North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Sol]

Sol, what are your thoughts on this thing I've just made?
https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5b872ab-3e66-46e6-91dc-4628d8580f66

Not bad at all! The only major gripe I have is the slice of Winston--I'd cut into Guilford County instead of slicing W-S down the middle.

Are you proposing to split both Guilford and Forsyth counties?

Yeah, that makes more sense than cutting Winston-Salem like that. You could also just split Guilford if that gives you the vapors.

[Sol]

The issue is trying to draw that in with other districts. The 10th (Fayetteville/Lumberton) really should be made competitive and majority minority. Without drawing into Union this becomes exceeding difficult. I’d rather draw one of the Charlotte seats suboptimally to allow for this

What about something like this?

[Sol]

The issue is trying to draw that in with other districts. The 10th (Fayetteville/Lumberton) really should be made competitive and majority minority. Without drawing into Union this becomes exceeding difficult. I’d rather draw one of the Charlotte seats suboptimally to allow for this

What about something like this?

What are the demographics/partisanships of the greensboro and fayetteville districts?

The Triad seat is 46% white and 35% Black. It's majority white on VAP but that should be trivially easy to undo if you're willing to cut into NW GSO a little. Safe D, 63-35 Biden. Tbh you don't really need to make it minority-majority for the Black community to be able to elect their candidate of choice in the Triad.

The Fayetteville seat is 41% white and 36% Black, 11% Native. It's v competitive, 49-49 Biden.

All the stats are in the DRA link.

[Sol]

I did it that way because I was trying to preserve a NC-08 which would follow LeeCannon's guidelines, probably not my personal ideal.

Ultimately the eastern half of North Carolina has 7 obvious districts (Northeast, Central Coast/Inland cities, Wilmington area, Fayetteville/Sandhills, suburban Raleigh, Raleigh, and Durham+Chapel Hill) but only enough population for 6 districts.

I decide to nuke the suburban Raleigh seat since that's the easiest, but that meant there was a ton of excess population in Wake county which had to gobble up rural areas to the SW (plus of course Johnston in NC-03).

Ultimately on any mao you have to decide which of these seven communities you will destroy. Tbh I think the one that has the cleanest results is putting Durham in NC-01, but as a single district it's worse than the others.

[Sol]

I did it that way because I was trying to preserve a NC-08 which would follow LeeCannon's guidelines, probably not my personal ideal.

Ultimately the eastern half of North Carolina has 7 obvious districts (Northeast, Central Coast/Inland cities, Wilmington area, Fayetteville/Sandhills, suburban Raleigh, Raleigh, and Durham+Chapel Hill) but only enough population for 6 districts.

I decide to nuke the suburban Raleigh seat since that's the easiest, but that meant there was a ton of excess population in Wake county which had to gobble up rural areas to the SW (plus of course Johnston in NC-03).

Ultimately on any mao you have to decide which of these seven communities you will destroy. Tbh I think the one that has the cleanest results is putting Durham in NC-01, but as a single district it's worse than the others.

Ye I think that's a really good way of summarizing the problem. In my map, I sorta pushed 3, 7, and 9 slightly more west than would be ideal but sorta try to keep all 7 communities.

The 2 other main problems in NC are how to deal with Charlotte and Winston-Salem and Greensboro

With Charlotte, 2 districts is slightly 2 small but 3 districts is slightly too much, and Winston-Salem and Greensboro are starting to outgrow NC-06 but neither are really enough to sustain a district individually and plus by separating the 2 cities one could argue you're diluting the black population. The court map tries to have it both ways by shedding most of Winston Salem while taking in a few of the blackest precicnts, but then also takes in Rockingham and Caswell counties for some reason (which tbf are a bit homeless because they tend to be a bit cornered by Greensboro)

My hope is by 2030 a lot of this weirdness in population balance can be resolved.

