2020 New York Redistricting

[ProgressiveModerate]

Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.








2020 Pres vote by seat:

NY-01: Biden + 11.2
NY-02: Trump + 11.8
NY-03: Biden + 15.1
NY-04: Biden + 15.2
NY-05: Biden + 53.8
NY-06: Biden + 28.3
NY-07: Biden + 56.3
NY-08: Biden + 71.2
NY-09: Biden + 41.3
NY-10: Biden + 38.9
NY-11: Biden + 16.3
NY-12: Biden + 71.1
NY-13: Biden + 78.2
NY-14: Biden + 57.8
NY-15: Biden + 67.4
NY-16: Biden + 26.3
NY-17: Biden + 19.9
NY-18: Biden + 10.2
NY-19: Biden + 11.6
NY-20: Biden + 17.3
NY-21: Trump + 17.2
NY-22: Biden + 11.3
NY-23: Trump + 18.1
NY-24: Trump + 20.4
NY-25: Biden + 20.6
NY-26: Biden + 24.4

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

[ProgressiveModerate]

So what do you guys think of the conspiracy theory suggested by some people on Twitter that Latimer’s allies on the commission might vote for a Republican map as long as it helps Latimer? Personally I don’t think it’s likely in the slightest (which is why I call it a conspiracy theory).

Doubt that happens but if it does, NY Dems truly deserve to be bitten by a giant capybara.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.

SNIP

2020 Pres vote by seat:

NY-01: Biden + 11.2
NY-02: Trump + 11.8
NY-03: Biden + 15.1
NY-04: Biden + 15.2
NY-05: Biden + 53.8
NY-06: Biden + 28.3
NY-07: Biden + 56.3
NY-08: Biden + 71.2
NY-09: Biden + 41.3
NY-10: Biden + 38.9
NY-11: Biden + 16.3
NY-12: Biden + 71.1
NY-13: Biden + 78.2
NY-14: Biden + 57.8
NY-15: Biden + 67.4
NY-16: Biden + 26.3
NY-17: Biden + 19.9
NY-18: Biden + 10.2
NY-19: Biden + 11.6
NY-20: Biden + 17.3
NY-21: Trump + 17.2
NY-22: Biden + 11.3
NY-23: Trump + 18.1
NY-24: Trump + 20.4
NY-25: Biden + 20.6
NY-26: Biden + 24.4

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

Snip

Good map; like how you used neighborhood boundaries unlike me who just combined things based on vibes and my knowledge of the city. Also like how you take into greater account some of the intra-party politics that could affect a gerrymander.

Overall, our maps are remarkably simillar in how they generally work to achieve the gerrymander. There are def a few main differences though:

Your map makes a greater effort to shore up NY-03 and NY-04, at the slightly expense of compactness and NY-01. I think people are a bit too overreactive to the 2022 results we saw on Long Island, which were in large part due to local politics and the imbalance between how seriously Ds and Rs took these races. In the long run, NY-03 and NY-04 should be places Dems could lock down with a solid incumbent - especially NY-03 which I think has a lot of underrated upside for Dems with many college-educated suburbs that have gotten bluer since Obama. NY-04 long term I think could shift left, but I wanted to keep the district nested in Hempstead and it's basically impossible to get anything much bluer than Biden + 16 entirely within Hempstead township. Also, I think people shouldn't write off a Biden + 10 NY-01. LaLota won by "only" 11 in 2022 in the current Biden + 0 seat, and many of the educated communities NY-01 takes in have had really solid shifts for Dems, particularly the Hamptons.

In the Central Valley, your config is def a bit more realistic because of the reality of NY politics, the the NY-19 is a bit more of a snake than it has to be, especially since it honestly doesn't get much bluer.

Upstate, I prolly should've kept NY-23 and NY-24 more like their current config, even though i think NY-23 is a bit weird looking.

Overall very good job

[ProgressiveModerate]

Shared this in the other thread but thought it was worth posting here; Hochul did so bad it's possible to draw 5 Zeldin districts entirely within NYC.

Honestly, the lesson from this is that across cycles in NYC, turnout across different communities can have huge variations which is why this is possible. When redrawing seats in NYC, Dems should be careful that even if a seat seems safe at face value (i.e. Biden + 30), there isn't a way that midterm turnout that has disproportionate turnout from an R-leaning enclave can overwhelm poor Dem turnout in the rest of the district.

