Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Adam Griffin]

Here's a (rough and quick) DRA map for the proposed map:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/562af443-7138-4fff-89f6-125cc37df399

[Adam Griffin]

Initial observations:

GA-2: Democrats may be in trouble once Bishop retires. Biden only won this district by 7.

GA-6: Likely won't take long to flip back (if it indeed goes R in 2022). Was Trump +19 in 2016, Kemp +14 in 2018, Trump +6 in 2020...

GA-11: Big mid-to-late decade pickup opportunity. Loudermilk's position got weaker. Trump only carried this district by 12 points in 2020. Kemp won it by 18 and Trump won it 23 points in 2016.

GA-12: Almost a restoration of the competitiveness we saw during the Obama years with John Barrow (Trump +10 in 2020). Likely won't be competitive in a true sense, however.

[Adam Griffin]

8-6 seems like the most likely outcome by the end of the decade.

If we assume Bishop retires and trends continue in GA-2, we'll likely lose the seat at some point - but we'll likely pick up GA-6 by that time (or potentially sooner, assuming Bishop stays for another couple of terms) - or maybe we'll never lose it in the first place. That'd leave us with the proposed 9-5 as of now (or potentially 8-6 if McBath holds on).

But from there, it's all pickup opportunities for Democrats. What happens in GA-11 over the next 4-6 years will be key. There could also be a perfect storm scenario in GA-12 (Barrow-style) that allows a Democrat to hold respectable numbers among the rurals while enjoying demographic shifts in the Augusta metro and sneak into office. If both of those things happened post-Bishop retiremenet, we'd be looking at 7-7. But I do think 8-6 is where gravity will settle sooner or later.

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1442605253078093828

It's possible that if this map passes we could see a little back and forth- Karen Handel winning the district back in 2022, only to lose it again to McBath in 2024.

I wonder how McBath's proposed new 6th went in the Senate runoffs.

Map is linked above. Trump +6, Loeffler +9 and Perdue +11.

[Adam Griffin]

Anyway, I don't think McBath is as doomed as some think. She's certainly not going to lose by more than 5 points unless this midterm is apocalyptic for Democrats. From AAD:

While it covers different terrain, it's more or less the same general area in terms of trends (if not better in this regard long-term). Biden won the current GA-6 by 11; McBath by 9.

Assuming a similar underperformance (2 points) relative to whomever shows up who would be "Biden voters" in 2022 and coupling the facts that 1) McBath is an incumbent and 2) that the proposed CD has been shifting around *3 points per year in favor of Democrats* for the better part of a decade, it's hard at this point to envision a McBath loss greater than 5 points.

While they've proposed this CD to be more Republican in a contemporary sense, they've also basically drawn in some of the most high-growth/D-trending areas in the metro based on 2018, 2020 and 2021 runoff results. If it falls, it's very likely this district flips back in 2024 - and they've potentially made CD-11 vulnerable mid-to-late decade in the process (rather than just cutting their short-term losses, letting McBath have a D-leaning vote-sink in the 6th, locking in 10 years of GOP representation in the 11th, and guaranteeing the 8-6 map they currently have while potentially picking up GA-2 when Bishop retires and making it 9-5).
^^^
Basically: a district that in 2020 would have been Handel +8:

- 4-6 points of D improvement over 2 years
- D incumbency factor (~1 pt)
- the final year of intense AVR effects*
+ national climate

= ? ? ?

*GA AVR is entering its 5th year: in GA, you can renew DLs every 5 or 8 years; it costs $4 per year to renew regardless (minus 20% discount if done online), so $12 more to renew for 8 years as opposed to 5; whose voters do you think disproportionately choose 5-year licenses and therefore are being picked up via AVR for the first time since implementation?

[Adam Griffin]

With the way Forsyth is trending, McBath can easily win her new district. This map could've been a lot worse.

The 7th crossing over into Fulton is also very weird.

IIRC, that part of Fulton (Johns Creek) has been swinging D at a lightning pace since 2016 (thanks, Asians!). I can see why they would want to keep it out of their proposed 6th and dump it into the (at least for the next 6 months) plurality-white D vote-sink.

[Adam Griffin]

Also, hot take: Bourdeaux isn't "safe" in this newly-proposed 7th. I suppose it depends on what you consider safe, but just look at these figures:



In a presidential year Democratic primary, this is likely closer to a 50% black, 25% white, 25% other electorate. In a midterm primary, it'll skew more white (for now) - but with each passing year, the demographics in Gwinnett continue to accelerate against whites at an almost unbelievable speed.

If the right black candidate and/or enough black voters decide they want a more representative representative, then goodbye Boring Bourdeaux. Of course, the non-black constituencies might also band together behind a more progressive Latino or Asian candidate and have a similar chance at primarying her.

[Adam Griffin]

It's really not hard to get two Democratic seats outside of Metro Atlanta. Augusta to Savannah would be fairly clean and safe, while Albany, Macon and Columbus as shown on that map would be secure too.

And it's not even hard, spacious or deviates from historical GA reapportionment precedent. Look at the beauty of it!

[Adam Griffin]

It's really not hard to get two Democratic seats outside of Metro Atlanta. Augusta to Savannah would be fairly clean and safe, while Albany, Macon and Columbus as shown on that map would be secure too.

And it's not even hard, spacious or deviates from historical GA reapportionment precedent. Look at the beauty of it!

This guy gets it.

Can't wait for 2031 after GOP judges completely dismantle Sections 2 & 5 of the VRA and we get a 9D-5R (or 10D-5R) map!

