North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

I don't think you are fairly representing my position. Also, I don't think you understand it much either.
6 Dem, 6 Rep, 2 more or less even, is perfectly fair. 6 Dem, 7 Rep, 1 even, is sufficiently fair. Why, 5 Dem, 6 Rep, and 3 more or less even, is fair, given the standings of the two parties in question.
Problem is, Dems can't rely on NC-11 and can't rely on SE NC as much as they used to, so if you want actual proportionality, it's clearly better than not at this point to split Raleigh and increase the Dem seat count by 1.
I'm not against having competitive seats. I'm against one party having a substantially larger number of uncompetitive seats leaning towards it in such a close state such as NC. And having Raleigh whole wastes Dem votes and stands in the way of fixing this.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

I don't think you are fairly representing my position. Also, I don't think you understand it much either.

I understand that you are an expert at subtle gerrymandering, and after a conversation with Adam years back, I take all your maps as suspect.

6 Dem, 6 Rep, 2 more or less even, is perfectly fair.

Nope

6 Dem, 7 Rep, 1 even, is sufficiently fair.

Nope

Why, 5 Dem, 6 Rep, and 3 more or less even, is fair, given the standings of the two parties in question.

Better, but still not there.

Problem is, Dems can't rely on NC-11 and can't rely on SE NC as much as they used to, so if you want actual proportionality, it's clearly better than not at this point to split Raleigh and increase the Dem seat count by 1.

Don't give me that crap, their are a plenty of Democrats who could win those seats on LFromNJs map. Quit nominating sleezeball adulterers and socialists and you wouldn't have as many problems. Of course that is the whole point in having more competitive seats, you actually have to not suck to win them. In that scenario, I would say that is truly fair. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I understand that you are an expert at subtle gerrymandering, and after a conversation with Adam years back, I take all your maps as suspect.

I'm an expert at clean gerrymandering, yes. And almost all my maps, gerrymander or not, look clean and try to keep counties whole and districts compact.
If you look at DRA's metrics of proportionality though, you'll notice that my maps here have disproportionality metrics favoring the GOP, even *if* I split Raleigh. Imagine how it would be if I didn't split it!
It would seem to me that DRA exonerates me from claims from you or anyone else I'm trying to create a Dem leaning map overall.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

from DRA, data from my second-to-last map posted in this thread:

Bias Measures
These are some prominent measures of partisan bias.

Metric Description
Seats bias 2.37% Half the difference in seats at 50% vote share
Votes bias 0.78% The excess votes required for half the seats
Declination 2.89° A geometric measure of packing & cracking
Global symmetry 1.01% The overall symmetry of the seats-votes curve
Gamma 2.45% The fair difference in seats at the statewide vote share
Efficiency gap 3.58% The relative two-party difference in wasted votes
Partisan bias 2.16% The difference in seats between the statewide vote share and the symmetrical counterfactual share
Proportional 5.05% The simple deviation from proportionality using fractional seat shares
Mean–median 1.52% The average vote share across all districts minus the median vote share
Turnout bias 0.06% The difference between the statewide vote share and the average district share
Lopsided outcomes -0.83% The relative two-party difference in excess vote shares

By convention, positive values of bias metrics favor Republicans & negative values favor Democrats.

If you assign seats to either party on basis of PVI, then Ds end up with 6 out of 14. For them to get 7 in this exactly R+3 state, they need to win the R+2.61 seat that has Fayetteville. For them to win an actual majority rather than tie, they have to take NC-11 (R+8.04), NC-07 (R+6.53), NC-09 (R+9.15), or NC-05 (R+9.96). Long-run, the 9th looks most promising but no matter what happens, Dems aren't winning that 8th seat reliably unless they have perhaps a 7%-8% advantage statewide or the 9th trends D enough.

[Tekken_Guy]

Would this type of map ever get approved in NC? Its a 9R - 5D map

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::cf4d4eb1-0b6a-4d93-a24e-340dc8141612

No because you double bunked Bishop and Hudson. Bishop lives somewhere in south Charlotte while Hudson is from Cabbarus.