I would argue NYC by far sees the most extreme geopolitical sorting amongst a diverse set of groups in the Country, which is why the dynamic only really applies here. Additionally, many of these enclaves have very specific and unique voting habits (i.e. some Orthodox Jewish areas block-voting).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.








2020 Pres vote by seat:

NY-01: Biden + 11.2
NY-02: Trump + 11.8
NY-03: Biden + 15.1
NY-04: Biden + 15.2
NY-05: Biden + 53.8
NY-06: Biden + 28.3
NY-07: Biden + 56.3
NY-08: Biden + 71.2
NY-09: Biden + 41.3
NY-10: Biden + 38.9
NY-11: Biden + 16.3
NY-12: Biden + 71.1
NY-13: Biden + 78.2
NY-14: Biden + 57.8
NY-15: Biden + 67.4
NY-16: Biden + 26.3
NY-17: Biden + 19.9
NY-18: Biden + 10.2
NY-19: Biden + 11.6
NY-20: Biden + 17.3
NY-21: Trump + 17.2
NY-22: Biden + 11.3
NY-23: Trump + 18.1
NY-24: Trump + 20.4
NY-25: Biden + 20.6
NY-26: Biden + 24.4

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

That is brutally effective and probably the most aesthetically-pleasing gerrymander I've seen to date. Well done. My only quibble is that you can probably make NY-01 a little bluer and NY-02 a little redder. And, as you mentioned, NY-22 could be made a few points bluer, but I don't know how necessary that is. Williams seems far from a Katko. You could probably shore up NY-19 a bit by splitting Albany and forcing NY-20 to go more north.

Ye thank you for your feedback! My map was generally meant to be a gerrymander that still generally tries to be compact and Acknowledge city boundaries and communities of interests. One can make NY-01 a bit bluer, but doing so would force the arm connecting the Hamptons to Islip and Huntingdon to become ever skinnier, which would start to look too absurd for my preferences. I also generally tried to make NY-01 better long for Dems by putting some more educated precincts into the district, even if those precincts aren't as blue. That's why I made less of an effort to take in all the blue parts of Islip for instance - generally low turnout and low college attainment.

Also, it's actually pretty hard to make NY-22 much bluer in this config because NY-19 already takes in Ithaca. If I sent NY-20 north allowing NY-19 to take in some of Albany, it could shed Ithaca and give it to NY-22, making NY-22 practically Safe D, but honestly that just puts NY-20 too much at risk for my liking; in this map it's "only" Biden + 17 so giving away too much of Albany could def make it vulnerable.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Gerrymander that sort of works off the current Court drawn map. Central Valley can prolly be cleaned up a bit. Generally a gerrymander that tries to be sneaky, but a few districts like NY-01, NY-02, and NY-16 are pretty obvious. In NYC, NY-10 is drawn as a new 32% Asian opportunity seat. Realistically though, this map likely makes several incumbents upset so doubt it'll happen.

Every swing seat gets bluer to some extent, with all D seats being over Biden + 10.

One thing that would be worth considering is conceding a fourth upstate seat in return for making all of the others ironclad safe. Here, the closest Democratic district would be the 18th at Biden+20.4. Is it worth conceding a seat in return for making the others fully safe even in bad midterms/Katko-like performances? I'm not sure, but it's worth considering.

Def an interesting idea, and one that may be more appealing post-2022.

However, in my view it's still not worth it to fully concede a 4th R seat because at that point, your upstate D seat becoming D packs in themselves while it locks in 4 upstate R seats, which wouldn't even be the case in a normal court-drawn map. Especially since the court-drawn map only had 3 Trump seats upstate, and upstate NY isn't a place where Rs regularly have consistent big overperformances, I think this is unlikely.

I could see Ds doing something in between though, where they keep say NY-19 as a competitive seat in exchange for making all the other Biden seats safe.

I could see an argument for something in between

[ProgressiveModerate]

Isn't there historical precedence for a Staten Island-Manhattan district? It seems like it might be easy to uphold if the other NYC districts are kept tidy.

I have to say I'm struck by how weak Schumer's performance was in Long Island. There has to be some serious temptation to cede two R districts in Long Island. I imagine a lot will depend on how the NY-03 special turns out.

Regardless, the Staten Island Ferry has 50k+ daily riders on a good weekday, which imo should be treated the same as any sort of highway or road link, so I think there's a pretty easy argument it's a contiguous district, the same way connecting to South Brooklyn is fine.