01: Biden +10
02: Biden +12
03: Trump +33
04: Trump +29
05: Trump +35
06: Trump +57
07: Trump +52
08: Trump +4
09: Trump +20
10: Biden +25
11: Biden +36
12: Biden +45
13: Biden +43
14: Biden +41

[Adam Griffin]

Also honestly knowing the Georgia GOP keeping Georgia 2nd not majority black is probably an accident.

Why would they? It's not a requirement to be majority-black (GA-2 wasn't in 2011, either; 49.5% BVAP), they've kept the district roughly equivalent in size despite losing 10% of its population over the past decade *while moving it 5+ points to the right*, no other adjacent seats are in danger of flipping now and therefore wouldn't require black packing, and with the overall trends of the region, they have a much better chance than some think of picking the seat up next time it's open and/or there's a great year for the GOP with somebody who's not 74 year-old incumbent Sanford Bishop.

[Adam Griffin]

Also, hot take: Bourdeaux isn't "safe" in this newly-proposed 7th. I suppose it depends on what you consider safe, but just look at these figures:



In a presidential year Democratic primary, this is likely closer to a 50% black, 25% white, 25% other electorate. In a midterm primary, it'll skew more white (for now) - but with each passing year, the demographics in Gwinnett continue to accelerate against whites at an almost unbelievable speed.

If the right black candidate and/or enough black voters decide they want a more representative representative, then goodbye Boring Bourdeaux. Of course, the non-black constituencies might also band together behind a more progressive Latino or Asian candidate and have a similar chance at primarying her.

If a voter in Antonio Delgado's district in NY decided to vote for his White opponent for a more representative representative, is that something you'd support?

You are assuming I endorse this kind of behavior (I don't). It is what it is - but it is a reality, there is precedent for it, and that's what I'm commenting on here.

But the real question is: what happened to the 11-3 GOP map you kept saying would easily happen?

[Adam Griffin]

Have conservative white people stopped moving to Georgia? If so, when did they stop?

Not entirely, but the flow rapidly and immensely shifted around the time of the 1996 Olympics.

People forget that once upon a time, mass migration to the South wasn't friendly to the Democratic Party. It still isn't in some places.

Much of the anti-Dem shift in GA attributable to native residents wasn't felt until the turn of the century, through an obvious combination of New Deal voters dying off and others defecting from the Democratic Party. This is why the bottom seemingly fell out all at once: a double-whammy of sorts.

From 1980-1995, there was a huge influx of out-of-state residents (I call this "the first wave"), who were disproportionately white tax-evading conservative Yankees. Despite similar historical patterns, this is why the suburbs of ATL became the most GOP-friendly areas of the state in the mid-1980s onward, with their effects moving outwards as the years progressed (this is why Cherokee and Forsyth combined shifted 15 points to the GOP between 1992 and 1996, making them practically single-handedly responsible for flipping GA to Dole). These people are also the biggest reason Democrats lost the gubernatorial election in 2002, with their influence still being responsible for GOP wins all the way through 2012-2014. Over the past 15 years or so, you'll find these types largely colonizing mountainous areas of NE Georgia rather than the suburbs or exurbs of ATL, buying up relatively cheap touristy property/tacky log cabins and making what would be a solidly-GOP area in today's terms even more so.

Let me reiterate: without "the first wave" of conservative Yankee migrants between 1980-1995, it's quite possible that GA would have more closely resembled NC throughout the 2000s to the present, never losing control of the Governor's Mansion. The rural losses would have been mostly offset by "the second wave" of migration.

"The second wave" wouldn't begin until the late 1990s, which is the kind of demographic infusion people are familiar with in the modern-era (blacks returning to the new "black mecca", along with young college-educated liberal whites and other minorities). Given voter participation rates among these groups, it's not surprising that their effects weren't felt until the mid-2000s. All of this is why Democrats went from winning comfortably to losing by 20 points in just a few years, only to rebound quickly to respectable losses a few years after that.

[Adam Griffin]

Interesting to see how relatively much they shored up GA-1. Coastal GA hasn't exactly been trending their way over the past decade, so I guess they decided to give it a nudge rather than tucking some of those heavily-R areas into GA-12 (which I think is basically fool's gold for Ds: Richmond and Columbia combined aren't growing fast enough to counter the lean this decade).

[Adam Griffin]

There is certainly a possibility for a VRA lawsuit given that another majority minority CD could easily be drawn in Atlanta and yet isn't...

You could also potentially sue to make a majority minority 12th.

There is 0 chance of the Augusta Savanah seat happening until dems win a trifecta. Pure hope for dems. If dems were going to sue they would have sued in 2012 for that.

My guess is if this map passes , Georgia Dems will sue for a 4th black seat in Atlanta after they win the governorship . You can draw one now probably as well while only touching the 4 Dem sink Blobs so not sure why the GA GOP Doesn't just do it. It wouldn't change the partisanship of any other seats but a court might change up the map more than necessary to get that 4th black district. Waste of time to sue right now.

What makes you believe the Gwinnett based seat is not a performing black seat, and/or in a Dem primary, voting is race based? There is next to no VRA risk with the seat as drawn. I suspect a majority of the voters in this seat in a Dem primary are black. If so, game over in a seat that  is safe Dem. How many racist whites vote in Dem primaries in this portion of the globe?

Based on the current VAP numbers alone and adjusting for lower Latino/Asian turnout, I'd estimate roughly 50% of the Democratic GE electorate is black; whites would be around 20%. In primaries, black share would usually be less, but the large Latino & Asian vote there that drops-off between generals and primaries likely ends up boosting the black share to a small but absolute majority even then.