North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/legislators-seek-justice-ervins-recusal-in-redistricting-case/

NC GOP begins push

Lol that's such a silly argument by the NCGOP. Couldn't really any case you can argue have an impact on voter turnout and such?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Sad how by their way of questioning, Newby, Morgan, Earls, and Erwin have all already made up their mind

[ProgressiveModerate]

Yeah. The idea that the Court owes the NCGOP the time of day is ridiculous given that they tried to pull the same trick last decade, got caught, and took almost the entire decade dithering and wrangling before finally being forced by the court to draw a fair map that only ended up applying to the very last election of the cycle. And now they're trying to pull the same sh*t again. The Court is being too generous with them, if anything.

There's nothing illegal about the maps....

Are you for real? You're a ing hack.

Ig this is an interepretation question and what words like "fair" mean in the context of the constitution, though IMO the map clearly is unfair and violates the constitution and goes agaisnt precedent set forwards by the copurt historically

[ProgressiveModerate]

Glad to see that god awful congressional map was overturned (I agree the legistlative maps generally weren't terrible), but still kinda sad how we could get a fair map for 2 years that is redrawn back into a gerrymander as soon as Rs flip the court.

[ProgressiveModerate]

What I'm most curious about is how the new maps handle the greater Raleigh metro, including Durham. It feels like the size of COIs is always slighly off the CD size

[ProgressiveModerate]

I never want to hear again how the gop has a systemic bias in its favor

NY can have a 22-4 map and get away with it

Oregon can get away with its bs

Illinois can get away with its bs

These rulings always go in one direction. Always.

And yet the national map is a lock to have an overall Republican slant.

It's not really a lock at all.

The redistricting experts on Twitter seem to think otherwise, that a 50-50 national House popular vote split in 2022 will almost certainly lead to a Republican controlled House.

You obviously are out of the loop cause Dave Wasserman and Nate Cohn, among many others, now expect the House to probably be a bit to the left of the 2020 popular vote. This is still a slight R bias compared to if the entire nation were mapped using the same standards: just as the median senate seat was 4 points to the right of the 2020 popular vote, the median House seat would probably be something like 3 points to the left. This is just what happens when parties focus on the easiest path to the presidency, and one parties path doesn't involve winning the popular vote.

Now, what you may be confused by is when other situational factors, like retirements, funding, candidates - and how a handful of incumbents are in mismatched seats by partisanship - that go beyond the overall topline analysis. But the GOP will have to take seats Biden won to get a majority, whereas the Dems in 2018 could just walk Clintons path to victory. And its easy to imagine a Dem majority in 2024, unless the topline is a landslide.

Your two Tweets agree with me. Wasserman says a 2 or 3 seat gain from current maps for Dems, which would still be a Republican lean, and Cohn is skeptical of the idea that we could end up with a Dem-leaning map, but doesn't dismiss the possibility altogether. I follow both of them on Twitter, as well as G. Elliot Morris.

Ultimately, it comes down to exactly what people are talking about when they are discuss leans. I am referring to which way the House goes in an exactly 50-50 map by national House popular vote, not based on Biden districts (since Biden did better than 50-50 in the two-party vote for Trump, and even if he didn't, it would be a presidential vote and not a House vote), and not based on a comparison to last decade's super gerrymandered map. But as Cohn says in the Tweet, we just won't know for sure until we get the rest of the maps.

However, the fact that 100% of one party's Representatives and Senators support banning gerrymandering, and 0% of the other party does really speaks volumes about which side is benefiting more from it.

When they say "2 or 3" seat gain, they're quantifying it specifically to 2022. 538 for instance says Dems gain 10 Dem leaning seats, but their methodology is also flaws (i.e. TX-32 is a Dem "gain"). I have run the numbers before, and if most remaining open questions continue to fall Dems way, then the median seat will vote to the left of the nation, which it seems there's a very viable chance happens. Either way, i think the House bias ends up being pretty insignificant at the start of the decade, and it really comes down to how a few candidates do in the tipping point races.