[ProgressiveModerate]

In depth analysis:

I calc'ed the major 2022 races for this map using the data painstakingly researched then generously provided by Ben. They are as follows:

Statewilde: 53.2% Hochul - 46.8% Zeldin (Hochul+6.4), 56.8% Schumer - 42.8% Pinion (Schumer+14)




NY-01: 46.1% Hochul - 53.8% Zeldin (Zeldin+7.7), 48.5% Schumer - 51.1% Pinion (Pinion+2.6)

NY-02: 33.3% Hochul - 66.7% Zeldin (Zeldin+33.4), 36% Schumer - 63.7% Pinion (Pinion+27.7)

NY-03: 48.5% Hochul - 51.4% Zeldin (Zeldin+2.9), 52% Schumer - 47.6% Pinion (Schumer+4.3)

NY-04: 50.1% Hochul - 49.8% Zeldin (Hochul+0.3), 53.4% Schumer - 46.3% Pinion (Schumer+7)

NY-05: 65.1% Hochul - 34.8% Zeldin (Hochul+30.3), 68.6% Schumer - 31% Pinion (Schumer+37.6)

NY-06: 58% Hochul - 41.8% Zeldin (Hochul+16.1), 63.3% Schumer - 36% Pinion (Schumer+27.3)

NY-07: 74% Hochul - 25.8% Zeldin (Hochul+48.2), 79.6% Schumer - 19.6% Pinion (Schumer+60)

NY-08: 72% Hochul - 27.9% Zeldin (Hochul+44.1), 75.4% Schumer - 24.1% Pinion (Schumer+51.3)

NY-09: 67% Hochul - 32.8% Zeldin (Hochul+34.2), 71.3% Schumer - 28% Pinion (Schumer+49.7)

NY-10: 52.1% Hochul - 47.7% Zeldin (Hochul+4.4), 55.2% Schumer - 44.3% Pinion (Schumer+10.9)

NY-11: 67.4% Hochul - 32.4% Zeldin (Hochul+35), 71.3% Schumer - 28% Pinion (Schumer+43.3)

NY-12: 80.3% Hochul - 19.5% Zeldin (Hochul+60.8 ), 83.3% Schumer - 16.2% Pinion (Schumer+67.2)

NY-13: 86.4% Hochul - 13.4% Zeldin (Hochul+73), 88.8% Schumer - 10.6% Pinion (Schumer+78.2)

NY-14: 77.8% Hochul - 22% Zeldin (Hochul+55.8 ), 80.8% Schumer - 18.5% Pinion (Schumer+62.2)

NY-15: 73.2% Hochul - 26.7% Zeldin (Hochul+46.4), 76.4% Schumer - 23% Pinion (Schumer+53.4)

NY-16: 54.5% Hochul - 45.3% Zeldin (Hochul+9.2), 60.1% Schumer - 39.5% Pinion (Schumer+20.5)

NY-17: 56.4% Hochul - 43.5% Zeldin (Hochul+12.9), 58.9% Schumer - 40.8% Pinion (Schumer+18.1)

NY-18: 49.7% Hochul - 50.2% Zeldin (Zeldin+0.5), 52.2% Schumer - 47.2% Pinion (Schumer+5)

NY-19: 47.7% Hochul - 52.1% Zeldin (Zeldin+4.4), 50.9% Schumer - 48.5% Pinion (Schumer+2.4)

NY-20: 51.9% Hochul - 47.9% Zeldin (Hochul+4), 55.2% Schumer - 44.2% Pinion (Schumer+11)

NY-21: 33% Hochul - 66.8% Zeldin (Zeldin+33.8 ), 38.5% Schumer - 60.9% Pinion (Pinion+22.4)

NY-22: 49.2% Hochul - 50.6% Zeldin (Zeldin+1.4), 54.2% Schumer - 45.2% Pinion (Schumer+9)

NY-23: 34.8% Hochul - 65% Zeldin (Zeldin+30.3), 38.1% Schumer - 61.4% Pinion (Pinion+23.3)

NY-24: 30.8% Hochul - 69.1% Zeldin (Zeldin+38.3), 35.4% Schumer - 64.1% Pinion (Pinion+28.7)

NY-25: 54.3% Hochul - 45.5% Zeldin (Hochul+8.8 ), 57.2% Schumer - 42.2% Pinion (Schumer+15.1)

NY-26: 58.6% Hochul - 41.2% Zeldin (Hochul+17.3), 61.4% Schumer - 38% Pinion (Schumer+23.4)

So there's a few takeaway's from this analysis:

1) It isn't here, but examining the data reveals just how bad minority turnout was, compared to it's usual baselines, when matched against White precincts of any sort. NY-16 and NY-17 kinda show that above, since they are both drawn with comparable 2020 results. But the poor turnout among the nonwhite half of the electorate in NY-16 means it has a worse Gov Dem result than NY-17, something that flips in the Senate race. And that's of course cause poor minority turnout gives the Hasidic enclaves an oversized weight to their swingy behavior.

