North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Oryxslayer]

And here's mine of course, since I guess this might as well be our NC2020 redistricting thread. I didn't really care who or where incumbents lived when I drew this, and frankly, I still don't.

The general theme of 13-district NC is either the 7th or the 3rd has to bite some sort of bullet: there is too much pop on the coasts for just 1 seat, but there is too little easily reachable thanks to the minority seats. It's even harder when you consider the most GOP counties in the state by percentage are south of Hampton roads and 'want' to be connected to the AA 1st geographically.

[Oryxslayer]

Johnston really should not be in a district with Wilmington.

Everything there is Raleigh centric.

Johnston is in a district with Wilmington in the current map.

No kidding!

Its not like it was the first thing that started my war with the NC GOP, oh wait, it was!

Thankfully, the 13-district problem of eastern north carolinas population is solved when the 14th gets added in 2020. There's enough in the east for a Wilmington GOP seat and a north coast one, with only minor demands from booming Raleigh and her suburbs.

[Oryxslayer]

Holding (NC-2) and Walker (NC-6) are both probably shivering over this redistricting, considering their seats are easily the most vulnerable to flipping to the Democrats as a result.

Holding is holding off (heh) seriously fundraising because he expects to be DOA.

Chatham really belongs in a Research Triangle District and not with Randolph as they are radically different places now.

I think we all agree, except that the research triangle in general has to give up pop to other seats because it's so large but not large enough. If it wasn't Chatham, it would be somewhere else. When 2020 comes along and the triangle gets seat 14, it has to be included because the triangle is now demanding Pop from other regions, rather than having to give up pop to others.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1191806197294350336

Don't like the Greensboro/Winston-Salem and Fayetteville regions one bit. On the other hand, that 11th seems like it was drawn by a Democrat looking for a potential pickup.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1192169430702276610

Redistricting Livestream. At this moment, I'm seeing a Johnston to Wilmington seat so...yikes.

[Oryxslayer]

Here's where the map stands right now at the end of the day. Of course  work will still continue but...this map is somehow worse then the previous preliminary one!

- Cracked Sandhills
- Separated Greensboro/Winston-Salem
- Raleigh seat that goes beyond Wake
- Parallel central districts
- First missing Greenville (they want to protect the  incumbent)
- No Boone for the 11th
- Johnson to Wilmington was clearly an option but it was dropped to carve up the sandhill region
- Seats are renumbered going E -> W, but this 4 and 7...

According to Stephan Wolfe, the GOP did something similar to that NC state senator from last time and whispered for half an hour while they carved up that neat sandhill seat you posted Nyvin.

If this style of map ends up as the final product, I suspect we will get the courts or special masters involved. The GOP employed their traditional "support AA caucus, lessen overall dem power" when drawing the state legislative maps. This plus their appeasement of all the urban legislatures with unpacked seats meant they could get away with maps that locked in the barest of majorities. This won't happen for the congressional map. In every possible way, the map posted at the end of today discriminates against AA Dem voters.

[Oryxslayer]

👏 None 👏 Are 👏 Good 👏 Maps 👏

[Oryxslayer]

NC senate Dems map. They keep the Stupid 7th, the 6th and the 4th could probably do with an internal reshuffle, Greensboro/W-S of course, and I personally would have cut Wayne to boost NC01's AAVAP.

[Oryxslayer]

It seems like everyone wants to keep Greensboro and Winston-Salem separate for whatever reason, so why not do the concise 3 county Guilford-Alamance-Rockingham district?

That would be great on it's own, but then what do you do with Caswell and Person?

I agree I really like that district though.  Alamance fits with Guilford way better than Randolph does.

The interest in the parties (both Republican and Democrat) isn't there to combine Forsyth and Guilford.   They don't want the Metros to compete against each other for the district.

Well, the parties may not have the will, but the courts and their masters might, and I have to say that if what we currently got is similar to what ends up passing, they will be 100% making some edits. Whats going on in the east of the state in every map is just inviting them to say 'nope, you tired and failed.'

[Oryxslayer]

First time I've seen it on the live feed,  apparently it is being considered!

I suspect the reason why it never showed up on the previous maps was less because of metro pop density and instead because Ted Budd lives right on the border. Guess whoever is at the desk is throwing him away.

[Oryxslayer]

Okay, I think I somehow found the perfect map for NC. There is still going to be problems, but I think this is the least worst. The bullet that NC-03 bites in this scenario is far less deadly than anything currently being drawn for the west by those in Raleigh, and it improves on my map upthread. It also takes  into consideration the wishes of various NC residents I have seen here and on twitter.



7-6 R/D, but the Sandhills seat is less than safe and the Ashville seat is weird.

Perks of the map:
- There's a Sandhills Seat.
- Johnston county is in the 'catch all' 3rd rather than in a seat with a base.
- Chatham cut into the parts more  congruent with each neighbor.
- Greensboro/W-S/High Point seat
- Ashville + Boone
- Iredell cut N/S, separating the suburbs to be paired with the  other Charlotte suburban 10th.
- Raleigh is wholly in the 4th,it only loses the northern suburbs, wake forest, and western AA communities outside the city.

Now the 7th/3rd border may not be your cup of tea, I get that Duplin sticks out. So here's a alternative version that adds a cut.

[Oryxslayer]

Any map that puts two incumbents into the same districts will not happen. That is one of the rules they have.

Well Holding was districted into Ellmer's district and defeated her in a primary (this is my district, NC-02).

The only other notable example I can think of is when state Republicans districted Kucinich and Kaptur into one district and Kaptur won.

It happens.

https://twitter.com/democracync/status/1191846143119917059?s=20

this list the rules and one of them are they are trying to not pair people.

