2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[lfromnj]

Here

Main communities left is Leesburg paired with the Shenandoah for population reasons,  However half of the Loudoun split is perfectly justified due to the much more rural nature of the western part of Loudoun and how expansion is limited there anyway by the hilly terrain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catoctin_County,_Virginia

The black Richmond district is a bit low on the black population at 40.2 but if one wishes they can precint trade and split the city of Richmond for a more black district

Virginia beach should mostly take in Chesapeake due to the much more suburban nature of the latter compared to Norfolk .

Now theres an argument for 4 possible D NOVA districts depending on the split but just carving Fairfax like that into 4 is a blatant gerrymander.

[lfromnj]

You literally did the same thing in your map lol(or looks like it)



And heres a rotation if you want it, was a bit lazy with city boundaries due the huge population size for each precinct but should be easy to fix and still have a similar shape.

[lfromnj]

Heres another way

Splitting Fairfax to 4 districts when it and its cities form just 2 districts +35k population is a blatant gerrymander.

The blue district keeps a nice exurban feeling with moderately educated exurbs with high amounts of wealth and a few rurals and then connects it cleanly with Charlottesville.
Very clean Shenandoah district with only downside there is Roanake split,
SW district does touch the Piedmont region a bit unfortunately.


Overall 5 Safe D
1 pure tossup(Charlottesville) Trump +0.2
1 lean R( VA beach) Trump +2.6
one Lean/Likely R which is Tidewater/Richmond at Trump +7.
3 Safe R.


And yes exurbs are a valid COI with regards to the culture and other similar ideas they have even if they aren't as close as one wishes.

[lfromnj]

LOL, 6 Trump districts in a Dem state and you're calling our maps gerrymanders.

ok I can shift 2 precints and make the blue one a Clinton district if you so desire,
If you use expected outcome you have an expected outcome of around 6.2 D seats on average)
(this assumes no incumbents etc)
5 D*100
+0.5 D(VA 1)
+0.4 D(VA2)
+0.3 (VA7)
= 6.2 D seats and 4.8 R seats while the perfectly expected value using the cube rule for districts is 6.4 D seats and 4.6 D seats.

And 2020 census in Loudoun probably shrinks the blue district just a bit further into NOVA to probably make it Clinton anyway, I didn't even look at partisanship while making the districts.

[lfromnj]

Ok then Loudoun to Winchester, oh wait its now Safe R and the Charlottesville seat is Likely R(Kaine won it by 0.5)

Now you can complain its a gerrymander. First of all its not even really Loudoun, its Catotcin county which is rural/exurban and by no degree at all suburban.

[lfromnj]

Ok here we go again,
made a small rotation, gave the rest of Loudoun to Loudoun and moved blue to take Manassas which now moves it to tilt D.

Realistically Western Loudoun has more in common with Charlottesville than Manassas which is a Hispanic majority town almost but again this is both a partisanlly fair map(I don't even look at partisanship till the map is finished anyway when I make a fair map)

[lfromnj]

Again Western vs Eastern Loudoun have a lot of local issues at play and basically hate each other because Western Loudoun wants to protect its  atmosphere and other factors. Call it NIMBYISM or whatever you want but Eastern Loudoun has interest in a congressman who will increase development in their area while Western Loudoun might prefer one who might be able to limit road access.



And here we go, we take some middle areas in PWC and we get the narrowest Clinton district in the nation at +300 votes

Do you really think I am gerrymandering over a 0.2 points swing?(Trump +0.2 or Clinton +0)
No I legitimately believe Western Loudoun is much more belonging in the district. It doesn't matter if it loops , you just believe thats ugly for some reason but you still haven't proven why its some precincts from suburban PWC should be there.

[lfromnj]

Western Loudoun having different political views does not make it a distinct community of interest. Weird that you're so upset about a reasonable split of Fairfax but are so aggressive about splitting Loudoun meaninglessly.