If NC does not gain a district, then you could probably just do something simillar to one of our maps but since NC-01 and NC-03 will be extremely underpopulated, there is a case for sort of merging with NC-03. Then you can have 2 very clear Raliegh districts and 3 very clear Charlotte districts and NC-06 will probably still barely be able to work in the both Greensboro and Winston Salem Config

If NC gains a 15th district, then you'll be able to represent all 7 communities int the eastern part of the state far more clearly, finally give Charlotte a 3rd dedicated seat, as well as split Greensboro and Salem into separate districts (since in this scneario NC-06 would be very overpopulated).

Idk, Charlotte and the Triad are pretty easy IMO. Something like the configuration I posted upthread really isn't hard in Charlotte, and then you can lop off the exurban portions of Guilford and Forsyth in the Triad.

Btw, why do you keep putting parts of Cabarrus in with Charlotte?

[Sol]

I would not argue that partisan fairness is neutral either. All of this stuff is subjective.

[Sol]

Why on earth should we redistrict with partisan fairness in mind? Personally I redistrict to best represent the communities that people identify with, to the extent practicable, and I don't know why that's not valid.

[Sol]

men will literally complain that no one listens to them right before posting a map with a three way split of mecklenburg county and a bunch of completely random lines instead of going to therapy

Really nothing wrong with a three-way split of meck, the geography kind of asks for it.

[Sol]

What does that map look like if you combine the Winston and Greensboro MSAs for redistricting purposes, Torie?

I ask since it's very much a Bay Area situation where what's functionally one metro area is kept as two due to the Census Bureau being a bit conservative on these things. (This is true of the Triangle too).

[Sol]

What does that map look like if you combine the Winston and Greensboro MSAs for redistricting purposes, Torie?

I ask since it's very much a Bay Area situation where what's functionally one metro area is kept as two due to the Census Bureau being a bit conservative on these things. (This is true of the Triangle too).

Almost nothing, since NC-05 entirely covers the Winston MSA, and then spills into the Greensboro MSA, and NC-06 takes in the balance of the Greensboro MSA. Combining the two MSA's would increase the score of the map without changing it in other words.

The thing about using MSA's, particularly in a state like NC that has so many multi-county MSA's, is that it kind of forces the lines of the map, limiting one's choices, so the subjectivity component is minimized. I tend to pretty slavishly honor them, absent the map getting too erose and looking that way to the eye (aesthetics of a map really matter in the public square), or it avoids a large and ugly county chop in favor of but a micro-chop of a county. That is why I split the Morgantown MSA into halves, with two counties in NC-10, and two counties in NC-08.

Ah, I was probably being a little circuitous. What I was trying to get at is, what does the map look like if you draw a W-S-Greensboro district?

[Sol]

Here's a potential NCGOP unleashed map post a possible SCOTUS VRA overruling.

link



All the R seats should be fairly safe; NC-01 is the most Democratic but is fairly polarized.

[Sol]

Here's a potential NCGOP unleashed map post a possible SCOTUS VRA overruling.

link



All the R seats should be fairly safe; NC-01 is the most Democratic but is fairly polarized.

The one prong of the VRA that might be left standing is to ban gerrymanders that clearly fail to hew to neutral redistricting metrics that cause a seat to cease to be minority performing. So the Pubs in NC would be wise in a redraw to be able to persuasively defend a NC-01 that is not minority performing as not gerrymandered, even if another reasonable map would make it minority performing.

That's fair enough. You can NC-01 pretty reasonable if you remove all of Pitt from 1 in exchange for more of Nash/Franklin:



(obviously it makes NC-03 even worse)

Here is a not totally insane but still quite butt ugly Pubmander that I quite loathe, and all it accomplishes over a nice pretty plausible denial Pubmander light map is move one seat from lean Dem to lean Pub.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/7168d195-798f-4981-ab5f-11f31e34c904

Not a bad map at all. However, my suspicion, from following NC politics fairly closely, is that the court is pretty likely to rubberstamp whatever the NCGA draws even if it's pretty heinous. So I imagine that the Republicans are going to go for maximum advantage (and pleasing incumbents) over plausible deniability. If I'm wrong I bet they'll draw something like what you made.