Furthermore, I think Rs are less likely to support gerrymandering Ban because it's part of their general ideology to begin with and it helps to give them locks on many state legistlatures, but on the House level the playing field is pretty even as long as the prior year isn't a wave. If going into 2030, Democrats manage to control most swing state legislatures, I guarantee you the GOP position will change.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My guess is either the GOP doesn't cooperate at all and the court ends up drawing the map, or they try and see if the court will accept something akin to the 2020 map; a 9-5 map that sort of naturally packs Dem voters via some R favorable decisions that isn't a full on gerrymander

[ProgressiveModerate]

I read through most of the court order but there isn't any real guidance on how to draw the districts other than mentioning metrics and generic measurements (efficiency gap, mean-median difference test, etc) and that it had to adhere to Federal regs and use whole counties when possible. 

The phrase the caught my eye the most was "If some combination of these metrics demonstrate there is significant likelihood that the plan will give the voters of all political parties substantially equal opportunity to translate votes into seats across the plan, then the plan is constitutional"

I'd read that phrase as requiring proportionality in all the maps to some acceptable degree.

Here's what I came up with for a state Trump won by 1.34%.





https://davesredistricting.org/join/921b5964-9f3a-4024-b5dd-520f0aeffbbd

The court might actually demand another Dem seat, but that's the best I could do while minimizing county splits.

Nice job. If you really want a 7th Biden seat have the 8th take in all of Cabbarus County

Ye Dems have a slight packing issue in NC, especially since a lot of their “mid sized” cities aren’t enough to make a blue leaning CD (Winston Salem, Asheville, and Fayetteville).

[ProgressiveModerate]

If it weren't for the partisan fairness requirement, a map like this could be quite reasonable from a COI standpoint while still making the map R favorable.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This map would never happen for a variety of reasons, but here's an attempt to maximize black power. Unfortunately for NC Dems, black voters are distributed in a way which makes getting them seats pretty difficult. In this map, 1 is 45% black, 14 is 40% black, 6 is 36% black, and 12 is 41% black.

Again, this is not necessarily the best or even a good map from a COI perspective, just an experiment

[ProgressiveModerate]

If I could this is the map I would submit:



It keeps COIs together, is relatively fair from a partisanship standpoint, protects minorities (mainly black voters), and limits County splits

[ProgressiveModerate]

God why do NC laws basically guarantee  the legislature can guarantee no matter what.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would be funny if somehow Democrats actually end up winning at least one if not both chambers of the GA assembly in 2022 under the new Court map. This is extremely unlikely, though certainly not impossible.

Democrats are extremely lucky though that the County Splitting rules for districts are in place because it curbs GOP gerrymandering at least a bit.

The bad news for Dems in NC is their self-packing problem will probably get worse. Yes, some 50-50 suburbs are likely to get bluer, but the fact is most rural D areas are depopulating and getting redder by the day.

My guess is Dems will control NC legislature when/if the blue bubbles of the cities actually become close to a majority of the population.

I suspect statewide NC is going to be in reach of both parties for a while; there are just so many counteracting trends. Ultimately assuming political coalitions roughly stay the same, I think Dems and the cities will eventually begin win out more and more though

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would be funny if somehow Democrats actually end up winning at least one if not both chambers of the GA assembly in 2022 under the new Court map. This is extremely unlikely, though certainly not impossible.

Democrats are extremely lucky though that the County Splitting rules for districts are in place because it curbs GOP gerrymandering at least a bit.

The bad news for Dems in NC is their self-packing problem will probably get worse. Yes, some 50-50 suburbs are likely to get bluer, but the fact is most rural D areas are depopulating and getting redder by the day.

My guess is Dems will control NC legislature when/if the blue bubbles of the cities actually become close to a majority of the population

If you kept the GOP map in the senate but fixed the NE district here are the swing districts.

1 Exurban/Black mix that is Clinton Trump. Trended R for 2020.
One NE black seat that is Biden +4 and trending R
One Trump +8 seat that voted for Clinton based in Robeson.
One Cabarrus seat that had a very strong D trend in 2020
3 swing seats in Mecklenburg and Wake all of which have trended very D except the northern wake one which is partially blunted by rural Granville.

Overall 22 Biden seats and 28 Trump seats which seems relatively reasonable and a lot of Clinton -Trump / Trump- Biden seats which shows the map is quite responsive.