The split of Fairfax was obviously a partisan gerrymander and had major differences, Im literally arguing over a swing of 0.2 points here.
Infact the precincts I took from PWC county are just a tiny bit more D than the Western Loudoun precincts, there is no national political difference really. This is literally 0.2 points. Loudoun county is basically like Passiac NJ except replace the urban poor Patterson with rich suburban towns and then rural/exurban Western half. Its not political besides the local issues which is a very valid reason for it to be separate due to different interests for federal funding. On the other hand Western and central PWC both are developing quite rapidly and have the terrain to do so. Therefore they belong in a true suburban NOVA district rather than a rural/exurban mix.

The decision to put Western Loudoun with the blue district is purely non partisan.

Now about Tyson and all those cities in Fairfax, they can all be easily rotated between VA 8/10/11

[lfromnj]

When you look at common interests and the types of people , people in exurbs are easily more connected to each other than some common road uniting them, especially considering how the exurbs themselves aren't exactly disconnected either.

Literally no one else on this forum cares about direction of road this much besides you and Blairite, I even remember the idea that somehow rurals should be mixed with Cincinatti suburbs instead of just combing one mega suburban district around Cinci. Like sure I can agree Reston and Ashburn are connected but Western Loudoun is not really connected to the rest of Loudoun culturally and demographically and terrian wise.

[lfromnj]

Again I myself do not like the 3 concentric districts due to the fact Loudoun is very different from PWC just like Oakland and Macomb, however central fairfax west and central fairfax east still have a decent amount common with Loudoun and PWC, what isn't right is putting parts of central fairfax with some exurban/rural counties. Even if they have a highway connecting them there is literally nothing else they have in common, Its much better to have 1 Beltway district and then either 2 districts going south and one going west or have 2 districts based completely in Fairfax and then 2 more based in each of the suburban counties.

To Tack I will say the 7th distrrict is actually a pretty decent COI for most of the district, The Tidewater region always will get shoved somewhere bad in almost any map so you should look at the rest of the district which is Henrico/Hanover county which is very educated and then the Historic Triangle which is tourism+education.

[lfromnj]

Opinion of this map? Here I basically tried to make some redistricting decisions I had not really tried while still keeping the map relatively fair. Some of these include a more compact VA-04 (though I still had to get out of Richmond by quite a bit) or connecting VA-7 to the north.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/895aa991-6ed7-460e-b9df-9f748da36530

VA-01: Clinton+12, Northam+14, Kaine+23, D+4 (50% white, 20% hispanic, 21% black)
VA-02: Trump+5, Northam+2, Kaine+8, R+4
VA-03: Clinton+33, Northam+39, Kaine+44, D+17 (47% black. 42% white)
VA-04: Clinton+31, Northam+33, Kaine+39, D+14 (46% black, 45% white)
VA-05: Trump+26, Gillespie+25, Stewart+17, R+14
VA-06: Trump+9, Gillespie+5, Kaine+2, R+6
VA-07: Trump+13, Gillespie+10, Stewart+2, R+9
VA-08: Clinton+52, Northam+52, Kaine+59, D+21
VA-09: Trump+38, Gillespie+35, Stewart+26, R+18
VA-10: Trump+6 Gillespie+3, Kaine+6, R+5
VA-11: Clinton+33, Northam+34, Kaine+43, D+12

Imo this map would be 5 Safe D, 3 Safe R, 1 Likely R (6th) and 2 Lean R (2nd, 10th)

I actually like several of these districts tbh, like how the 6th is now a district within reach of the Dems (even if it would be a very heavy lift) or the 10th which makes it so a competitive district remains in the north (though there are still 3 safe D districts in NOVA)

On the other hand the new 7th is not great and the 5th was the definition of leftovers district so still not great I suppose

This is a Republican map, not a fair map.

Reston and Ashburn should be together; there is no justification for looping district 2 around district 3.

By your very own road argument is that the D inner 4 cities are connected by a nice done bridge circle.