[Sol]

Maybe you accomplish it by linking Durham to NC-01 for a majority-black seat that is super D and just sinking Chapel Hill? So the eliminated seat is the Durham-Chapel Hill seat instead of the NE black seat.

You can definitely merge NC-04 and NC-01, though the result is as much a successor to the former as to the latter (and questionably legal?). Plurality Black though plurality white on CVAP.



(You can probably make this a little tidier but not a lot tidier without sacrificing BVAP--I drew this for another pretty maximalist R gerry thus the ugly lines)

Here is a version that makes NC-01 by detaching Greenville from it. The lines however look clean, and it was not a Gingles CD anyway, so it probably survives whatever will be left of the VRA. I think this map is about the best one can do, that does not have dummymander potential.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8e4bfba7-34a0-470a-bd5d-e92cd59eb8c8

Again not bad, but I think the Republicans would go a bit uglier to make NC-05, NC-06 NC-08, and NC-14 safer. There's no meaningful check on their capacity to gerrymander save the VRA so you can expect a reversion to post-2010 esque maps in at least the rest of the state outside the Northeast. Perhaps I'm wrong, idk, but that seems like the vibe from how Republicans tend to talk about these issues. Sorry to nitpick.

Torie, in your understanding of the VRA in the scenario you lay out, is there a way for Republicans to either turn NC-01 into either a lean R seat or a dem vote sink legally?

[Sol]

By the way if anyone is interested , I think j miles said that NC01 was Beasly +0.2 this election.

It really seems like Dems suffered turnout issues with black voters, especially in the south and more rural/small town black communities. Furthermore, NC-01's black population (and overall population) is shrinking pretty fast). If I were the GOP, drawing something like a Biden + 2 seat (as was in their original map) should be a pretty good bet to zoom right this decade.

The area they'll need to be the most Strategic with is prolly Greensboro/Winston Salem area.

Also, we'll see if they cede 1 or 2 triangle sinks. At this point, 2 is more likely but 1 is still technically possible if you're willing to risk security.

1 triangle sink is just not worth it. Raleigh in particular is the kind of place where Democrats have been gaining tremendously--they won multiple precincts in Fuquay-Varina in 2020 for chrissake--and there's not that much deep red territory around to sink fairly Democratic precincts in outer Wake safely or neatly.

[Sol]

This is the least offensive NC map that creates safe Pub seats outside of 3 Dem vote sinks that with the constraints of my failing abilities that I was able to concoct.



It requires a chop of Goldsboro to make it “work.”



Even though I got up a 5 am today (Dan and Roby were still asleep on the throne bed when I returned, but I digress) to drive 20 minutes into the hinterlands of the Taconic Hills to swim 20 laps at a high school pool (I have to exercise or die, and I not quite ready for the latter and the pool heater was on the fritz, so the water was quite frigid – pro tip, just dive in and for about 10 seconds pretend your fingernails are being pulled out without anesthetic, but this too will pass), I still feel like I need a shower now.  (Now you know why I will never do a ask Torie anything thread – you know far more than you ever wanted to know about the mouthy, opinionated geezer.)

https://davesredistricting.org/join/08cda99f-f5b1-452f-9627-69567267b957

This strikes me as being pretty similar to what Republicans will probably actually draw, with maybe a little more ugliness to make NC-01 a bit more R. It looks a lot like the proposed maps that got shot down, in fact.

One thing that doesn't matter as much in terms of partisan numbers but which will almost certainly affect the shape of the final map is incumbent demands around Charlotte. Richard Hudson is from Concord, but was displaced eastward by the court, but he may want something like his old seat back. I could see Republicans trading territory between 5 and 14 on your map so that both stretch between suburban Charlotte and Greensboro.

[Sol]

If the Republicans are bold enough to do a mid decade gerrymander, I wonder who would likely win the primaries where Democrat incumbents get shoved together? Presumably Jeff Jackson and Alma Adams in a Charlotte district, and Wiley Nickel and Deborah Ross in a Raleigh one.