2) The Gov race is so close that it's basically impossible to get Hochul to win the marginal seats that are presently GOP-held, at least without tentacles that I tried to avoid in this map. However, even a decent Dem-leaning plan should see them all snap into line with a result not much better than hers. Schumer's is still an underperformance from historical averages and he wins everything except NY-01 where Zeldin gave every Republican a home-region boost. So for the guy who was a few weeks ago saying Dems should concede seats so they could win districts under an expected Schumer-style result, that seems to not be needed.

3) Staten-Manhattan in NY-10 just keeps looking better. I estimated earlier the result was around 5% for Hochul, and that seems to be the case. Reminder, the 2020 result here is only Biden+18, less than in NY-04 and somewhat comparable to NY-03 and NY-20. But it hold's up better than all of them under the Hochul stress test. Manhattan Liberal Whites remain some of the most inflexible voters in the state - perhaps the nation - both in terms of turnout and partisanship.

Nice job calculating these - at first I thought these were the results under the current lines and was really confused lol.

I think one underrated good feature of your map is that Hochul still won NY-06 by 16%, meaning it should probably be fine in the long run if even if Asians drift right. On the current map, I believe NY-06 was only a single-digit Hochul win. Well thing probably has basically any config of NY-06 locked down, if she had a scandal or retired and NY-Rs ran someone locally popular with the Asian and Jewish communities, def a seat that could be in danger for Dems.

Long Island is tricky because it's hard to tell where it's going in the long run; to what extent was 2022 just a factor of poor Dem turnout, local GOP advantage, and local politics vs indicative of a larger national trend? I would still advise against Dems ceding 2 R sinks because it's still pretty tricky to do, though I understand making NY-01 a bit of an iffier D seat in exchange for shoring up NY-03 and NY-04. Have the R sink take in as many Italian and Jewish areas as possible, since these seem to be the main parts of Long Island that are R-leaning and shifting further right.

I agree connecting Staten Island to Lower Manhattan is clearly the superior option for a Dem gerrymander (incumbent demands aside). As you state, liberal Manhattan whites are both extremely D and extremely high turnout, but I would also add are very wealthy - any D in the seat would likely be fine when it comes to fundraising and be able to hold down the seat long term. While Park Slope/Gowanus has some liberal whites, they aren't as consistently high turnout and are also just not as wealthy.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly really proud of this in hindsight:

Notably I've seen an increase in both pro-Hochul and anti-Zeldin ads on youtube lately. Seems like she sort of fell asleep at the wheel and only now are Dems taking this race seriously. Most of the ads are pretty generic, and discuss abortion or try and tie Zeldin to Trump/extreme Rs. Given that NY as a whole is pretty blue, that's not necessarily a bad strategy.

I do think Hochul will lose most of the swing congressional seats so we'll see how that bodes for down ballot Ds. I could def see Zeldin winning 11 or even 12 of NY's 26 congressional districts, but the NYC districts still vote lopsided in Hochul's favor.

On the governor level these would be my guesses:

Safe Zeldin: NY-01, NY-02, NY-011, NY-21, NY-23, NY-24
Likely Zeldin: NY-03
Lean Zeldin: NY-17, NY-18, NY-19, NY-22
Tossup: NY-04
Lean Hochul: NY-20, NY-25
Likely Hochul: NY-06, NY-26
Safe Hochul: All the NYC districts.

I suspect basically all downballot House Ds will outperform Hochul to some degree but she doesn't help their case.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Is the commission pledging not to change the old court map?

Objectively, the existing map is pretty good. I can see why they’d want to keep it similar to what it is rather than letting the legislature draw a disgusting gerrymander.

Also one could see it as a win-win for both sides.

