doesn't see Julia Salazar run for congress in the future. Then about 65K in each of NY-06 and the two AA districts combined.

I've recently found myself throwing the Middle Village region into NY-05. Beyond the fact that the White republicans won't be noticed in a AA seat, but might in NY-06, it allows for the surrounding regions to better be grouped into likeminded districts. Most notably, the (south) Asians in Jamaica can go into NY-06. Though despite the change making sense, the present design where the districts the two regions are in reverse themselves will probably persist.

NY-10: Biden+18.1, NY-11: Biden+46.4





Westchester and the Hudson Valley is where present developments influence things the most. Bowman is on the outs with the NY Dem party, so anything he wants is ignored. Latimer meanwhile gets the neat district of his dreams. Oh, we have also forgot an additional reason why Rockland or at least a good chunk of it is likely to be paired with Yonkers like it did a decade ago: that's where Lawler lives. So he's getting drawn out in more ways than one.

NY-18 on the Hochul-mander was drawn to protect SPM, a suburban rep who is now history. Pat Ryan, the new guy, is from Ulster and previously was the county executive. So Ulster is kept whole unlike at present, and the district is reoriented westwards around the county, the core Catskill COI, and the Hudson river towns. All these changes for incumbents mean NY-19 is less Democratic than in some other versions.

NY-16: Biden+22.8, NY-17: Biden+27.7, NY-18: Biden+11.7, NY-19: Biden+7.6





Upstate is generally just a partisan sorting, though with some desire to maintain counties when viable.  There aren't clear sprawling seats or tiny 2k bits removed from counties when necessary.

Several things to note. First, Tonko in NY-20 has lived in Amsterdam (Montgomery County) for a while now, which is presently outside the district. However, he's old, doing fine without it, and that would add at least one additional county cut in Montgomery and probably also Saratoga.

Second, Morelle got a scare last year under the underwhelming NY Dem results and Orleans getting partially added to his seat. So he probably won't be in a position to demand the most COI driven seat ever. At the same time, the guiding principle of this map means NY-25 isn't becoming a octopus with arms to Brockport, Geneseo, and Canandaigua. So instead I just give him a more sensible chunk of Ontario in exchange for the GOP towns west of Rochester.

Finally, NY-26 is less compact than it could be. The is because of Higgins's resignation on likely replacement with Kennedy. India Walton's expected run means there is now a desire to add as many suburban Dems as possible to the already-existing majority non-Buffalo Dem electorate.

NY-20: Biden+17.3, NY-21: Trump+17.8, NY-22: Biden+12, NY-23: Trump+19.1, NY-24: Trump+23.1, NY-25: Biden+21.7, NY-26: Biden+25.8

[Oryxslayer]

So what do you guys think of the conspiracy theory suggested by some people on Twitter that Latimer’s allies on the commission might vote for a Republican map as long as it helps Latimer? Personally I don’t think it’s likely in the slightest (which is why I call it a conspiracy theory).

Doubt that happens but if it does, NY Dems truly deserve to be bitten by a giant capybara.

I don't buy it mainly cause the commission is already stacked hard against bowman, Latimer doesn't need more friends from the GOP.  Partially this is bowman own making. They also really only care about Westchester, which in terms of partisanship is close to a extention of NYC at this point. The commission can mess with NY-16, or as I suspect NY-17, as much as they want without touching other seats.

Also, there's really no evidence of it, and most importantly, it doesn't matter.  The Dems on the commission acted on their own last week in their statement, which doesn't suggest anything like what was dreamed up. Similarly,  any map passed by the commission has to then pass the Dem supermajority legisture. No GOP msp is going to pass that vote. Dems would certainly appreciate the commission again deadlockiing itself, so they can send two maps once more and pass (or modify within the legal threshold) the dem plan, but they would be fine going at it once more on their own.

[Oryxslayer]

You wouldn't happen to have a link for that shapefile import? The lack of NY towns/hamlets has been annoying while playing around with NY.

https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2020PL/LAYER/PLACE/2020/

New York is state FIP 36. You import it to DRA by custom layers -> Import New -> Choose the downloaded file in it's ZIP format.