Assuming Stein runs for Governor, Jackson would likely just go for AG. Ross should be pretty favored for the Raleigh seat.

Jackson is wise enough to know that he probably doesn't have a shot against Adams. I'm not sure though if Jackson wouldn't just run for Governor though.

I assume Ross would also have the strong advantage against Nickel.

[Sol]

This is what I think will happen:

Congressional: Likely 3-1-10, with the swing seat being a predecessor to the current NC-01 the GOP counts of continuing to shift right. Map is likely similar to the one that was originally overturned, but makes some minor changes now that there's different sets of incumbents and we've seen another cycle of political shifts.

State Sen: Honestly, it's not hard to lock the GOP into a supermajority without doing anything too absurd; the GOP already won a supermajority in 2022 with just a slightly R favorable year. I expect a map similar to the current one that just makes some optimizations so in your average year, the GOP gets to about 32 seats, and basically locks in a supermajority. I don't expect them to be super aggressive with cracking up suburbs of Charlotte and Raliegh, especially given the 2022 results; I think most emphasis will be on the black-belt and more mid-sized cities like Fayetteville, Greensboro, and Wilmington.

State House: This is honestly more difficult to *lock-in* a GOP supermajority, but you can do it so the GOP should be favored in a normal cycle. Again, I expect the biggest point of contention to be the black-belt seats and seats around smaller D-leaning communities. Especially on the state House level, I doubt we'll see GOP aggressively try to bacon-strip out suburbs, but def try to shore up incumbents (rmbr County-splitting rrule is still in place too, so it's literally impossible to squeeze much out of Mecklenburg and Wake Counties).

This seems right to me, though there's some speculation that they might try and overturn the county splitting rules with the newly favorable court.

[Sol]

Since I'm a masochist, I've been playing around with a maximalist NCGOP gerrymander.

The landscape for NC redistricting post-Allen v. Milligan is interesting -- Republicans have pretty much obliterated most previous constraints on their gerrymandering, except now they can't get rid of NC-01 like they wanted. I figured they might go with a map which shores up NC-01 instead.

link



It's 10-3-1, with NC-06 as a narrow Trump district, functionally Lean R.

You could probably tighten this up more, especially with 14.

[Sol]

Don't think the court would look too fondly on cutting the number of seats with significant black populations from 3 to 2 with the elimination of the Durham seat, given that 3 is the proportional number for the state's demographics.

NC-04 is majority white, and less than 30% Black.

[Sol]

Since I'm a masochist, I've been playing around with a maximalist NCGOP gerrymander.

The landscape for NC redistricting post-Allen v. Milligan is interesting -- Republicans have pretty much obliterated most previous constraints on their gerrymandering, except now they can't get rid of NC-01 like they wanted. I figured they might go with a map which shores up NC-01 instead.

link



It's 10-3-1, with NC-06 as a narrow Trump district, functionally Lean R.

You could probably tighten this up more, especially with 14.

That south Wake seat is a little too close for comfort for Republicans. They’d probably pull it out into more rural areas like going deeper into Wayne County.

Agreed, though I didn't shore it up because it'd likely cause a domino effect that would make the map uglier and I wanted to draw something clean but fairly insidious since that's been the GOP's M.O. in NC since the 2016 map.

[Sol]

Somebody or several bodies needs to read the Allen v. Milligan decision with more care, assuming they have read it at all.

Here is the cleanest map I can draw that I had the skill to draw that turns NC-01 into a Gingles CD. It was tough going.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe568442-204c-48a4-be07-54e2969d0fff

Can we stop with the splitting of Guilford and Forsyth counties?  I understand that they don’t need to be put in the same district, but at least keep them whole.  Something like the 2016 map is fine in this area, but just keep Guilford whole this time.

If you want to do an effective Republican gerrymander splitting Guilford is basically mandatory.

[Sol]

Somebody or several bodies needs to read the Allen v. Milligan decision with more care, assuming they have read it at all.

