North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[ProgressiveModerate]

Updated map

[Sol]

I gotta say, some of these maps have kind of an odd approach to Charlotte. If you're trying to draw for community of interest, imo you really should draw a district that's very decisively central Charlotte and then two clearly suburban districts. The obvious place to remove people from Mecklenburg is the Northern portion (which is more similar to the wealthy communities in southern Iredell and Eastern Lincoln/Catawba), Mint Hill/Matthews, and South Charlotte, in that order.  Unlike the eastern part of the state, it's possible to draw greater Charlotte in a pretty good way because population lays out well for it.

Putting places like Concord in with downtown Charlotte, or drawing an odd suburban donut, doesn't make sense. Just because the current map does it doesn't mean it's ok!

IMO this is my preferred configuration of metro Charlotte--not in the specific lines, but the general plan of one central district (12), one eastern suburban district with southern Meck burbs (9) and one western district with Gastonia and the rich communities along Lake Norman (10). But if you're squeamish about splitting Mecklenburg three times you can do something decent which is similarly structured.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I gotta say, some of these maps have kind of an odd approach to Charlotte. If you're trying to draw for community of interest, imo you really should draw a district that's very decisively central Charlotte and then two clearly suburban districts. The obvious place to remove people from Mecklenburg is the Northern portion (which is more similar to the wealthy communities in southern Iredell and Eastern Lincoln/Catawba), Mint Hill/Matthews, and South Charlotte, in that order.  Unlike the eastern part of the state, it's possible to draw greater Charlotte in a pretty good way because population lays out well for it.

Putting places like Concord in with downtown Charlotte, or drawing an odd suburban donut, doesn't make sense. Just because the current map does it doesn't mean it's ok!

IMO this is my preferred configuration of metro Charlotte--not in the specific lines, but the general plan of one central district (12), one eastern suburban district with southern Meck burbs (9) and one western district with Gastonia and the rich communities along Lake Norman (10). But if you're squeamish about splitting Mecklenburg three times you can do something decent which is similarly structured.

I was initially trying to do this sort of config as well but I struggled to fit it into the overall map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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

[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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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?

[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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

I've now redone the lines, rotating territory between 4, 5, and 6. Winston-Salem is practically whole in the 6th now.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I gotta say, some of these maps have kind of an odd approach to Charlotte. If you're trying to draw for community of interest, imo you really should draw a district that's very decisively central Charlotte and then two clearly suburban districts. The obvious place to remove people from Mecklenburg is the Northern portion (which is more similar to the wealthy communities in southern Iredell and Eastern Lincoln/Catawba), Mint Hill/Matthews, and South Charlotte, in that order.  Unlike the eastern part of the state, it's possible to draw greater Charlotte in a pretty good way because population lays out well for it.

Putting places like Concord in with downtown Charlotte, or drawing an odd suburban donut, doesn't make sense. Just because the current map does it doesn't mean it's ok!

IMO this is my preferred configuration of metro Charlotte--not in the specific lines, but the general plan of one central district (12), one eastern suburban district with southern Meck burbs (9) and one western district with Gastonia and the rich communities along Lake Norman (10). But if you're squeamish about splitting Mecklenburg three times you can do something decent which is similarly structured.

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

[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?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

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?

[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.

[ProgressiveModerate]

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?

Overall I think this map is pretty decent. My gripes are mostly tiny things that could relatively easily be resolved such as NC-01 taking in a random little piece of Wake and possibly some cleaning up with NC-06.

The only big gripe with this map is it feels very urban-centric, as in you drew the urban seats first like NC-06 and NC-12 and then tried to draw other seats around it. Districts 3 and 13 feel a bit like leftovers.

My second gripe would be the partisan imbalance. While I tend to not be one for forcing partisan fair maps when geogrpahy doesn't allow, NC allows for a relatively fair partisan breakdown while still abiding by good redistricting principles, this seems to make several R favorable decisions.

