2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: New Jersey

[muon2]

Did you copy the CVAPs, too? Those are what the court would look at for minority performance. They'd probably want some recent elections by precinct, too, to demonstrate that they can elect their preferred candidate, but I think that goes beyond the tools in DRA.

[muon2]

You can get to about 40% Hispanic CVAP by taking in the north side of Newark (where have all the Italians gone, long time passing?), or Elizabeth. Even by trying to take in both, and making some erose mess that carves out the gold coast, you are not going to get to more than say 45% HCVAP.  It may be legal to do the erose mess, but it is certainly not VRA required.

I might add that a substantial percentage of the Hispanics in the zone are Cuban, and thus about a quarter of them or so vote Pub (it will be interesting to find out what the Trump 2020 share turns out to be). It is just not there. I really think Hispanics and the VRA are on its last legs. That may be one of the very few silver linings of the Trump show. He has reduced the salience of color as a proxy for partisan preference.

I'm surprised the Black CVAP grew so little in CD 2 compared to the total pop. I'm used to Chicago where in areas on the border between Blacks and Hispanics the Black increase is usually more substantial.

[muon2]

Ocean is more NYC oriented though, while Burlington is clearly more in the Philly sphere of influence.

Plus there's a decent argument to be made that Eastern and Western South Jersey should be kept separate, since they have pretty different cultures and are separate by the remote and sparsely populated Pine Barrens.

I happen to think that while Mercer+Burlington is a decent pairing, so is Ocean+Burlington. There are arguments in favor of both so I don't have a strong preference for either. What I do there tends to be affected by other parts of the map. I used to hate the idea of Burlingocean as opposed to Mercerlington, but that was when I was more influenced by the likes of Stephen Wolf.
The Pine Barrens argument is also a double-edged sword if raised in objection to a Burlingocean district, because you could argue you are actually dividing the Pine Barrens into two neat districts - a northern one (the 3rd) and a southern one (the 2nd).

I'm with Sol on this one. The Census identifies commuting patterns and other economic connections when defining metro areas and their subdivisions. Ocean and Monmouth are part of the New Brunswick-Lakewood subdivision of the NYC metro. Burlington is part of the Camden subdivision of the Philly metro. Mercer is by itself in the Trenton-Princeton metro.