Ye I think the Court is kind of overplaying it's hand a bit when it comes to the state legislative maps, though I think what the GOP did with the NE really gave the impression they drew the entire map with bad faith.

It important to remember the court isn't an expert on redistricting, so a lot of their opinion will be based on visual observations and stuff.

Makes me think the court will implement a D-leaning map which may give Dems a narrow path but still a path to control one of the chambers in 2022.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just to be 100% clear

The only way Dems could keep a “fair” map in place for the decade is always controlling at least either the State Supreme Court or at least 1 chamber of fue legistlature?

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would be funny if somehow Democrats actually end up winning at least one if not both chambers of the GA assembly in 2022 under the new Court map. This is extremely unlikely, though certainly not impossible.

Democrats are extremely lucky though that the County Splitting rules for districts are in place because it curbs GOP gerrymandering at least a bit.

The bad news for Dems in NC is their self-packing problem will probably get worse. Yes, some 50-50 suburbs are likely to get bluer, but the fact is most rural D areas are depopulating and getting redder by the day.

My guess is Dems will control NC legislature when/if the blue bubbles of the cities actually become close to a majority of the population

If you kept the GOP map in the senate but fixed the NE district here are the swing districts.

1 Exurban/Black mix that is Clinton Trump. Trended R for 2020.
One NE black seat that is Biden +4 and trending R
One Trump +8 seat that voted for Clinton based in Robeson.
One Cabarrus seat that had a very strong D trend in 2020
3 swing seats in Mecklenburg and Wake all of which have trended very D except the northern wake one which is partially blunted by rural Granville.

Overall 22 Biden seats and 28 Trump seats which seems relatively reasonable and a lot of Clinton -Trump / Trump- Biden seats which shows the map is quite responsive.

Ye I think the Court is kind of overplaying it's hand a bit when it comes to the state legislative maps, though I think what the GOP did with the NE really gave the impression they drew the entire map with bad faith.

It important to remember the court isn't an expert on redistricting, so a lot of their opinion will be based on visual observations and stuff.

Makes me think the court will implement a D-leaning map which may give Dems a narrow path but still a path to control one of the chambers in 2022.

25 Biden seats + 1 Clinton-Trump Exurban Raleigh/Black belt seat and 1 Clinton Trump Robeson county seat.

61 biden seats + D friendly as possible Robeson seat. (Make All Wake/Meck/Buncombe seats Safe D which is a total of 29.)'

This is basically a Texas style gerrymander more or less. NC Dem geography isn't really that bad legislatively overall. As I showed a fair senate map is probably 22 Biden seats but getting to that half way mark does seem a bit hard. They could just overturn the county provision and institute their own gerrymander from there I guess which would be the smart thing to do if they were going down this route anyway.

Wow nice job. Even if the court is partisan I don’t think they’d go that far; “worst case” would prolly be a Marcy Kaptur 2.0 situation which would actually prolly work out better in NC given the state is closer, or an “accidental” unpacking of Dem maps.

I think unfortunately for Dems, 2022 is prolly the wrong year even with the right maps, and at least one of 2024 or 2026 will prolly be the right year with the wrong maps

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would be funny if somehow Democrats actually end up winning at least one if not both chambers of the GA assembly in 2022 under the new Court map. This is extremely unlikely, though certainly not impossible.

Democrats are extremely lucky though that the County Splitting rules for districts are in place because it curbs GOP gerrymandering at least a bit.

The bad news for Dems in NC is their self-packing problem will probably get worse. Yes, some 50-50 suburbs are likely to get bluer, but the fact is most rural D areas are depopulating and getting redder by the day.

My guess is Dems will control NC legislature when/if the blue bubbles of the cities actually become close to a majority of the population

If you kept the GOP map in the senate but fixed the NE district here are the swing districts.

1 Exurban/Black mix that is Clinton Trump. Trended R for 2020.
One NE black seat that is Biden +4 and trending R
One Trump +8 seat that voted for Clinton based in Robeson.
One Cabarrus seat that had a very strong D trend in 2020
3 swing seats in Mecklenburg and Wake all of which have trended very D except the northern wake one which is partially blunted by rural Granville.