If one of them runs for Senate, they'll make an exception like they did with Holly Grange.

[Former President tack50]

I think people should just separate "partisan fairness" from "cleanly fairness" to call them in some way.

Yes, on paper, all other things being equal, a fair map of NC should be 7R-6D-1S or something close or equivalent. However, like in many other states, to get to those partisan numbers you need to do a gerrymander. The reason is simple, Democrats are concentrated in cities, while Republicans are much more spread out.

Therefore if you draw clean and fair districts you end up with just a handful of Democratic districts based around the main metropolitan areas of the state; that vote something like 70-30D; while the rest of the state gets Republican districts that vote something around 58R-42D.

There is also the VRA districts issue; though I personally think that its impact is neutral in the grand scheme of things, there are some states where Republicans are the ones that profit and some where Democrats are the ones that profit from it. Though I think in NC's particular case the VRA's impact is neutral/not very important.

There is not a particularly right or wrong way to draw districts; I am of the opinion that a gerrymander to increase competitiveness or to make results closer to the state average can be acceptable depending on circumstances.

But if you draw "natural" and "clean" districts, without splitting metropolitan areas, in most states you will end up with R tilting maps

[Former President tack50]

Anyways because an image is better, here is my attempt at a fair map. Surprisingly it is quite partisanly proportional, being 7R-5D-2S (functionally equivalent to 8-6). And 1 of the R districts are not 100% safe in fact. Then again one of the swing districts is a hard lift for Dems.



NC-01: Clinton+12, D+5 (45% black)
NC-02: Clinton+12, D+7
NC-03: Trump+29, R+14
NC-04: Clinton+33, D+13
NC-05: Trump+34, R+17
NC-06: Trump+0, R+2
NC-07: Trump+9, R+4
NC-08: Clinton+23, D+10
NC-09: Trump+18, R+12
NC-10: Trump+44, R+22
NC-11: Trump+15, R+8
NC-12: Clinton+46, D+22 (43% black)
NC-13: Trump+33, R+18
NC-14: Trump+7, R+4

https://davesredistricting.org/join/2c71aaf6-40b1-4630-8cb7-03fde0e81f7b

And because I think if you draw a fair map, it is important to say the "COI" involved, so here is my attempt at identifying the COI involved:

NC-01: Mandatory rural northwest black district
NC-02: Raleigh
NC-03: Eastern NC (admittedly a bit of a leftovers district but the VRA forces an ugly district here instead of a much cleaner north-south one)
NC-04: Durham & Cary
NC-05: Western Charlotte Suburbs/exurbs
NC-06: Winston-Salem
NC-07: Wilmington / Southeast NC
NC-08: Greensboro
NC-09: Eastern Charlotte Suburbs/exurbs
NC-10: Northwest rural NC
NC-11: "Panhandle" / Asheville area
NC-12: Charlotte (mandatory VRA district?)
NC-13: Rural central NC
NC-14: Fayetteville & Goldsboro

The part I like the least about my map is the Greensboro and Winston-Salem districts, but I think those are often going to be awkward, or have a cascade effect on the rest of the map.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

Agreed, from a fairness standpoint.  I think it might be the first one where Cawthorn’s seat isn’t an a R gerrymander.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

I think it might be the first one where Cawthorn’s seat isn’t an a R gerrymander.

Actually, I would argue running the 11th up to Boone is a subtle but real localized competitive-geared gerrymander or at least has the looks of one, while the whole-county configuration you see on the maps I posted is more of a non-partisan map kind of arrangement that has more compactness and is the vein of the shapes the district had from the 80s till 2013.

[lfromnj]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

Agreed, from a fairness standpoint.  I think it might be the first one where Cawthorn’s seat isn’t an a R gerrymander.

Uh what?

There are plenty of other districts that are fair in Western NC this one has the advantage of making the seat back to slightly swingy. The OLD NC 11th didn't have Wautauga either in 2002.

[lfromnj]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

I think it might be the first one where Cawthorn’s seat isn’t an a R gerrymander.