Here is the cleanest map I can draw that I had the skill to draw that turns NC-01 into a Gingles CD. It was tough going.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe568442-204c-48a4-be07-54e2969d0fff

Can we stop with the splitting of Guilford and Forsyth counties?  I understand that they don’t need to be put in the same district, but at least keep them whole.  Something like the 2016 map is fine in this area, but just keep Guilford whole this time.

That is what a Pubmander requires alas. There is no escape. Guilford needs to be split to draw a Gingles CD as well.

It's my understanding that under Cooper v. Harris NC-01 doesn't need to be over 50% BVAP to be performing, and in fact said iteration of the district was ruled to be a violation of the VRA by everyone on the court, including the conservatives.

In fact, if you want to draw a Republican gerrymander, giving NC-01 white liberals in Durham is way more useful than dipping into Greensboro, because the eastern half of the state is much less Republican, making it harder to pack Democrats. Meanwhile it's pretty easy to sink the Triad with hyper-Republican communities in the Piedmont and Foothills.

[Sol]

Somebody or several bodies needs to read the Allen v. Milligan decision with more care, assuming they have read it at all.

Here is the cleanest map I can draw that I had the skill to draw that turns NC-01 into a Gingles CD. It was tough going.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe568442-204c-48a4-be07-54e2969d0fff

Can we stop with the splitting of Guilford and Forsyth counties?  I understand that they don’t need to be put in the same district, but at least keep them whole.  Something like the 2016 map is fine in this area, but just keep Guilford whole this time.

That is what a Pubmander requires alas. There is no escape. Guilford needs to be split to draw a Gingles CD as well.

It's my understanding that under Cooper v. Harris NC-01 doesn't need to be over 50% BVAP to be performing, and in fact said iteration of the district was ruled to be a violation of the VRA by everyone on the court, including the conservatives.

In fact, if you want to draw a Republican gerrymander, giving NC-01 white liberals in Durham is way more useful than dipping into Greensboro, because the eastern half of the state is much less Republican, making it harder to pack Democrats. Meanwhile it's pretty easy to sink the Triad with hyper-Republican communities in the Piedmont and Foothills.

You need the 50% number as one prong to trigger Gingles as you well know. if you can't draw it on a "compact" basis, then the VRA does not apply. The Pubs "should" just draw the Pubmander below, and if someone says VRA, say hey, court draw your Gingles CD (that horrible looking thing above), and we will ask Roberts and Kavanaugh to take a look at it.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/53a2e5ca-e6e9-44a2-93b8-cee2b10e80d1



The most aesthetic looking NC-01 will fall into the Pub’s lap in due course, maybe even in 2024.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that given Personhuballah v. Alcorn as well as Cooper there's a certain amount of precedent that would suggest that NC-01 should not be a pack of Black voters, while dilution also remains questionable.

I suppose if you're really dreaming of a legal fight, you could do that, and there's chance of winning, but that gets into the realpolitik of it as well. The 4th circuit is not likely to be sympathetic to the NC Republicans (unless they get favorable judges) and the Supreme Court may side with them but may just as easily punt as they have before.

Speaking to the NC political context, this is basically the best time to be an NC GOP redistricter in a while. The State Supreme Court is guaranteed to rubberstamp anything the NC Legislature draws, no matter how egregious, and in federal court partisan gerrymandering has been ruled non-justiciable. Racial gerrymandering is basically the only avenue to a plausible court challenge. If I'm an NC Republican, I'm not gambling my total control on flipping the first, especially when you can gerrymander an 11-3 or 10-3-1 map with "non-justiciable" ugliness.

[Sol]

They have to do it before filing, so sometime in the next few months.

[Sol]

I doubt they'll do it but it's not that hard to make a strong 12-2 map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/a2ff7f34-4ff6-4295-855d-9def57f9ce87

I think Republicans would wisely be too scared to only concede one Democratic seat in the Triangle, but I suspect the rest of the map will look similar to this, with possible variation in NC-01.