In all honesty, the Court drawn map was still decently good for Dems, with things like NY-19 stretching to take in Ithaca, NY-24 sort of working as a lite R-pack, and no swingy/R-leaning south Brooklyn seat. Very few expected a court drawn map to only have 5 Trump seats (most expected ~7). On 2020 Pres numbers, 20 of the 26 seats were to the left of the nation. Dems just really dropped the ball in a lot of these races in 2022, and tbh they still came close to winning seats like NY-17, NY-19, and NY-22.

The map is good for Republicans in the sense it gives them reasonable chances at a bunch of seats they wouldn't have a shot at in a D gerrymander.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Was thinking of the matter of the hypothetical Brooklyn Asian district and I wondered, why not a Queens-Nassau Asian district too? In this map, both the 4th and the 6th would be over 40% Asian. 1st is Biden+10 and 3rd is Biden+19.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a3dca293-e5fc-4fce-ab53-aaf34678fdd4

Asians form over 10% of the population of New York so proportionally one would have expected there to be three Asian-access districts.

9 might have too many liberal whites to be black functioning.

What’s the partisanship of 10? - looks like it could be a bit iffy for Dems, but not a bad district in terms of COI

Splitting Hempstead township 4 ways just feels wrong.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I don’t believe that article. It’s describing a complete surrender to Republicans.

I mean yeah I could see Malliotakis or even LaLota get off easy, but they have pretty much zero incentive to spare Molinaro.

Yeah, it's really hard to draw a Trump district in that part of the central valley anyways; you'd be going very far out of your way to make either of NY-17 or NY-18 Safe D.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I don’t believe that article. It’s describing a complete surrender to Republicans.

I mean yeah I could see Malliotakis or even LaLota get off easy, but they have pretty much zero incentive to spare Molinaro.

Yeah, it's really hard to draw a Trump district in that part of the central valley anyways; you'd be going very far out of your way to make either of NY-17 or NY-18 Safe D.

I don't think Molinaro would have a Trump district under this proposal. He probably gets something like Biden +2 compared to his current Biden +5.

Oh wait sorry I got Molinaro and Lawler mixed up

- Yeah there's no real incentive to make Molinaro a more favorable district especially since you can't really use his district to make Stefanik's district competitive and NY-22 can get bluer without Ithaca, but I'd argue the current config of NY-19 is pretty good for Dems as is.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I don’t believe that article. It’s describing a complete surrender to Republicans.

I mean yeah I could see Malliotakis or even LaLota get off easy, but they have pretty much zero incentive to spare Molinaro.

Malliotakis is DOA in any legislature's map lmao

^ This, this is a constant meme but the reality is that Staten Island can be put in a very blue seat with zero tradeoffs, plus Malliotakis isn't even that bipartisan, plus the CoA practically begged the Dems to axe her, specifically. If anyone gets spared it'll be, like, maybe Lawler or something. Even with LaLota Long Island geography is weird enough that two R sinks aren't much better than one.

I really wish if NY Dems go with a gerrymander, they'd just attach Staten Island to Lower Manhattan. Makes Brooklyn much cleaner, lower Manhattan Dems are generally high turnout outside some parts of the Lower East Side, and Lower Manhattan has a ton of money so even if a Dem was in a competative race they'd get all the money they need.

I'd also argue that Staten Island - Lower Manhattan is a more coherent district in terms of communities than one that sneaks up 4th Avenue into Park Slope.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly the thing that would make me the angriest would just be a map that goes to an extreme to prioritize individual politicians interests over a larger goal. I thought NY Dems original map was disgusting not just because it was a partisan gerrymander, but because it made really wacky decisions just to appeal to legacy politicians already in safe D seats that were unnecessary if the goal was just a gerrymander.

Any sort of politician protection map, be it a Dem gerrymander or a bipartisan gerrymander will be disgusting so really keeping my fingers crossed it's either a least change neutral map or a FL-style gerrymander where at least communities are generally respected and lines are clean.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Disgusting map. Classic NY Dems protecting incumbents over creating a maps that are good fair maps or an effective gerrymander.

It's this sort of stuff that makes me really frustrated with NY Dems - politicians serving themselves takes front seat to actually serving constituents and doing things good for the people of the state

[ProgressiveModerate]

Screw NY Dems if they pass this.

All they did is make the map uglier to appease incumbents, barely changing partisanship of districts.

If you’re not going to gerrymander, just leave the current map in place jeez.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is probably the thing that angers me most not just about NY Dems but the Dem party nationally. So often Dems seem to care more about entrenching their own leadership and politicans than good policies or being team players.

