Northern vs Southern Georgia

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Yeah. The minute the Senate goes blue, they pass HR1, and then we bring back districts like GA-12 to elect more moderate Dems.

"gerrymandering is okay when we do it"

[Libertas Vel Mors]

This entire thread reminds me of seeing BRTD try to defend the Texas Dem Gerrymander (old thread, from like 2005 iirc) by saying a majority of the people in each district supported it lol

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Yeah. The minute the Senate goes blue, they pass HR1, and then we bring back districts like GA-12 to elect more moderate Dems.

"gerrymandering is okay when we do it"

This but unironically.

I'm fine with saying that. I personally hold the same stance, but I find it annoying when Dems are both simultaneously holier than thou and doing the same thing behind their backs.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Yeah. The minute the Senate goes blue, they pass HR1, and then we bring back districts like GA-12 to elect more moderate Dems.

"gerrymandering is okay when we do it"

This but unironically.

I'm fine with saying that. I personally hold the same stance, but I find it annoying when Dems are both simultaneously holier than thou and doing the same thing behind their backs.

In the South, when Dems gerrymander, they elect people who care about white and black people. when the GOP does it, their politicians don't give a sh**t about black constituents. Also you can draw a light red GA-12 that a moderate Dem would easily win.

Gee, you’re certainly not biased at all.

Anyway, to claim that G.K.Butterfield, Alma Adams, Mel Watt, Hank Johnson, Bennie Thomas, or Sheila Jackson Lee care about **all** their constituents, while say Tim Scott or Doug Collins does not is, uh, rich. After all, doesn’t sexually abusing your employees, like Melvin Watt (D-Charlotte) did, so very representative and kind? What about literally going to prison and losing your Obama +50~ seat for corruption, like William Jefferson? Idk though man, maybe Hank Johnson really is meeting the needs of his poor urban ATL district by checks notes asking if the island of Guam is going to sink.

Fine, maybe I’ve been a little harsh. But when you get quotes like this:

Jackson Lee complained in 2003 that storm names were too white. "All racial groups should be represented," she said, and asked officials to "try to be inclusive of African-American names."[50]

I’m somewhat doubtful of the apparently deity like powers of Democratic congressmen/woman to represent their districts.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Yeah. The minute the Senate goes blue, they pass HR1, and then we bring back districts like GA-12 to elect more moderate Dems.

"gerrymandering is okay when we do it"

This but unironically.

I'm fine with saying that. I personally hold the same stance, but I find it annoying when Dems are both simultaneously holier than thou and doing the same thing behind their backs.

In the South, when Dems gerrymander, they elect people who care about white and black people. when the GOP does it, their politicians don't give a sh**t about black constituents. Also you can draw a light red GA-12 that a moderate Dem would easily win.

Gee, you’re certainly not biased at all.

Anyway, to claim that G.K.Butterfield, Alma Adams, Mel Watt, Hank Johnson, Bennie Thomas, or Sheila Jackson Lee care about **all** their constituents, while say Tim Scott or Doug Collins does not is, uh, rich. After all, doesn’t sexually abusing your employees, like Melvin Watt (D-Charlotte) did, so very representative and kind? What about literally going to prison and losing your Obama +50~ seat for corruption, like William Jefferson? Idk though man, maybe Hank Johnson really is meeting the needs of his poor urban ATL district by checks notes asking if the island of Guam is going to sink.

Fine, maybe I’ve been a little harsh. But when you get quotes like this:

Jackson Lee complained in 2003 that storm names were too white. "All racial groups should be represented," she said, and asked officials to "try to be inclusive of African-American names."[50]

I’m somewhat doubtful of the apparently deity like powers of Democratic congressmen/woman to represent their districts.

Maybe I was a little extreme, but the decline of moderate southern Democrats who are replaced by insanely right-wing Republicans has had much to do with the decline of our politics. Some of this happened naturally, but others (as a Republican from North Carolina I'm sure you'd know) were forcibly done through gerrymandering.

While I appreciate that you may not like it, even a "fair" NC-11 or NC-07 is staying Solid R now, and that's just the reality -- we, the people of the South, get to choose who we want to represent us in Congress, and if that doesn't please some liberals from Massachusetts, well, that's fine by me.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Fair enough. NC-11 and NC-07 would still have turned safe red, but in 2016 or 2018, not in 2012 as they were artificially forced to do. Also considering that Butterfield/Thompson regularly overperform the baseline, I'd be inclined to say that yes, their white constituents are cared for just fine.

Lmao no, 2014 is when they'd have flipped at worst, though NC-11 would have likely flipped in 2012.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Why? Genuinely curious, not trying to pick a fight. Didn't Shuler still win extremely convincingly in 2010, as did McIntyre? Hudson I could have seen losing because his turf wasn't as ancestrally blue.

Shuler won against a relatively weak candidate by 8 in 2010, but that meant relatively little for other blue dogs who similarily went onto their graves. Take, for instance, Dan Boren, who won by double digits and had his district unchanged, but retired anyway and had his district flip by 20 points. Because the 2010 wave was so huge, some incumbents managed to slip by, but they were screwed either way, which is why 2012/2014 was essentially just an easy mop up attempt for the GOP.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

McIntyre was stronger, but similarily screwed. His 2012 win was extremely impressive, but in all honesty wouldn't have been enough even with his 2008 district -- after all, even pre-gerrymandering, he still represented a McCain district, and by 2014 that was just not a realistic position for any federal level southern Democrat.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Right yeah that makes more sense. I didn't know much about Shuler's opponent being weak. NC-07/NC-08 still has a high enough floor for Dems though because of the black/Lumbee populations, more so NC-08. NC-07 is going the way of NC-03 though soon enough.

Yeah, a fair NC-08 could (depending on how it was drawn, as it would need to become more of a sandhills district including Fayettesville vs a simple center NC district like it was in the 2000s) still be competitive, that's one of the few exceptions. A district like below for example would be right trending, but still marginal enough it would probably be Dem until 2022 or so (depending on Biden or Trump being in office oc).



Trump +0.4
McCrory+0.1
Burr+0.7

Still, the close margins are pretty indicative -- many Southern districts truly are pretty inelastic, and something like this NC-08 would be no exception.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

well the current NC-09 and NC-08 are designed to dilute the Sandhills's voting power. 9 merges Union with Richmond/Anson/Hoke/Scotland/Robeson, and 8 merges Cabarrus/Stanly/Moore/Montgomery with Fayetteville. Logically one would have a Charlotte R suburb/exurb district be NC-09 and then you would have those rural counties plus Fayetteville down to Bladen to make NC-08. Columbus in your map is further away than the rest of the counties in the seat so I'd personally put it with 7.

Yep, makes sense. Columbus is more NC-07, but for whatever reason I had a brain collapse moment and kind of mentally included it with the Sandhills when making this map. But yeah, a better NC-08 would probably range from Anson to Robeson/Bladen/Cumberland