Republicans weigh ‘cracking’ cities to doom Democrats

[Non Swing Voter]

LOL.  Democrats are so bad at politics.  You constantly hear from D politicos that D's have a natural disadvantage because their voters are concentrated in cities.  Yet Republicans cracked Austin, TX for years.  D's never thought to just crack cities in more favorable ways.  But tell us again how these independent commissions help democracy in Democratic states while Republicans just butcher state after state map to maximize the importance of their atrocious base.

[lfromnj]

I don't really see how they could feasibly gerrymander Sharice Davids. The eastern part of the state is less conservative and the other easternmost district, KS-02, seems to be shifting toward the left (although still heavily Republican.)

I doubt the GOP could create four Republican seats without having it be a dummymander, maybe I'm wrong though?

Very easy to connect Wyandotte and northern Johnson to KS-1, and then connect southern Johnson to the area to its south. What's not clear with Kansas (and, also, KC in Missouri) is whether the state Republican Party has the stomach to do this; I don't know how much influence the Governor has but the KSGOP is notoriously moderate and they might need a super-majority.

Emanuel Cleaver has had good relations with the GOP in the past, and while you can safely draw him out you have to rearrange the whole map to do it, which some incumbents might be against. OTOH Hartzler retiring should make it a lot easier to get rid of Cleaver.

Kentucky has fair redistricting provisions against the splitting of counties which make it basically impossible to get rid of Yarmuth; at worst you can just give him a Leans D seat. Also Yarmuth has a good relationship with the KYGOP.

Nebraska also has a very moderate state Republican Party, and Don Bacon may want to avoid getting a too-red seat to avoid a primary challenge.

Jim Cooper and Frank Mrvan seem straightforwardly doomed; the GOP in those states has decided to go ahead with redrawing the map and turning those seats into Safe R ones. I'm not sure there are any other really obvious Safe D-->Safe R redraws in America; depending on how Hogan's Maryland SC rules on redistricting issues the next likeliest Safe D-->Safe R seat may well be David Trone's.

None of this should ignore suburban seats expanding to take in rural area/becoming redder giving the GOP much more advantageous maps in FL/GA/NC/VA/PA, along with significantly more advantageous lines in TX/AZ. That's really where the GOP advantage in redistricting is coming from; in a lot of the Midwestern or Upper Southern states discussed in this thread there really just isn't much more meat left on the bone.

Said provisions in Kentucky are merely statutory instead of constitutional.

[Devils30]

I think if politicians such as Andy Harris in MD-1 weren't so disliked you would see non-aggression pact type deals such as keeping an MD seat red in exchange for a blue one in a red state.

[DrScholl]

Democrats really should set up astroturf groups and send messages to Trump supporters in rural areas saying they should oppose being drawn in with cities. Make them think BLM, CRT and Socialism will spill into their rural, Christian safe spaces if cities are added to their districts. None of this is accurate, but a lot of Trump supporters would buy it and they could possibly bully the GOP legislatures into backing off. At some point Democrats have to use reverse psychology of sorts to play this game.

[Greedo punched first]

I did a map of Indiana that cracks Indianapolis and Gary.



My Missouri map that cracks Kansas City and St Louis.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Really wish we could've passed the For The People Act.

MD, IL, NY and CA better be watching closely. The only way to win against Republicans is to gerrymander just as bad as Republicans. Democrats are not willing to play hardball. Unless Republicans realize that they are going to get burned in Democratic states in return, they aren't going to back a gerrymandering ban.

[Devils30]

Democrats really should set up astroturf groups and send messages to Trump supporters in rural areas saying they should oppose being drawn in with cities. Make them think BLM, CRT and Socialism will spill into their rural, Christian safe spaces if cities are added to their districts. None of this is accurate, but a lot of Trump supporters would buy it and they could possibly bully the GOP legislatures into backing off. At some point Democrats have to use reverse psychology of sorts to play this game.

I think that's why Rs want to keep KY-3 blue. The congressmen in the exurban areas don't want to have to hold town halls and deal with angry leftist protestors.

[Schiff for Senate]

My fear may come true: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=453296

In some cases, the GOP cracking cities may not work because of state Democrats having some leverage; in the above subtopic Pink Panther explained that the Democrats in the legislature have some power, likely stopping a gerrymander.

Another discussed obstacle for the GOP is the 'dummymander' concept - but I don't think it will have much hold in some cases; for example, splitting Nashville likely wouldn't have long-term consequences for the GOP since its suburbs/exurbs are heavily Republican. In Missouri, it may apply, however - splitting Emanuel Cleaver's district may mean two semi-urban, semi-suburban/exurban districts. The suburbs are shifting to the left here, and soon they may result in both Kansas City based districts going blue. In St. Louis, it's already becoming apparent, in a way - they created one solidly blue district based in the city of St. Louis, MO01, and one fairly Republican district in its suburbs, MO02. However, MO02, like many suburbs, has quickly shifted to the left in the age of Trump: it went from a 16-point win for Romney in 2012 to just a 0.02% loss for Biden come 2020, and Rep. Ann Wagner's (R-Ballwin) margins have also tightened. So as things currently stand, MO02 may soon enter the Democratic column, giving the Democrats three districts in Missouri. The GOP may try to split the St. Louis area into three districts rather than two - but as the whole area, urban and suburban, shifts quickly to the left, they may actually end up with a 4-4 composition (three Democratic districts in St. Louis and one in Kansas City). So the best bet for the Missouri Republican Party is to remove some of the more urban/suburban portions of Wagner's districts and replace them with rural swaths of land in Eastern Missouri, restoring the district to a more safe shade of red, rather than trying to win a seventh seat in Missouri, since I don't think it'd work.