Another good example was the 2022 midterms, where I made a thread discussing how I was angry that Dems were sinking so much money into certain seats that didn't need it just because they had a D incumbent, and barely invested in seats like NM-02, NY-22, AZ-01, and AZ-06 which were all winnable but lacked Dem incumbents. In the end, I was right and Democrats lost the House largely because they mostly focused on just incumbents.

It's sort of ironic that the party who relies on younger voters has an older caucus in congress, with a disproportionate share of the longest serving members.

Obviously I'm still a loyal Dem voter, but I can definitely understand the optics of why many dislike the Dem party and don't vote.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I’d be happy with this had the R states been fair but they never are - so this is a disgusting move that makes it easier for the fascist party to gain power

That's not really true. Don't get me wrong Republicans do aggressively gerrymander most of the time but they did leave some seats on the table this last cycle. Texas is an egregious gerrymander but Republicans could have drawn a couple more Republican leaning seats in it if they didn't draw every incumbent an ultra safe seat. Republicans could also have been more aggressive in Indiana, Missouri, and possibly Kentucky if they wanted.

Seats left on the Rs left on the table:

NH-02 (though in hindsight Dems might've still won it in 2022 anyways since it'd be like Trump +2 at most)

IN-01

MO-05

KY-03

KS-03 (tbf they tried and it's probably best they didn't try for a true 4-0)

NE-02

TX-29 though getting rid of it may have been too risky for VRA

GA-02 but again too risky with VRA

OH-01, OH-09, and OH-13. Tbf Rs drew the map with the thought they'd win these seats in 2022.

In an indirect way MD-06; Hogan could've tried to push for a map that created a R-leaning config of the seat.

Most of the seats Ds left on the table were from having toxic commission members in places like CO and AZ or just playhing redistricting bad like MD and NY where they passed overly weird maps.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I’d be happy with this had the R states been fair but they never are - so this is a disgusting move that makes it easier for the fascist party to gain power

That's not really true. Don't get me wrong Republicans do aggressively gerrymander most of the time but they did leave some seats on the table this last cycle. Texas is an egregious gerrymander but Republicans could have drawn a couple more Republican leaning seats in it if they didn't draw every incumbent an ultra safe seat. Republicans could also have been more aggressive in Indiana, Missouri, and possibly Kentucky if they wanted.

Seats left on the Rs left on the table:

NH-02 (though in hindsight Dems might've still won it in 2022 anyways since it'd be like Trump +2 at most)

IN-01

MO-05

KY-03

KS-03 (tbf they tried and it's probably best they didn't try for a true 4-0)

NE-02

TX-29 though getting rid of it may have been too risky for VRA

GA-02 but again too risky with VRA

OH-01, OH-09, and OH-13. Tbf Rs drew the map with the thought they'd win these seats in 2022.

In an indirect way MD-06; Hogan could've tried to push for a map that created a R-leaning config of the seat.

Most of the seats Ds left on the table were from having toxic commission members in places like CO and AZ or just playhing redistricting bad like MD and NY where they passed overly weird maps.

They also sort of left NC-01 on the table, rather than turning it into another safe pickup like 6/13/14 it’s just a battleground.

Other seats D’s left on the table include:
-CO-03
-NJ-07
-NJ-02
-OR-05
-VA-02

Tbf they genuinely tried with OR-05, it's just 2022 sucked.

I don't think there was ever much they could do with VA-02 because of the commission unless you want to argue they should've never allowed the commission to exist in the first place, in which case they cou;d've gone like 9-2.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I have decided I will not be voting for any Dems at the State Level in NY in 2024 unless individual candidates show they have the balls to stand up to nepotism and power structure that plagues the state party. There are quite a few people I will be working to primary out.

This is not specific to the maps - the maps are a culmination of disappointments from NY Dems from complete failure to address the issue of housing to wasting tend of millions of dollars on basic infrastructure projects. My money feels like it's going into a sinkhole with no accountability, and too many politicians in the state care more about political posturing and nepotism than making my quality of life better.

Still voting for Biden and federal Dems ofc.

[ProgressiveModerate]

One funfact I'm pretty surprised by is Schumer 2022 still carried the new NY-19 by nearly 1%.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just spoke to someone who was in the loop about how and why the maps were drawn; friend of the main map-drawer and engaged in the legal world that surrounds it. Here were my takeaways:

1. Democrats were frankly scared, but also acknowledged the Cervas court map all in all was pretty good for them compared to most other "neutral" possibilities. Democrats knew if they drew a map which the court overturned again, chances are they would end up with a worse map than what they started with. While it is true the current court makeup is more favorable to Democrats than before, it still wasn't enough for them to feel confident.