[lfromnj]

Theres literally a Hampton Roads beltway. Create one district mostly based inside thats the VRA district, then create one that goes around it or at the very least is VA beach+Chesapeake, im not even arguing for this path, my argument for connecting VA beach with Chesapeake is because those 2 are much more suburban in nature than Norfolk, my argument here is just saying by your logic VA beach must go with Chesapeake.

[lfromnj]

You still havent justified your Norfolk to VA beach pairing, it splits up the 4 inner cities to make 2 Safe D seats for no reason. Its not a loop around, Connecting to Chesapeake beach is the next county over and creates a well done suburban district.

[lfromnj]

To maximize AA pop, you should really cut both Norfolk and Portsmouth. Let the VA Beach district take in whiter (and more suburban) northern Norfolk and Southern Portsmouth while pairing South Norfolk, North Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Newport News, and Hampton into one AA district.

Oh you so want the maximized AA pop without going too ugly?
Then do this
Trump +4.3 Green and
Clinton +31 Purple
48.5% Black.

[lfromnj]

Anything over 40% is good enough for VA-3 and VA-4. I don't see a need to split Portsmouth here.

So then whats wrong with one district based in Richmond thats 40.5% black?
you are running in circles to justify every gerrymandered decision.

[lfromnj]

The main counties in the Richmond metro + Petersburg is 900k people, you put one district based mostly in it if you are fine with 40.5% black districts.

[lfromnj]

The main counties in the Richmond metro + Petersburg is 900k people, you put one district based mostly in it if you are fine with 40.5% black districts.

I have it at 1.26 million, which is much closer to two districts.

Thats including a bunch of exurban or even rural counties which you split among 3 districts lol.

[lfromnj]

Cleaned up earlier courtmander by the VA supreme court for a cleanly gerrymandered 5 D - 6 R locked in map.

This is a perfect map for the GOP, the main issue with this map is VA 2 which splits 3 cities there to push it to Trump +6 or Likely R.
VA 1 is kept as Safe R at trump +15
VA 7 is now moved to Trump +15 or also Safe R.
VA 5 is also still Safe R.

The only 2 districts with real issues for the average viewer are VA 1 which is a bit of a leftovers district on this map and VA 02.

Also all 4 Republican incumbents largely keep their same district.

[lfromnj]

^ That's one of the best VA maps I've seen.

I agree. The most important thing for me is the "look" test, and this map simply looks good. The one issue I could see would be that Spanberger's 7th district gets ever so slightly more (non Atlas) red. Her current district went for Trump 50-44% in 2016.

Why is that an issue?
I thought the goal was a fair map/non gerrymandered map? The reason it moves right is because VA 7 should probably have Hanover county in  Richmond Suburban district.

Unless the problem you speak of is that the commission wouldn't be happy with that map.  Well that would be pretty obvious considering both Spanberger and Whitman get hurt pretty bad.
Anyway I do love Sev calling my map a GOP gerrymander when the only partisan difference was shifting 1 district to the right by 2 points. Anyway I personally prefer my NOVA exurban district with Charlottesville so I don't get why people think my decision was partisan while he makes a nearly locked 8-3 map with the exception of Richmond.

[lfromnj]

My attempt at a fair map. Didn't attempt to make this a gerrymander one way or the other, you be the judge if I was successful:



And some summary statistics:

District	Color	Clinton %	Trump %	Partisan Lean (2012-18)	Notes
1	Dark Blue	47.9	46.4	D+6.0
2	Dark Green	45.7	48.2	D+3.9
3	Dark Purple	61.5	33.0	D+33.4	45.3% Black
4	Red	58.9	36.3	D+25.6	42.6% Black
5	Yellow	42.7	52.1	R+5.3
6	Jade	33.6	60.6	R+21.8
7	Brown	42.9	51.0	R+5.1
8	Light Purple	72.8	20.3	D+52.2
9	Light Blue	27.4	68.2	R+33.6
10	Pink	58.6	34.4	D+26.1
11	Chartreuse	55.2	38.0	D+19.0

In a D wave year, this could be 9-2 D; in an R wave year, this could be 6-5 R. By taking in more of Prince William County, the 1st District gets quite a bit more Democratic. By contrast, the 11th District goes out into Fauquier County and gets quite a bit more Republican, though probably not enough to make it competitive.

