U.S. House Redistricting 2020: Nevada

[If my soul was made of stone]

Stupidest state Democratic party in this redistricting cycle so far.

I agree that leaving Reno in the vote sink was dumb, but I saw people on Twitter comparing it to Arkansas 2010, which, like, come on, people, let's be realistic here. 3/4 seats are like Biden+7-8 in a state Biden won by 2.5ish. Unless the state is voting for the Republican by like 5 point (which isn't impossible but is definitely not the modal outcome) Democrats should be favored in all three of those districts.

Regardless of the partisanship of these seats, diluting minority influence for partisan purposes is also generally Bad, Actually, regardless of whether or not Titus' seat was ever VRA-protected as such. Racial gerrymandering isn't any less heinous when the Dems do it, as some Bitecoferian types have cynically suggested.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Stupidest state Democratic party in this redistricting cycle so far.

I agree that leaving Reno in the vote sink was dumb, but I saw people on Twitter comparing it to Arkansas 2010, which, like, come on, people, let's be realistic here. 3/4 seats are like Biden+7-8 in a state Biden won by 2.5ish. Unless the state is voting for the Republican by like 5 point (which isn't impossible but is definitely not the modal outcome) Democrats should be favored in all three of those districts.

Regardless of the partisanship of these seats, diluting minority influence for partisan purposes is also generally Bad, Actually, regardless of whether or not Titus' seat was ever VRA-protected as such. Racial gerrymandering isn't any less heinous when the Dems do it, as some Bitecoferian types have cynically suggested.

Yeah, exactly. This is the rare map that is actually worse, on nonpartisan grounds, than EITHER the most extreme Democratic or the Republican gerrymanders (since both of them probably at least keep most of Las Vegas contained within two districts and thus will have at least one be a Hispanic opportunity seat). The Reno-Clark connection and the 2D-2R plan that the GOP proposed are both more defensible CoI-wise.

This was my own map, though surely Horsford and Lee would never let it pass:



Most of Las Vegas itself is combined with Sunrise Manor and the most minority-heavy parts of Paradise and North Las Vegas in NV-01 (44% Hispanic VAP, Biden +27), while NV-04 (Biden +2) stretches a bit further southwest to Spring Valley and NV-03 (Biden +0.5) takes in whiter parts of Paradise. NV-02 (Trump +11) has no county splits, as in one of the earlier legislative proposals that was then mutilated for unknown reasons.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Stupidest state Democratic party in this redistricting cycle so far.

I agree that leaving Reno in the vote sink was dumb, but I saw people on Twitter comparing it to Arkansas 2010, which, like, come on, people, let's be realistic here. 3/4 seats are like Biden+7-8 in a state Biden won by 2.5ish. Unless the state is voting for the Republican by like 5 point (which isn't impossible but is definitely not the modal outcome) Democrats should be favored in all three of those districts.

Regardless of the partisanship of these seats, diluting minority influence for partisan purposes is also generally Bad, Actually, regardless of whether or not Titus' seat was ever VRA-protected as such. Racial gerrymandering isn't any less heinous when the Dems do it, as some Bitecoferian types have cynically suggested.

Yeah, exactly. This is the rare map that is actually worse, on nonpartisan grounds, than EITHER the most extreme Democratic or the Republican gerrymanders (since both of them probably at least keep most of Las Vegas contained within two districts and thus will have at least one be a Hispanic opportunity seat). The Reno-Clark connection and the 2D-2R plan that the GOP proposed are both more defensible CoI-wise.

This was my own map, though surely Horsford and Lee would never let it pass:



Most of Las Vegas itself is combined with Sunrise Manor and the most minority-heavy parts of Paradise and North Las Vegas in NV-01 (44% Hispanic VAP, Biden +27), while NV-04 (Biden +2) stretches a bit further southwest to Spring Valley and NV-03 (Biden +0.5) takes in whiter parts of Paradise. NV-02 (Trump +11) has no county splits, as in one of the earlier legislative proposals that was then mutilated for unknown reasons.

I don't really like this map tbh (the rurals split feels really artificial, and the two swingy districts are de-facto Lean R in a neutral years) but it's definitely better than what we got, can't argue with that.

Really, I guess the problem will not fully solved until Nevada gets a 5th seat and we can have a district properly anchored in Reno.

What would a less "artificial" split of the rurals entail, short of a Reno snake and a rural pack? This is, as I said, the neatest configuration possible without county splits.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Las Vegas is kind of a difficult area to redistrict, to be honest. I'm not clear how much municipal and CDP lines matter--I get the sense that in some ways the latter matters as much as the former. Ought to do more research on CoIs and get back to this.

In my own maps I've ignored certain municipal boundaries in favor of drawing more for minority representation. I typically detach the whiter northern fringes of North Las Vegas and suburban areas in the west of Las Vegas proper from the urban core shared by those cities and Paradise, while mostly keeping the others whole. I think that the split of Las Vegas in this map is mostly logical, but I'd cede some of North Las Vegas to the outer Clark seat, balanced out by the "urban core" district absorbing more minority-heavy precincts in northern Paradise and then that seat (in red) in turn stretching back north into the western side of Vegas itself.

I'm not an expert on Nevada geography myself, but that's how I'd personally approach a map with this basic configuration.

[If my soul was made of stone]

I agree with those that say Nevada really would have a better map with five districts (much as most believe Idaho would do better with three). Not drawing a gerrymander, I would do something like this based on the current population:



NV-01: North Las Vegas-Sunrise Manor: Biden 64.5-33.2 (44.8% plurality Hispanic VAP)
NV-02: Rurals-Northeast Las Vegas: Trump 59.8-38.0
NV-03: Central Las Vegas-Paradise-Northern Spring Valley: Biden 58.6-39.3 (38.6 plurality White VAP)
NV-04: Henderson-Enterprise-Southern Spring Valley: Biden 49.6-48.5
NV-05: Reno-Carson City: Trump 49.8-47.4

This would be a 2D-1R-2C map, which makes sense for a state like Nevada. A Democratic gerrymander could easily turn it into 3D-1R-1C, but that's it. A Republican gerrymander could probably do 3R-2D.

Even going up to 5 districts, the rurals (i.e. non-Clark, Washoe, Carson City) don't even get to half of a district and the trajectory in a state like Nevada really is one way. If Nevada is on track for a fifth district in 2030, it's likely the NV-02 I drew will have to eat up more of NV-05.

Btw, most of the area of this NV-01 is empty or mostly empty. It just makes the lines neater and keeps NV-02 from becoming a doughnut district.

I really don’t get the stigma against donut districts. Sometimes they make sense. Colorado had a Denver Donut for a long time

Nevada itself had a donut for all the time that it had two districts. I try to avoid them myself, but it is precedented.