Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Sol]

Why is everyone avoiding drawing this district (or something comparable) for some reason? It's compact, satisfies most people's redistricting criteria, etc.



Satisfies the VRA quite well, and is majority-Black to boot.

[Sol]

Plus it puts Warner Robbins in with Macon, Lee County with Albany, and keeps united the metropolitan core of Columbus!

[Sol]

Welcome to the redistrictingverse!

FYI your districts are a little too wide in terms of population deviation--ideally you try to get that number as close to 0 as possible, though it can be tough, especially in Georgia where there are dumb huge precincts. Personally I shoot for more like -/+1000.

DRA also has 2018 data, so you can use more up to date info.

[Sol]

You could just be explicit--I can barely parse that post.

[Sol]

The VRA is also fairly beneficial to Republicans in many other cases, and of course it was the first Bush admin which pushed for stricter rules in preclearance.

[Sol]

Here is an even more drastic Pubmander that deploys more excess Pubs in my GA-09 into the fray, by its taking out a major bite of Gwinnett, and with GA-10 relieved of that chore, instead it is charged with taking in most of Athens (the most Dem precincts in Clarke County are convenient parked on its north border for GA-09 to bite them off to help GA-10 out a bit). It is kind of a game of musical chairs, as various Pub CD’s get their turn taking in marginal to semi hostile real estate that none of them wants. Pub primaries with their crazily diverse constituencies should be quite interesting, if something like this monster becomes law. Ha!



https://davesredistricting.org/join/271e317c-5eaf-4b6b-905b-93338b4ca23b

It's trivially easy to make GA-06 and GA-05 majority Black!

[Sol]

Sometimes, in an occasional act of supreme hubris, I think that only I and Muon2 really understand the VRA, with its attendant risks and ambiguities. Moving right along, anyone who looked at the election numbers, would know that the Dem electorate in both of the CD's in play, the Dem primary electorate is majority black, assuming that Gingles applies at all since there are a substantial number of whites in both CD who are both Democrats and perfectly willing to vote for a black Dem in a primary or otherwise who is somebody other than Cynthia McKinney. Heck, a black won in one of the subject  CD's that had a relatively small number of blacks in 2018. Check it out. In addition, the black percentages will be higher than the CVAP figures on the DRA since they are about 3 years out of date, due to the fact that the figures used are based on 5 year averages. Be happy! In other news, a black represents my CD, that is less than 5% black. Gingles ain't in play there either.  

The thing is is that making those districts majority Black has political benefits which aren't just "following the VRA."

If I'm the Georgia republicans and I'm drawing four Black-influence districts in Atlanta, making them majority Black is a good way to deflect from negative attention and avoid lawsuits, especially given the amount of controversy regarding Georgia elections lately. It doesn't really change the partisan outcome or even the lines really outside of the four ATL districts, but it does let you say that you're electorally empowering Black voters at a time when the GA GOP is under fire.

[Sol]

Plus Scott has actually represented a good bit of that 4th already--it would be pretty easy for him to hop over even though it may not be where he lives.

[Sol]

Paulding definitely has crummy demographic developments for Republicans though, as it's sort of an extension of Southern, not Northern, Cobb. It's becoming quite a bit more diverse, and we've seen how starkly Atlanta suburbs can change in even a decade.

[Sol]

If McBath doesn't want to run in a GOP-friendly GA-06 she could pop over to GA-13, which is near Marietta and has David Scott, who nearly lost his primary in 2020.

[Sol]

I guess Lucy McBath has four options now.

1) A run for governor. Feasible, she'd have a chance.
2) Run in Bourdeaux's seat. Not ideal to have a primary there but possible.
3) Move to David Scott's seat. Probably works best if he retires but a primary could be doable.
4) Stubbornly stay in her own seat, accept the highly likely loss to presumably Karen Handel but keep trying to flip voters and make it as close as possible.

She should do this.  Abrams will probably underperform generic D for the same reason Trump 2024 would underperform generic R.

Why are you assuming both of these things?

[Sol]

Trying to get rid of Marjorie Taylor Greene via redistricting is a good way to get her to do something inconvenient, like run for Senate or Governor. Better to dump her the Madison Cawthorn way if Republicans actually want her out.

[Sol]

I have come up with a definitely fair map. For the court-required four black majority districts, I chose to pair the urban heavily-black areas of the Atlanta area with rural areas to the south rather than with the whiter areas of Atlanta, as this makes it easier for the black candidate of choice to win the Democratic primary. Thanks to this, it made sense to eliminate the 3rd district in its current formation, to provide enough population for the four black Atlanta districts (the 5th, 4th, 13th, and new 3rd).

The whiter areas of the Atlanta area are paired together to make a new 10th district, which is in fact the bluest district on the map. The rest of the map was drawn prioritizing compactness and avoiding county splits when possible, getting rid of ugly aspects of the current map like the 8th snaking around Macon. By 2016-2020 average, there are seven Democratic-leaning districts and seven Republican-leaning ones, so I definitely see no way that this map could possibly be considered unfair, and something like this should certainly be considered when the map is being redrawn.



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I don’t think there’s much risk of the white candidate of choice winning a Democratic primary of any hypothetical Black influence district in the Atlanta area. You can draw 4 districts in the Atlanta area with identical demographics and without drawing them into genuinely rural territory south of the city, much less cutting into suburban Macon or Columbus.