Actually, I would argue running the 11th up to Boone is a subtle but real gerrymander or at least has the looks of one, while the whole-county configuration you see on the maps I posted is more of a non-partisan map kind of arrangement that has more compactness is in the vein of the shapes the district had from the 80s till 2013.

Its a touch of a very light D gerrymander but for partisan fairness decisions much less worse than drawing Johnston with Raleigh. Drawing upto Boone also does go along with the Blue Ridge Mountain ranges so I consider it acceptable. After drawing my fully non partisan map I made a few changes that made the map "fair" which included the Boone Arm.

5 Safe D  with 1 Lean R and 1 Lean R  trending oppositely means 6 D seats and then 2 Likely R is worth about half a D seat.




source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_North_Carolina

As you can see in the county map the mountain range only continues in the Boone Arm .

[Yellowhammer]

I don't care if its 4 or 5, I want a d leaning map lol
NC dems should appeal the Republicans map no matter what they draw

True. Anything less than 6 safe dem districts is completely unacceptable

I think we need to get it back down to 3, maybe 4.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I don't care if its 4 or 5, I want a d leaning map lol
NC dems should appeal the Republicans map no matter what they draw

True. Anything less than 6 safe dem districts is completely unacceptable

I think we need to get it back down to 3, maybe 4.

Is it even possible to make a feasible, long-lasting 10R-4D in NC? For the 2020s, anyway...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

Best map I have seen all day.

I think it might be the first one where Cawthorn’s seat isn’t an a R gerrymander.

Actually, I would argue running the 11th up to Boone is a subtle but real gerrymander or at least has the looks of one, while the whole-county configuration you see on the maps I posted is more of a non-partisan map kind of arrangement that has more compactness is in the vein of the shapes the district had from the 80s till 2013.

Its a touch of a very light D gerrymander but for partisan fairness decisions much less worse than drawing Johnston with Raleigh. Drawing upto Boone also does go along with the Blue Ridge Mountain ranges so I consider it acceptable. After drawing my fully non partisan map I made a few changes that made the map "fair" which included the Boone Arm.

5 Safe D  with 1 Lean R and 1 Lean R  trending oppositely means 6 D seats and then 2 Likely R is worth about half a D seat.




source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_North_Carolina

As you can see in the county map the mountain range only continues in the Boone Arm .

It hit me that this was actually quite illuminating into how you judge seat totals and draw maps geared towards proportionality criteria vs how I do it.
You seem to count a Likely R seat as 0.25 of a seat for Dems, and a tossup as half a seat for either party, and seem to prioritize keeping municipalities whole over direct proportionality. That's not a mechanism I ever thought of.
While the focus for my thought process is: Compactness usually first, county split reduction usually in a  close second, with exact proportionality mattering to some degree, depending on how competitive and how elastic the state is overall. (Since I judge NC to be both quite competitive and inelastic I favor stricter measures to get proportionality)
"localized competitive-geared gerrymander" in plain English means "in this local area you drew the lines intentionally, aka, gerrymandered them, to create a more competitive district". No pejorative intent for use of the term 'gerrymander' in there, btw.

[lfromnj]

I mean it was an alternative option that I still found 100% acceptable and it creates a nice compact 10th district in return.



Anyway 11-3 NC, 2 shakiest seats are a Wake seat and Bishop's. Honestly Bishop's seat is a masterpiece because any trend in Charlotte will probably be counteracted by the sandhills trend leaving it as a permanently Likely R seat.

Used Hudson who lives in Cabarrus to take high point so I could use Randolph to drown out Fayetville.

Edit:shored up the Wake seat by giving it Franklin and taking out Wilson.


Don't really see a point going for 10-4, you can't create 2 Charlotte sinks really as 1 is clearly enough, You might as well drown out the Piedmont Triad using the 70% R counties surrounding them so that just leaves you the Black +Durham seat and the Chapelhill with Raleigh

The trick with any NC gerrymander is to use the counter trend areas wisely . About half the wake seat is just medium town deep southern areas which aren't really going to move left. The Triad might be moving left but the rest of the area isn't etc.