I still don't agree with the NOVA split like that, but at least here its not a gerrymander by giving Fairfax county incredible influence over 4 districts when its stuck into a corner and almost perfectly fits 2 with Arlington and Alexandria added.Other than NOVA I gotta say the map is very nice, The Richmond district doesn't split Richmond and puts in Hanover and you used the smart and easy choice for the VA beach district by taking Chesapeake.
If I was working from your map I would personally make VA 1 finish taking Caroline and King William county and then do a rotation between VA 7/VA5/VA 11 /VA 1 to remove that county split and region split(Tidewater) although that make VA 5 a bit too narrow and ugly?

[lfromnj]

Anyway if I was forced to make the NOVA triple road split I don't feel eastern PWC and the tidewater have too little in common  to really do that. This version does split the Fredricksburg metro however with the taking of Spotsylvania county.

The partisanship of VA 1/VA2/VA7/ are all the same as dbatches map so my changing of their map is purely for non partisan purposes.

[lfromnj]

And here's a map which tries to barely respect COIs but maximize competitive district. VA 6th and the 9th are combined to create room for a swing Charlottesville seat at Trump +4
Then VA 10th is pushed out despite massive population growth to make it Likely D at Clinton +6
VA 1st is then pushed in for a Clinton +1 district
Finally VA 7th and VA 2 are Trump +7 and Trump +3 respectively. Obviously has the split of the Shenandoah and VA 5 is a bit ugly but other than that its honestly not that bad. With some precint trades between VA 10 and 11 you can even make VA 10 Lean D at Clinton +3

[lfromnj]

VA Reps may push the 5-1 court to do something like this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/bce45050-8fd6-4923-9e68-81b01682d91d


5 and 7 are the leftovers, but the leftovers clearly benefit the GOP, the VRA seats are strengthened, which just happens to help shore up 2, and Albemarle honestly doesn't have a clear place to go, so I can see the 5-1 court just sticking it in Appalachia. In a vacuum, each of these decisions can clearly be justified as fine pairings, but on the broader scale, the side effects create a blatantly lopsided map, 6 might be vulnerable, but Appalachia is probably inelastic enough, 7 might also be vulnerable, but is currently D held anyways, I would not be shocked if the final map looks more like this than the quad cuts of Fairfax being proposed in this thread, and other than the NoVA seats, this map isn't even that ugly.

That's way too ugly and way beyond what you need for a relatively clean 5-1-5 map.

[lfromnj]

It's really f'ing awful that we are in this position because Dems want to unilaterally be fair.  I'll probably have Comstock as a congresswoman again at this rate.  Meanwhile Texas probably creates a 40-0 Frankenmap.  Democrats are the worst at politics.  They should all retire.

Lol what?

no your district will recede back and lose the 2 rural counties due to Loudoun growth and become 100% Safe unless you actually live in Clarke or Frederick.

[lfromnj]

There's really no evidence that the VA court, which while R has been shown to be rather lackluster in terms of ideological and partisan commitment, will go out of their way to gerrymander VA. What's almost certainly more likely is just the same process that occurred in PA and NC: the court will hire a special master which will draw a roughly fair map.

This kind of panicking over basically nothing is not helpful, especially when said panicking is completely disconnected from reality.

The PA court shifted the Bucks district left by a few points, they also managed to put both Mt.Lebanon and Pen hills in PA 17th and got a swing Harrisburg York district. A similar map except the opposite could possibly be expected, see earlier in the thread for my clean maps that do almost the same job as s019's/