2020 Texas Redistricting thread

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I tried my hand at a fair 38-district map of Texas.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is 0.05%, and it reflects 2015 - 2019 ACS Data.
It scores 98/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index and 79/100 on the Minority Representation index.

The map above shows results from the 2016 United States Presidential election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2014 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 28R to 10D

2014 Texas Gubernatorial Election: 25R to 13D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Colorado: 20R to 18D


Opinions?

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I tried my hand at a second fair 38-district map of Texas.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%, and it reflects 2015 - 2019 ACS Data.

100/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
77/100 on the Compactness Index
51/100 on County Splitting
80/100 on the Minority Representation index
20/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2014 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 28R to 10D

2014 Texas Gubernatorial Election: 27R to 11D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Texas: 21R to 17D

2018 Texas Attorney General Election: 21R to 17D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 21R to 17D

2018 Texas Gubernatorial Election: 25R to 13D

2018 Texas Lieutenant Governor Election: 21R to 17D

2020 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 22R to 16D

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Texas: 21R to 17D


Opinions?

[_.]

I tried my hand at a fair congressional map of Texas using the 2020 census results.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%.

100/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
77/100 on the Compactness Index
51/100 on County Splitting
80/100 on the Minority Representation index
20/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2014 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 30R to 8D

2014 Texas Gubernatorial Election: 28R to 10D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Texas: 20R to 18D

2018 Texas Attorney General Election: 21D to 17R

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 21D to 17R

2018 Texas Gubernatorial Election: 26R to 12D

2018 Texas Lieutenant Governor Election: 20R to 18D

2020 U.S. Senate Election in Texas: 21R to 17D

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Texas: 19R to 19D


Texas's geography is crazy good for Democrats actually.

My map has nine majority-Hispanic districts (all five touching the Mexican border, the two in San Antonio, and two in the Houston metro area) in terms of their voting-age population. Then there are five more seats which are over 40% Hispanic (voting-age population).

It doesn't have a single majority-Black seat, but there are two opportunity seats (30% or more) in the Houston metro and there's a 40% Black seat in Dallas. Truth be told Texas doesn't have a lot of Black people.

There are also two seats that are over 20% Asian. One is centered around the Plano-Frisco conurbation in the Southern parts of Collin and Denton Counties, and the other is based in Fort Bend County.


Opinions?

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I'm thinking what's realistic is:

4 seats in DFW
4 seats in Houston
2 seats in Austin
2 seats in San Antonio
1 seat in McAllen
1 seat in El Paso

Maybe take one or two seats out of this by using strings between cities (but also a possibility that they give another seat to DFW or Houston). So overall a 15D - 23R to 12D - 26R range looks likely

But this would be


The thing is that population growth, diversification, and bluing are happening very quickly in Collin, Denton, Tarrant, Harris, and Fort Bend Counties as well as the surrounding areas.

Population growth alone could take a district that may be R+25 today and turn it Democratic by the end of the decade, especially if it's done in the wrong place (*cough* Frisco *cough* Plano *cough*)

I think Republicans will be mindful of this.

If they aren't though, then it will be a feast for the Democratic Party sometime down the road that Republicans will regret.

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Wow, it's insane how large Texas Senate seats are. Each represents nearly a Million people!

Are there plans to expand it?

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https://twitter.com/zach_solomon1/status/1442507576512552968
Direct DRA link

Thanks for the link man

There are some very interesting things in this map, such as them going all-in on the RGV.
Looks like Texas Republicans have decided (in terms of trends) that they're gonna go all or nothing.

Also, the Austin-San Antonio link is very interesting, no doubt used to prevent a third D seat from popping up in the Austin metro. Another smart move is that they connected one of the soft R seats surrounding the link with the RGV. Once again, all or nothing it looks like.

Houston, while being a gerrymander looks OK, trend-resistant, and isn't all that bad.

DFW is surprising. One of the most D-Trending areas of the country, a metropolis larger and bluer than Houston, and they think they can manage three D seats only? Four seats would've been safer. When considering the tremendous population growth in the counties of Denton, Collin, Tarrant, and Rockwall, the population loss in the uber-Republican rural areas, and the rate at which the suburbs are diversifying and trending away from the Republicans, it seems a realistic possibility that we witness this backfire spectacularly by the end of the decade. TX-3, TX-12, TX-24, and TX-26 all look particularly vulnerable.

Here are the comparisons with previous years for the four districts in question:

TX-3 (Collin County)

2014 Governor: R+41.0 (29.5% D, 70.5% R)
2016 Presidential: R+26.7 (33.6% D, 60.3% R)
2018 Senate: R+16.0 (41.8% D, 57.8% R)
2020 Presidential: R+15.0 (41.6% D, 6.6% R)

TX-12 (West Tarrant County + Parker County)

2014 Governor: R+28.6 (35.7% D, 64.3% R)
2016 Presidential: R+25.2 (34.8% D, 60.0% R)
2018 Senate: R+16.1 (41.5% D, 57.6% R)
2020 Presidential: R+17.9 (40.2% D, 58.1% R)

TX-24 (North Tarrant County + North Dallas County)

2014 Governor: R+38.2 (30.9% D, 69.1% R)
2016 Presidential: R+23.9 (35.4% D, 59.3% R)
2018 Senate: R+14.5 (42.3% D, 56.8% R)
2020 Presidential: R+12.2 (43.1% D, 55.3% R)

TX-26 (Denton County)

2014 Governor: R+43.8 (28.1% D, 71.9% R)
2016 Presidential: R+30.8 (32.0% D, 62.8% R)
2018 Senate: R+20.2 (39.5% D, 59.7% R)
2020 Presidential: R+18.7 (39.9% D, 58.6% R)

Perhaps this quasi-dummymander is worth it as the trends may not come into play for many more years, but when they do, they'll hit hard as much of it is demographic change. It's just a matter of when.


Finally, the lack of population deviation in the map is admirable.