The old NC map 2011 to 2016 despite all its ugliness actually did focus a touch on suburban communities  so it included a suburban Raleigh and suburban Charlotte seat that would have certainly flipped in 2018.

[Sol]

Anyways because an image is better, here is my attempt at a fair map. Surprisingly it is quite partisanly proportional, being 7R-5D-2S (functionally equivalent to 8-6). And 1 of the R districts are not 100% safe in fact. Then again one of the swing districts is a hard lift for Dems.



NC-01: Clinton+12, D+5 (45% black)
NC-02: Clinton+12, D+7
NC-03: Trump+29, R+14
NC-04: Clinton+33, D+13
NC-05: Trump+34, R+17
NC-06: Trump+0, R+2
NC-07: Trump+9, R+4
NC-08: Clinton+23, D+10
NC-09: Trump+18, R+12
NC-10: Trump+44, R+22
NC-11: Trump+15, R+8
NC-12: Clinton+46, D+22 (43% black)
NC-13: Trump+33, R+18
NC-14: Trump+7, R+4

https://davesredistricting.org/join/2c71aaf6-40b1-4630-8cb7-03fde0e81f7b

And because I think if you draw a fair map, it is important to say the "COI" involved, so here is my attempt at identifying the COI involved:

NC-01: Mandatory rural northwest black district
NC-02: Raleigh
NC-03: Eastern NC (admittedly a bit of a leftovers district but the VRA forces an ugly district here instead of a much cleaner north-south one)
NC-04: Durham & Cary
NC-05: Western Charlotte Suburbs/exurbs
NC-06: Winston-Salem
NC-07: Wilmington / Southeast NC
NC-08: Greensboro
NC-09: Eastern Charlotte Suburbs/exurbs
NC-10: Northwest rural NC
NC-11: "Panhandle" / Asheville area
NC-12: Charlotte (mandatory VRA district?)
NC-13: Rural central NC
NC-14: Fayetteville & Goldsboro

The part I like the least about my map is the Greensboro and Winston-Salem districts, but I think those are often going to be awkward, or have a cascade effect on the rest of the map.

I agree with your ideals, but I don't love this map--Greensboro and Chapel Hill have very little in common. IMO the best way to handle the Triad is to draw one urban district with Winston-Salem and Greensboro--splitting the two isn't terrible, but putting the Greensboro suburbs and exurbs in with Winston-Salem doesn't really fit with that intent. Plus of course the slice of the Triangle in with Greensboro doesn't make a lot of sense.

The big trick with NC IMO is how you draw NC-01. If you put it too far east, it forces NC-03 to contort and steal territory from NC-07, which forces an awkward split of Fayetteville from its hinterlands.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

looks like Newby is up 230 now on the NCSBOE website.

[lfromnj]

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

looks like Newby is up 230 now on the NCSBOE website.

Yeah there was an error in Washington county where they doubled the votes for both for absentee votes IIRC  which gave Beasley 250 more votes.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

looks like Newby is up 230 now on the NCSBOE website.

Yeah there was an error in Washington county where they doubled the votes for both for absentee votes IIRC  which gave Beasley 250 more votes.

So this doesn't even include Robeson provisionals yet?

[lfromnj]

Basically the NC GOP Also flipped the lower court and Newby who is the slight favorite for Chief Justice would be in charge of the redistricting panel. The NC GOP can probably keep any map they pass tied up in appeals for a year I guess?11-3 will not happen though as long as Ds still have the majority.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What's the restrictions on mid decade redistricting if any?

[lfromnj]

What's the restrictions on mid decade redistricting if any?

Tbh not sure, if they draw a 10-4 in the beginning maybe they won't take the move of mid decade redistricting for 1 congressional seat that slightly weakens others. If there aren't any restrictions but the D court imposes some 6D map or something I would expect them to do it.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

And I'll say again

Hr1 needs to be passed. I don't care if Biden has to sign an executive order, that way no one will gerrymander. This is insanity and has to stop.  The legislatures have shown they are not capable of drawing fair districts. I dont like when dems do it either, I know you have to fight fire with fire but it needs to stop nationwide.