Overall 22 Biden seats and 28 Trump seats which seems relatively reasonable and a lot of Clinton -Trump / Trump- Biden seats which shows the map is quite responsive.

Ye I think the Court is kind of overplaying it's hand a bit when it comes to the state legislative maps, though I think what the GOP did with the NE really gave the impression they drew the entire map with bad faith.

It important to remember the court isn't an expert on redistricting, so a lot of their opinion will be based on visual observations and stuff.

Makes me think the court will implement a D-leaning map which may give Dems a narrow path but still a path to control one of the chambers in 2022.

25 Biden seats + 1 Clinton-Trump Exurban Raleigh/Black belt seat and 1 Clinton Trump Robeson county seat.

61 biden seats + D friendly as possible Robeson seat. (Make All Wake/Meck/Buncombe seats Safe D which is a total of 29.)'

This is basically a Texas style gerrymander more or less. NC Dem geography isn't really that bad legislatively overall. As I showed a fair senate map is probably 22 Biden seats but getting to that half way mark does seem a bit hard. They could just overturn the county provision and institute their own gerrymander from there I guess which would be the smart thing to do if they were going down this route anyway.

Wow nice job. Even if the court is partisan I don’t think they’d go that far; “worst case” would prolly be a Marcy Kaptur 2.0 situation which would actually prolly work out better in NC given the state is closer, or an “accidental” unpacking of Dem maps.

I think unfortunately for Dems, 2022 is prolly the wrong year even with the right maps, and at least one of 2024 or 2026 will prolly be the right year with the wrong maps

State legislative maps in NC can’t be redrawn mid decade.

Oh then Dems have a viable shot at the legislature this decade prolly, we’ll see the maps though.

[ProgressiveModerate]

That district 9 is certainly unexpected... looks like a swingy district though

[ProgressiveModerate]

Looks like:

Safe D:

NC-02
NC-04
NC-06
NC-12

Likely D:

NC-01 (Trending R)

Lean R:

NC-08 (Trending D)
NC-14
NC-09

Likely R:

NC-11

Safe R:

NC-03
NC-05
NC-07
NC-10
NC-13

Looks fair overall, glad we could have this map for at least 2022.

[ProgressiveModerate]

8 seems incrediably close on 2020 Pres... 9 def went to Trump and 14 did as well.. Everything else seems pretty straightforwards

[ProgressiveModerate]

Looks like a map to maximize competitive districts, and uncrack Guilford/Forsyth.

If Republicans manage to win that NC-8 this year, it'll be a two year rental and nothing more.

Except they very likely to redraw post 2022 anyways. I think their goal here is to reduce Ds to 4.5 seats in 2022 (depending upon NC-01), and then redraw to reduce them to 4.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/DallasWoodhouse/status/1493786048278663169?cxt=HHwWgsCsoeOf_...

Yeah Woodhouse is highly skeptical of it being the map.

Ye, that 9th seems like something the Senate is unlikely to do; my guess is the Senate will draw something more akin to the 2020 map. This map I think will fail to pass muster with the court for a few of the reasons some have mentioned (leaving black parts of Greensboro out of the 6th, the 9th district, if that 8th really is a Trump district 9-5 is probably a bit too GOP friendly), but it is better.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Butterfield's seat here is extremely unoptimized. I have no idea why there are so many rural white counties in there when they could just scoop out Goldsboro and Kinston instead. (I mean, I know it's to make it "competitive", but shouldn't ensuring minority representation be more important?)

https://twitter.com/LWVofWake/status/1452724877362929670

Basically seems what a black Democrat drew.

Overall CBK 5 is a pretty fair map; something like CST-6 is where it goes too far and there's a clear Dem bias of unpacking Durham.

I personally prefer the Charlotte district to be higher VAP and more centralized rather than putting like 100k worth of heavily AA precincts into 9 to make it more competative.

[ProgressiveModerate]

God the Sebate proposed House map is just weird. They seem to really want Chapel Hill in an R district

[ProgressiveModerate]

The court def isn’t accepting that Senate map (house map could fly but probably won’t). I think we’re heading towards special master