But the third element - courts overturning gerrymandered maps like they did in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida and now North Carolina, may have no real effect, for the reason I am about to give: court cases take very long to actually have results materialize, and the GOP may procrastinate and drag its feet (the NC GOP was actually supposed to fix the maps earlier, before the 2018 elections, in 2017, but just came up with a different gerrymander; the maps were only fixed and un-gerrymandered in 2020). In the meantime, for the several elections it takes for the courts to notice, take action and the GOP comply, they can at least temporarily keep an extra seat or two - a temporary extra seat is better than no extra seats. And it may even cancel out the 'dummymander' element above described in some ways - they may strategically wait until the margins in dummymandered districts begin to tighten, and favor Democrats, and then 'fix' the maps - they'll have gotten the 'best of both worlds,' so to speak, having kept several lean-Republican seats for some time and then replacing them with safer seats when they finally begin to trend Democratic.

[Schiff for Senate]

LOL.  Democrats are so bad at politics.  You constantly hear from D politicos that D's have a natural disadvantage because their voters are concentrated in cities.  Yet Republicans cracked Austin, TX for years.  D's never thought to just crack cities in more favorable ways.  But tell us again how these independent commissions help democracy in Democratic states while Republicans just butcher state after state map to maximize the importance of their atrocious base.

Exactly. To keep the House on a long-term basis, Democrats should play hardball in states like Colorado (I was able to gerrymander a 6-2 map for the Democrats there, with one of the GOP seats just lean R; see: https://districtr.org/plan/26219) instead of ceding them over to Independent Redistring Commissions. They should wait for national solutions to level the playing field (the For the People bill) instead of giving up their own advantages preemptively. The GOP knows that the Democrats are very honest and are going to avoid gerrymandering (except for some good old, hardball Maryland Democrats) in states where they can gerrymander - and they can't stop the GOP from doing so without a national bill, which is exactly why the GOP opposes such bills on reflex: since Democrats have basically implemented in their states the terms of the bill anyway, passing it would really only hurt the GOP in gerrymandered states like Texas. What the Democrats need to do is pursue aggressive gerrymanders in states like Colorado and California - because then the GOP will see that gerrymandering is a two-way street, not a one-way street that helps them win the House sometimes, and won't have as much of a reason to oppose bills like the For the People Act.

[NewYorkExpress]

Democrats need to draw out all Republicans in states they have trifectas in, and do whatever it takes to block maps that leave seats for a single Republican in states they don't control.

[Vosem]

I think if politicians such as Andy Harris in MD-1 weren't so disliked you would see non-aggression pact type deals such as keeping an MD seat red in exchange for a blue one in a red state.

It is extremely unclear whether Democrats will succeed at drawing a gerrymander equal in strength to that of the 2010s; the Maryland SC is now controlled by conservatives and the Governor has traditionally had a large amount of say in redistricting within the state. It's not clear that the agreement can be arranged, but a neutral redistricting map may be exchanged for incumbent protection state legislative gerrymanders and no Republican effort before the state courts to illegalize gerrymandering generally.

At best for Democrats, such a map would be 6D-2R. Something like 5D-1S-2R is likely, and even 4D-2S-2R is possible.

Said provisions in Kentucky are merely statutory instead of constitutional.

I don't think they have the numbers to overturn Beshear's veto, though. Had Bevin been reelected in 2019 Yarmuth may well have been doomed. Elections have consequences.

I did a map of Indiana that cracks Indianapolis and Gary.



My Missouri map that cracks Kansas City and St Louis.

The Indiana map is legal, but there is a general consensus within the GOP against cracking Indianapolis, especially because in the past (kind of distant past now -- 1970s -- but still) this backfired. If an 8-1 map lasts the whole 2020s decade, I can imagine this in 2030.

The St. Louis seat is VRA-protected. The VRA's requirements for congressional districts very strongly hobble Democrats' ability to draw gerrymanders as currently interpreted, and while there's a lot of debate at the edges as to what counts as VRA-protected, this one is very obvious and won't go anywhere.

It seems like the stomach isn't there to get rid of the Kansas City seat either, though that is a plausible thing and Hartzler retiring might be a tea leaf that some are considering it seriously, though leaks from the MO legislature suggest it won't happen.

Democrats need to draw out all Republicans in states they have trifectas in, and do whatever it takes to block maps that leave seats for a single Republican in states they don't control.

States with Democratic trifectas are likelier to either have commissions (like CA/CO), to have other constitutional considerations that make drawing out all the Republicans difficult (like MD/NY/OR -- conservative Supreme Court/some commission input/supermajority requirement), or to have already done this (CT/HI/MA/RI).

Like, I think the only place this advice is even actionable at all is IL. (I guess in MD they could give it the old college try). But even there there's a decent risk of conservative state Supreme Court takeover in 2022.

[MillennialModerate]

This whole conversation is disgusting.

The entire house map needs to be drawn by a neutral board.

It would be nice if elections resulted in outcomes that you know... reflected the will of the people

[Crumpets]

I always knew the GOP was behind the cracking epidemic plaguing America's cities.