NC redistricting revisited

[muon2]

muon, even in your neutral map, it would probably be 7 Democrats, possibly 8 without Jones.

I like that you've got 5 whole-county CDs while still keeping CD1 legal.

I look at the numbers and see 3 strong D, 2 lean D, and 5 strong R. The 3 R+6 (3, 4 and 11) are likely R, but are opportunities for the Dems given past voting practices in NC. Technically my CD 2 and 6 could go R, especially if the Dem is too liberal. So 5 of 13 are potentially competitive.

To me that's pretty neutral given the last two elections that put the state at R+3 overall.

I would be intrigued by the potential competition for CD 11 as the Blue Ridge district is attacked by Blue Dogs.

[Miles]

muon, even in your neutral map, it would probably be 7 Democrats, possibly 8 without Jones.

I like that you've got 5 whole-county CDs while still keeping CD1 legal.

I look at the numbers and see 3 strong D, 2 lean D, and 5 strong R. The 3 R+6 (3, 4 and 11) are likely R, but are opportunities for the Dems given past voting practices in NC. Technically my CD 2 and 6 could go R, especially if the Dem is too liberal. So 5 of 13 are potentially competitive.

To me that's pretty neutral given the last two elections that put the state at R+3 overall.

I would be intrigued by the potential competition for CD 11 as the Blue Ridge district is attacked by Blue Dogs.

I think the most likely case would be McIntyre running in CD7 and Kissell taking the 2nd; McIntyre may have a close call in a wave year, but Kissell should hold the 2nd pretty easily.

Your 6th looks interesting. I'm guessing Miller would run there, as opposed to taking on Price in the 13th. I'm not sure if Miller could hold an R+0 seat.

Shuler should be fine in your 11th.

[BigSkyBob]

No comments?

In terms of "neutral redistricting principles" it seems to make at least as much sense for pairing Wilmington with the coast to the North rather than extending inland towards Fayetteville.

A three-way swap of territories between the 8th, 10th and 12th would result in more compact districts. Just enter Mecklenburg from the North, and give up territories to the East.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In the meantime I've calculated the PVIs for the districts. For whole county CDs I used the actual 04 and 08 votes. I've approximated the other CDs using 08 and a weighting factor based on the 08 votes in the CDs that I can directly determine. It shifts the PVI between 0.5 to 1.0 in favor of the GOP compared to the 08 numbers alone. Of course there's a history of Dems holding seats a few PVI to the GOP.

CD 1: D+16
CD 2: D+0
CD 3: R+6
CD 4: R+6
CD 5: R+11
CD 6: R+0
CD 7: R+10
CD 8: R+15
CD 9: R+16
CD 10: R+16
CD 11: R+6
CD 12: D+13
CD 13: D+5
[/quote]

[muon2]

muon, even in your neutral map, it would probably be 7 Democrats, possibly 8 without Jones.

I like that you've got 5 whole-county CDs while still keeping CD1 legal.

I look at the numbers and see 3 strong D, 2 lean D, and 5 strong R. The 3 R+6 (3, 4 and 11) are likely R, but are opportunities for the Dems given past voting practices in NC. Technically my CD 2 and 6 could go R, especially if the Dem is too liberal. So 5 of 13 are potentially competitive.

To me that's pretty neutral given the last two elections that put the state at R+3 overall.

I would be intrigued by the potential competition for CD 11 as the Blue Ridge district is attacked by Blue Dogs.

I think the most likely case would be McIntyre running in CD7 and Kissell taking the 2nd; McIntyre may have a close call in a wave year, but Kissell should hold the 2nd pretty easily.

Your 6th looks interesting. I'm guessing Miller would run there, as opposed to taking on Price in the 13th. I'm not sure if Miller could hold an R+0 seat.

Shuler should be fine in your 11th.

Of course Foxx lives in my 11th as well, though she currently lives in NC 10 so living outside her CD is not a problem. I assume that Rogers is politically similar to Shuler since he was his chief of staff.

[traininthedistance]

No comments?

Here's my map that embeds the CD 1 I created above using neutral redistricting principles. I sought minimal county splits while maintaining some degree of compactness. The only splits are for CD 1 to comply with section 2 (50.04% BVAP), for the two large counties, and for two other counties to get all CDs within 1500 of the ideal size. Microchops of counties smaller than a precinct would be used to get exact population equality. Population deviation and 2008 results are in parentheses. I look forward to comments.

My main problem with it is your District 1; frankly the tendril connecting the minority neighborhoods of Raleigh to the rest of the district is really really ugly and I'd prefer to just comply with Section 5 instead (my "clean" map is, I think, a good example of how you can do so with a minimum of erosity).  It also makes it hard to fit in an all-Wake district, which is something that should exist for sure.

I'd also prefer an actual Triad district, for reasons I've explained before.  Metro area integrity is more important to me than county integrity.

OTOH, I really like your District 2.  The southern half of the map is good.

[Miles]

No comments?

Here's my map that embeds the CD 1 I created above using neutral redistricting principles. I sought minimal county splits while maintaining some degree of compactness. The only splits are for CD 1 to comply with section 2 (50.04% BVAP), for the two large counties, and for two other counties to get all CDs within 1500 of the ideal size. Microchops of counties smaller than a precinct would be used to get exact population equality. Population deviation and 2008 results are in parentheses. I look forward to comments.