My guess from partisanship would be:

4 Safe D: 2, 4, 6, and 12

1 Lean D: 1

1 Tossup: 8

1 Lean R: 13

3 Likely R: 9, 11, 14

4 Safe R: 3, 5, 7, 10

Again not a huge imbalance but def more R favorable.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Updated again; pretty minor changes but tried to clean up a bit.

Does anyone else hate how large the precincts are in Harnett and Johnston Counties? Anyone know why that is?

[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.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Updated again; pretty minor changes but tried to clean up a bit.

Does anyone else hate how large the precincts are in Harnett and Johnston Counties? Anyone know why that is?

If you hate large precincts try DeKalb county alabama

[ProgressiveModerate]

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).

[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?

[ProgressiveModerate]

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?

Good question. On my map I was also aiming for general compactness, and I didn't want to do that "C" chaped suburban district people sometimes do that takes in parts of Union, Cabarrus, and whiter parts of Mecklenburg. Cabarrus actually has a notable and growing black population, so combinging northern Mecklenburg with Cabarrus helps to boost the BVAP for 12. 14 basically takes in the whitest Charlotte suburbs, and then 10 takes in Charlotte "exurbs" or whatever you want to call them.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's an even more maximal NC gerrymander which would be possible if SCOTUS almost fully guts the VRA. This map only has 2 Dem sinks: Charlotte and Raliegh. District 1 is relatively competative Biden + 7 seat which a mixed bag of trends. 8 (the Fayetteville seat) is only Trump + 5 but shifting right and Trump + 5 should hold in most years anyways. All the other seats are over Trump + 10.

It's messy, but not terrible considering what it accomplishes. In order to do a single Triangle pack, 4 has to be shaped funny and I think not having a narrow Biden district is basically impossible without risking something else.

I think the GOP will ultimately fully cede 2 Triangle seats when they get to gerrymander, the bigger question is what they do with NC-01 and NC-06 (or their equivalents).

[ProgressiveModerate]

My NC Gerrymander if SCOTUS mostly/fully guts the VRA (I modified the 2021 map originally passed to be a bit more compact and target NC-1 further):



Only 13 county splits, 66 compactness score on DRA, 0 on proportionality.

10 seats are at least Trump +10 (with the Charlotte seats being more), and NC-1 is Trump +6.7, trending right, and voted for Tillis and Forest.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4f91ce52-89c5-461a-b6ac-484f17bbf381

Omg I saw a map very very similar to this on the Atlas Discord.

I think they'll either do a map like this or just reinstate the overturned map. A lot of it will depend upon how Dems perform in the black belt in 2022; if their support further erodes, they'll prolly try to do something like you suggest whereas if Dems see a rebound or the GOP has an underwhelming performance in NC generally, they may be a bit more tame/cautious.

One challenge will be Greensboro if SCOTUS says you can't crack a clear contiguous minority community down the middle as some have suggested they might do with Merril v Milligan, instead option for a Jefferson County based black opportunity seat.

[Coastal Elitist]

They should go all out on a gerrymander. It's a joke that the "fair map" the court made splits the black community of charlotte. Really shows that they don't care about the VRA unless it benefits them.

[ProgressiveModerate]

They should go all out on a gerrymander. It's a joke that the "fair map" the court made splits the black community of charlotte. Really shows that they don't care about the VRA unless it benefits them.

Actually the court map's split of Charlotte is ok imo since Carrabus actually has a decent growing black population; no matter what it's pretty much impossible to consolidate all of Charlotte's black population into a single district.

My bigger problem with the court map is the split of Raliegh, especially the black population. Why not just put all of Raleigh in NC-02 and much whiter Cary into NC-13?

The split of Fayetteville, the Sandhills, and Winston-Salem are also bad.

And district 9 especially just doesn't make any coherent sense.

To me, it seems like what happened is the 3 judge panel just spent an hour playing around on DRA until they got something that was "clean" and achieved partisan balance. They clearly did not have a great understanding of the state's geography as to be expected. They should have gotten a special master, but they would've had to really fastrack that process.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's my "clean up" of the court map. Still not great but nota  terrible map either.

[Torie]

It would be nice to depict the county lines on maps. Absent them, I at least cannot reasonably appraise a map.