Additionally, if you start the process by duplicating the present congressional plan under DRA's "official NY plans," you get the additionally beneficial NYC neighborhood custom layer pre-imported.

[Oryxslayer]

You wouldn't happen to have a link for that shapefile import? The lack of NY towns/hamlets has been annoying while playing around with NY.

https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2020PL/LAYER/PLACE/2020/

New York is state FIP 36. You import it to DRA by custom layers -> Import New -> Choose the downloaded file in it's ZIP format.

Additionally, if you start the process by duplicating the present congressional plan under DRA's "official NY plans," you get the additionally beneficial NYC neighborhood custom layer pre-imported.

"The area of census.gov that you are trying to access is currently unavailable due to maintenance.

We are working to have this area back online as quickly as possible. For assistance, please contact our Call Center at 1-800-923-8282."

so this is why i couldn't find it by myself. lol looks like census shapefile databases are geoblocked lmfao

If anyone else has this issue, use this link:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ed639b7b-b184-4b10-89a7-8ae1e4e49ec5

There's a basic map with the CDP shapefile already imported. If you duplicate it, you'll get a editable copy with the file in the custom layers tab.

Alternatively, If you can use this link, the data is in the form of two shapefiles in the downloaded ZIP: IncorperatedPlace and and UnincorperatedPlace. You'll need to create separate ZIPs for each before importing.

https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/59fa9f60e4b0531197affb51

[Oryxslayer]

Out of curiosity I decided to explore if one could shift NY-05 eastwards and revitalize the old NY-09, since at the moment there is no Dem resistance to cutting a Long Island seat. To my surprise the alignment works, just winds up impractical for several reasons. (Just ignore almost everything west of Queens, that wasn't my focus so nothing changes there unless forced to)



So for those who don't know, NY-09 was the numbering assigned during the final iteration of a district mostly in central and southwestern Queens. However, there was a district hugging the central 'spine' of Queens for much longer than the last two decades of it's existence that are pictured below. It was Schumer's district for a time after reapportionment forced the merger of his south Brooklyn seat and this one.





Which brings me to the next point: the reasoning behind the district. It was a Jewish seat, serving the communities as they existed prior to the most recent generations of NYC immigrants. It made sense for the (at the time less Russian Jewish) parts of South Brooklyn to be paired with the seat.

By 2010 though, everything was working against this district's continued existence, which is why it got the reapportionment axe. Demographically, the electorate had changed in all constituent parts. Queens has an exploding Asian and especially Chinese population, necessitating the creation of a new seat in the region using pieces from NY-09. South Brooklyn meanwhile was fast becoming GOP turf, and this seat had too much of it. Anthony Weiner was the last democrat to represent it. He of course resigned in a whirlwind of scandal which allowed the GOP to have a brief 1-year special election stint in the seat before it's destruction.

This revived seat would not be too much like its predecessor. Demographically, the dominant Dem electorates here are South Asian and Caribbean-Americans of various backgrounds, with only a small hint of the older (mostly Jewish) Liberal White groups. Most Whites here are Republicans. These new COIs mean the district goes into Nassau rather than Brooklyn, since that's where the spillover is, beyond the partisan reasons for not wanting South Brooklyn. The new seat would be a new majority-minority seat. It also shifts NY-05 a good deal out of NYC and is now majority Nassau. However, this NY-05 seat is more African-American by VAP than a lot of Queens-only hypothetical alternatives.

Now though comes the two big roadblocks against anything like this happening. Firstly, the routes into NYC are now more or less blocked by the minority districts. This means NY-03 can't easily get overwhelmingly Dem by grabbing chunks of central Queens, like under most continuity maps. It also must take in a larger share of the Long Island population, since shifting the districts around means that there is an excess of population. That all means NY-03 must take from Suffolk and NY-01's potential voters, leaving that seat like here at Biden+6.

Second, Meeks would probably never approve it. He's a Queens politician, not a Nassau one. Even though his seat isn't really dropping African American areas, he's losing comparatively similar NYC minority communities.

So overall, a fun little What-If and nothing more.