2. Even in the dreadful NY environment of 2022, they didn't lose seats like NY-17, NY-19, and NY-22 by much, and generally feel good about the longer term trajectories in the Hudson Valley. They didn't feel particular reason to make an effort to shore up seats like NY-17 and NY-19 for this reason; they see them as very winnable in their current configs, and expect them to possibly get bluer. The person didn't say this, but I will add the court map basically made NY-17, 18, and 19 all as blue as possible before starting to do blatant gerrymandering like cracking southern Westchester County between NY-16 and NY-17 or having NY-19 taking in parts of Albany.

3. Democrats feel more pessimistic about their longer term trajectories in Long Island. Even though NY-01 went from a narrow Biden seat to Trump seat on the new map, Democrats think NY-03 is more vulnerable for Dems than NY-01 is for Rs, meaning making NY-03 bluer at the expense of NY-01 was worth it. After that, it's pretty hard to make either one of NY-01 or NY-02 actually D-leaning without doing something that would be a liability in court. Also making NY-01 redder was a bone they were willing to throw to Rs to reduce the chances of a challenge suit.

4. Dems largely didn't touch NYC out of the fear that any change could bring up some sort of VRA suit; this is likely part of the reason NY-11 wasn't touched (touching NY-11 also risks another Republican-backed suit).

Person also admitted around the margins incumbents desires were "considered".

Overall, the person I was chatting with was quite progressive and seemed to share some of my frustrations, but came at it more through the lens of "Republicans put us in this place" than blaming Democrats for being cowardly

TLDR: Democrats did the maximum they felt they could do before risking another court challenge that could potentially end them up in a worse place than where they started.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just spoke to someone who was in the loop about how and why the maps were drawn; friend of the main map-drawer and engaged in the legal world that surrounds it. Here were my takeaways:

1. Democrats were frankly scared, but also acknowledged the Cervas court map all in all was pretty good for them compared to most other "neutral" possibilities. Democrats knew if they drew a map which the court overturned again, chances are they would end up with a worse map than what they started with. While it is true the current court makeup is more favorable to Democrats than before, it still wasn't enough for them to feel confident.

2. Even in the dreadful NY environment of 2022, they didn't lose seats like NY-17, NY-19, and NY-22 by much, and generally feel good about the longer term trajectories in the Hudson Valley. They didn't feel particular reason to make an effort to shore up seats like NY-17 and NY-19 for this reason; they see them as very winnable in their current configs, and expect them to possibly get bluer. The person didn't say this, but I will add the court map basically made NY-17, 18, and 19 all as blue as possible before starting to do blatant gerrymandering like cracking southern Westchester County between NY-16 and NY-17 or having NY-19 taking in parts of Albany.

3. Democrats feel more pessimistic about their longer term trajectories in Long Island. Even though NY-01 went from a narrow Biden seat to Trump seat on the new map, Democrats think NY-03 is more vulnerable for Dems than NY-01 is for Rs, meaning making NY-03 bluer at the expense of NY-01 was worth it. After that, it's pretty hard to make either one of NY-01 or NY-02 actually D-leaning without doing something that would be a liability in court. Also making NY-01 redder was a bone they were willing to throw to Rs to reduce the chances of a challenge suit.

4. Dems largely didn't touch NYC out of the fear that any change could bring up some sort of VRA suit; this is likely part of the reason NY-11 wasn't touched (touching NY-11 also risks another Republican-backed suit).

Person also admitted around the margins incumbents desires were "considered".

Overall, the person I was chatting with was quite progressive and seemed to share some of my frustrations, but came at it more through the lens of "Republicans put us in this place" than blaming Democrats for being cowardly

TLDR: Democrats did the maximum they felt they could do before risking another court challenge that could potentially end them up in a worse place than where they started.

These are awkward excuses,the Court wouldn't throw out the map.
It's a 4-3 hack Court.

Most thought the original court would choose not to strike down and redraw the maps with a special master - Dems are probably still scarred from that. It also wasn't like in the original opinion all 3 liberal dissents were hard; justice Troutman agreed with the fact the map was illegal but just thought the remedy should be different (the legistlature should get a chance to redraw)