My main problem with it is your District 1; frankly the tendril connecting the minority neighborhoods of Raleigh to the rest of the district is really really ugly and I'd prefer to just comply with Section 5 instead (my "clean" map is, I think, a good example of how you can do so with a minimum of erosity).  It also makes it hard to fit in an all-Wake district, which is something that should exist for sure.

I'd also prefer an actual Triad district, for reasons I've explained before.

OTOH, I really like your District 2.  The southern half of the map is good.

Timothy's CD1 hooks into Raleigh but still keeps CD13 entirely in Wake. I'm generally not big on the Wake hand of CD1, but it does work nicely with Timothy's map.

[muon2]

No comments?

Here's my map that embeds the CD 1 I created above using neutral redistricting principles. I sought minimal county splits while maintaining some degree of compactness. The only splits are for CD 1 to comply with section 2 (50.04% BVAP), for the two large counties, and for two other counties to get all CDs within 1500 of the ideal size. Microchops of counties smaller than a precinct would be used to get exact population equality. Population deviation and 2008 results are in parentheses. I look forward to comments.

My main problem with it is your District 1; frankly the tendril connecting the minority neighborhoods of Raleigh to the rest of the district is really really ugly and I'd prefer to just comply with Section 5 instead (my "clean" map is, I think, a good example of how you can do so with a minimum of erosity).  It also makes it hard to fit in an all-Wake district, which is something that should exist for sure.

I'd also prefer an actual Triad district, for reasons I've explained before.  Metro area integrity is more important to me than county integrity.

OTOH, I really like your District 2.  The southern half of the map is good.

CD 1 poses some interesting questions for a neutral mapper. It has been an black-majority district since 1992, and in 2000 it was 50.7% black. At the start of both those decades the district elected a black representative as one would predict. However, the resignation due to scandal of Ballance in 2004 opened the way for judge Butterfield to take the seat. The 2010 Census showed that the district had fallen to 47.8% BVAP, and it likely was below 50% by 2004. It's not clear to me that in a normal open seat race Butterfield would be the representative.

Now to 2010. To bring the BVAP over 50% required adding an urban black population from Raleigh/Durham. 50% of the VAP is about 275 K. Durham has a BVAP of 54 K and Raleigh about 58 K in their most concentrated precincts. Adding only one or the other makes them a voting appendage unlikely to be able to have a significant voice in the outcome of an election. By adding both populations, the urban black population in that metro area becomes 112 K out of 275 K BVAP and it would be expected to play an important role in a contested primary.

In districts that are not going to be competitive in a general election, and the district will take in at least some of a substantially different region of interest, there is something to commend giving both regions a stake in the primary. I did that on the GOP side in CD 9 and here for the Dems in CD 1.

[nclib]

Butterfield is actually considered black.

[muon2]

Butterfield is actually considered black.

Thanks, he could have fooled me. Looking up his bio I see his father came from Bermuda and both parents had white ancestors.

[Miles]

Butterfield is actually considered black.

Thanks, he could have fooled me. Looking up his bio I see his father came from Bermuda and both parents had white ancestors.

I don't entirely understand it either....

[nclib]

Butterfield is actually considered black.

Thanks, he could have fooled me. Looking up his bio I see his father came from Bermuda and both parents had white ancestors.

I don't entirely understand it either....

Yeah, apparently the white genes of both parents mixed to create him. Certainly by appearance I wouldn't have known.

[Sol]

Reviving this thead because a 3-judge panel just recently finished reviewing the district maps.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/02/26/2710115/judges-hear-case-for-keeping-nc.html

[Miles]

Bumping from another thread.

This is what a 2000 Democratic-drawn map would look like if Wake County was confined to a single CD.



CDs 1, 3, 5, 6, 10 and 11 are basically the same, so I won't really talk about those.

CD13-> This is the Wake County district; it contains the entire county except for a few heavily R precincts that were given to CD4. The actual CD13 was 59/40 Obama, this would downgrade slightly to 57.0/42.0. Miller would have probably won with 52 or 53% in 2010.

CD2-> To make up for the heavily D precincts in Wake that were lost, my solution was to give Etheridge a chunk of southern Durham as well as a larger share of Fayetteville. Otherwise, the district is virtually the same. The changes that I made resulted in more Democratic district; CD2 shifts from 52.5/46.7 to almost exactly EVEN at 53.0/46.1. I'm going to say that this would have been enough to prevent it from flipping in 2010.

CD7-> Other than taking in all of Duplin County and changing around a few precincts in Cumberland County, no changes. The district is slightly redder at 52.5/46.6 McCain up from 52.2/47.0.

CD4-> Price has to take in the counties along the VA border that were in the actual CD13. The district was about 62% Obama in 2008, IIRC, but is now down to 59.3/39.7.

CD12-> Watt takes in most of the Greensboro precincts that Miller had. The district is 46.5% white, 43% black; pretty close to the actual one. It also becomes slightly more of a sink, at 71.8% Obama up from 70.3%.

CD8-> Robin Hayes would have been the biggest loser here. Since CD12 moves further up into the Triad, CD8 can pick up more precincts in urban Charlotte. It also loses all of Union County (the most Republican county in NC by registration) and the reddest precincts in Hayes' home county of Stanly are removed. The result? The district moves from 52.4/46.9 Obama to 56.0/43.2. Hayes would have certainly been defeated in 2006 by Kissell, if not earlier.

CD 9-> This becomes even more of sink, as it takes all of Union County and loses more Democratic voters in Charlotte. It was 54.6/44.7 McCain and is now up to 56.9/42.3.