JALA's horrifyingly blatant GA Gerrymander

[Skill and Chance]

With Brian Kemp's dubious victory over Stacey Abrams, it seems very likely that the Georgia GOP will maintain full control over redistricting. Given their aversion to clean maps and fair elections, they'll probably try to gerrymander the Congressional districts. Many people have proposed a fairly clean 10-4 gerrymander. This isn't a 10-4 map, however. It's an 11-3 map. Now, that might raise worries of a dummymander. This isn't a dummymander. Owing to some horrifying baconmanders, every district is very strongly partisan and has a weak trend, meaning it is virtually impossible for any district to flip. Worst comes to worst, the 8th could flip, but that seems unlikely, and even if that happens, the Democratic party gets 4 seats, which is still much worse than they would get on a fair map under those conditions. So, without further ado, the map.



Think the districts are horrifying? They are. I'm going to talk about each one, so you can get a sense of how safe and how gerrymandered they are. As an aside, I'm projecting 2030 PVI by using trends from 2008 to 2016 PVI.

Georgia's 1st Congressional district



Race: 62.4% White, 27.0% Black, 10.6% Other
Obama-Mccain: 39.9-59.6
PVI: R+13.27
Expected 2030 PVI: R+12.84
RATING: SAFE R

Broadly similar to the current district, a heavily GOP district located in the Southeast. Buddy Carter is barely within this district.

Georgia's 2nd Congressional District



Race: 61.2% White, 30.7% Black, 8.1% Other
Obama-Mccain: 40.9-58.4
PVI: R+12.06
Expected 2030 PVI: R+11.41
RATING: SAFE R
Sanford Bishop's district gets carved up to hell, while the new district takes in chunks of land from 6 different districts. He lives in either the 3rd or the 10th now, but he'd lose regardless.

Georgia's 3rd Congressional District


Race: 61.6% White, 30.4% Black, 8.0% Other
Obama-Mccain: 42.1-57.2
PVI: R+11.30
Expected 2030 PVI: R+11.53
RATING: SAFE R
Sprawling across half the state, this district barely resembles the old GA-3, but it does (technically), contain Drew Ferguson's home. It also has Austin Scott's home. One of them could pretty easily carpetbag somewhere else. Or I could redraw this map. I'll make the congressman move.

Georgia's 4th Congressional District




Race: 16.5% White, 70.5% Black, 13.0% Other
Obama-Mccain: 82.8-16.9
PVI: D+33.32
Expected 2030 PVI: D+41.33
RATING: SAFE D
A Titanium D district in South Atlanta. Hank Johnson lives here, and he will hold this district forever.

Georgia's 5th Congressional District




Race: 23.3% White, 63.4% Black, 13.3% Other
Obama-Mccain: 83.0-16.5
PVI: D+32.88
Expected 2030 PVI: D+39.41
RATING: SAFE D

This district is Titanium D and contains the home of John Lewis.

Georgia's 6th Congressional District




Race: 40.2% White, 36.5% Black, 23.3% Other
Obama-Mccain: 70.1-29.1
PVI: D+20.30
Expected 2030 PVI: D+27.17
RATING: SAFE D
A Safe D district trending safer for Lucy McBath.

Georgia's 7th Congressional District




Race: 72.6% White, 8.1% Black, 19.3% Other
Obama-Mccain: 36.2-62.9
PVI: R+15.64
Expected 2030 PVI: R+12.95
RATING: SAFE R

A fight between David Scott and Tom Graves that Graves wins by a double digit margin. This district is Safe R, although it is moderately trending D. Not enough to flip it by 2030, though.

Georgia's 8th Congressional District




Race: 63.4% White, 12.1% Black, 24.5% Other
Obama-Mccain: 33.8-65.4
PVI: R+15.60
Expected 2030 PVI: R+7.93
RATING: VERY LIKELY R

An open seat in Suburban Atlanta, it's trending D fast enough that it might barely reach competitiveness by the end of the decade. Still pretty strongly R, however. If Bordeaux manages to win in 2018 or 2020, she gets drawn in here, but she probably still loses, given how strongly R the district is now.

Georgia's 9th Congressional District




Race: 58.8% White, 14.0% Black, 27.2% Other
Obama-Mccain: 34.6-64.5
PVI: R+16.31
Expected 2030 PVI: R+11.76
RATING: SOLID R

An atrocious gerrymander? Yes. Does Rob Woodall care what his newly Safe R seat looks like? No. D trending, but enough to matter by 2030.

Georgia's 10th Congressional District





Race: 56.5% White, 35.5% Black, 8.0% Other
Obama-Mccain: 43.3-56.1
PVI: R+9.53
Expected 2030 PVI: R+8.52
RATING: VERY LIKELY R

Austin Scott probably moves to this seat, which is otherwise open. Along with the 3rd, vaguely competitive ancestrally but nowadays strongly R. The PVI isn't quite safe, but racial polarization is his friend in a seat like this.

Georgia's 11th Congressional District




Race: 61.6% White, 24.3% Black, 14.1% Other
Obama-Mccain: 40.8-58.4
PVI: R+12.10
Expected 2030 PVI: R+11.43
RATING: SOLID R

Jody Hice and Doug Collins are both in this Strongly exurban seat, but Hice can probably move to the open 14th. Safe R with any candidate.

Georgia's 12th Congressional District




Race: 64.2% White, 27.8% Black, 8.0% Other
Obama-Mccain: 42.8-56.5
PVI: R+12.06
Expected 2030 PVI: R+15.21
RATING: SOLID R


John Barrow's old district is a R+12 monstrosity stretching across most of the state, and trending R. Rick Allen has no issues here.

Georgia's 13th Congressional District




Race: 71.1% White, 17.1% Black, 11.8% Other
Obama-Mccain: 33.5-65.5
PVI: R+19.08
Expected 2030 PVI: R+17.97
RATING: SOLID R

The 13th changes a lot, becoming a Titanium R safe seat in Exurban Atlanta. Barry Loudermilk will be fine here.


Georgia's 14th Congressional District




Race: 69.1% White, 23.0% Black, 7.9% Other
Obama-Mccain: 33.4-65.9
PVI: R+18.28
Expected 2030 PVI: R+15.07
RATING: SOLID R


And finally, this. An open seat that Hice might move to, trending D slowly, Titanium R in any circumstances.

In total, there are 3 Titanium D seats, 9 Titanium R seats, and 2 merely Solid R seats. The GOP probably wins 11 seats in every election here, and there is no plausible circumstance where this map backfires on them over a neutral map (it becomes a dummymander at roughly a 25 point Dem PV margin, which is unlikely, to say the least). It probably violates the VRA, and definitely violates any sense of fairness, but it gets the GOP seats, and the Supreme Court might like that more than the VRA.

My poor eyes hurt looking at that map. That is most definitely a violation of the VRA rules for both compactness and fairness. A gold medal goes to the proposed 1st for actually being remotely compact. The other 13 all look really ugly.

The new SCOTUS could very well rule that VRA doesn't apply to redistricting at all.