I was unaware of this. My bad.

If theres going to be a reason the court intervenes then, this will end up being it. Too many incumbents lives near each other, facilitated by bad maps of course, and there is a giant dead zone  incumbent-wise in the sandhills and Wilmington. It's a natural occurrence during redistricting that incumbents get paired up and drawn away, which is why there are always an unusual number of retirements around redistricting. PA got lucky 2 years age and a third of their delegation had already announced retirement because of the  incoming wave, so this gave everyone some empty districts and leeway room to maneuver with.

[Oryxslayer]

Perks of the map:
- There's a Sandhills Seat.
- Johnston county is in the 'catch all' 3rd rather than in a seat with a base.
- Chatham cut into the parts more  congruent with each neighbor.
- Greensboro/W-S/High Point seat
- Ashville + Boone
- Iredell cut N/S, separating the suburbs to be paired with the  other Charlotte suburban 10th.
- Raleigh is wholly in the 4th,it only loses the northern suburbs, wake forest, and western AA communities outside the city.

Wrt: Chatham County, it's worth noting that Pittsboro is also pretty oriented towards the Triangle. Central Chatham County is very similar to northern Orange County; it's oriented towards Chapel Hill and is a bunch of hippie agricultural communities and new urbanist development. A reasonable cut of Chatham is a little further west.

Again I don't necessarily think a Boone-Asheville district is necessary. People in Northwestern North Carolina get Charlotte and Johnson City TV and drive to Winston-Salem for shopping; Asheville is in the mountains, which is a commonality, but getting to Asheville from Boone is nearly a two hour drive over twisty mountain roads. They do have a fair amount in common and I'm not against a Mountains district which includes the High County and Asheville but there are other communities of interest which I think are more important.

Like the Unifour, for example.

Quick Question:

Which do you think is better for Chatham, the version above or one like this:



If you haven't picked picked it up yet I tend to draw my district in groupings of counties, and ideally there is only limited cuts between said groups for pop - cuts for COI's are considered to be part of said group. In the map above, 8+10+13 are a group, 11+5+13+7+2 are a group, and 1+3+7+9 are  a group. 4 is nested  in Wake and not part of any group. So to get Chatham's cut pushed west we do a little 'circle motion' in the second grouping.

- Casewell goes into 5
- 5 drops some Guilford suburbs
- 13 picks up some of the northern dropped  suburbs, still retains all of Greensboro/W-S/High Point
- 7 takes the rest of the Guilford Suburbs
- 2 picks up central Chatham. The new cut's lines are decided purely by the pop within precincts, I would stick that bit near Alamance in 2 if I could.

[Oryxslayer]

Y’all think we will get a final map this week?

I think I remember reading they're planning for release on Thursday.

I can’t wait to see what my new district could be.

Probably won't end though. Unless they decide to double-bunk someone theres almost no way the SE/Sandhills are not going to get shafted. There's about 1.6 CD's worth of pop there, both Blue and Red, and no incumbents for miles. So, a master will be needed to fix that even if the rest of the map if passable.

[Oryxslayer]

Here's a version of my "standard" map that focuses on avoiding double-bunking incumbents. All incumbents except one are alone, which of course means the stupid 7th makes it's return. Bishop ends up paired with Hudson, because the SE/Sandhills shouldn't be stripped out just to satisfy the incumbents. This doesn't prevent Walker and Holding being DOA though.

Forgot to mention, this map requires four cut precincts to get everyone to equivalent pop ( my standard is <100 on DRA), but these cuts do not add any new county cuts - they are just a side effect of the large precinct size in a few counties. One is in Wake between 9/2, one in Chatham between 13/4, one in Granville between 1/4, and one in Wayne between 1/7.

[Oryxslayer]

Happened to wake up for a moment...anyway before I sleep again....

That map looks a lot like some of the ones here, actually a lot like my recent incumbent one if we ignore the block of 5/8/9/10/13. And people thought the Greensboro/W-S paired wasn't the  most logical. Now concerning the previous block, it's just a obvious bacon-stripping of the suburbs to  deny the sandhills a seat, keep incumbents satisfied, and prevent-double bunking. The stripping though is so obvious that I doubt the process ends here.

The stupid 7th makes it's return, though like I predicted in my incumbent map, such a seat was rather inevitable with the stipulation of no double bunking. Nobody is in the SE to get the Wilmington/Sandhills, so it ends up stripped.

There's also an amendment which avoids cutting Fayetteville. It also makes the fourth much better, a LOT like my versions.
https://twitter.com/RepDavidRLewis/status/1194800184762552321

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway, I'm back up, some other remarks.

I find it amazing that if the map returns to the courts and they have to make edits, it won't really be because of partisanship, it will because of incumbents. All the Dem seats are good in theory, it's the fact that every GOP seat except the distant 3/11 are strips thanks to incumbent homes. The sad thing is that like in my incumbent map, all you had to do is bus uber-freshman Bishop as well as Holding and Walker and you could get it good. There's enough GOP votes in the SE to get compact seats that should elect the GOP without Bacon stripping the sandhills that badly. You just know that if Dems won the 9ths special instead of Reps than the stupid provision wouldn't have been accepted.

Also a minor point is how Wayne remains whole in every map. The first is actually closeish to the margins because it has Nash, Franklin, and Perquimans uncut on the main map. Cutting Wayne would go a long way to fixing the seat, with Washington and Pasquotank right there to substitute deep red precincts for AA ones.

[Oryxslayer]

Currently the GOP are  pushing Lewis's map from my previous post that keeps Cumberland whole. They voted and approved it in committee from three separate but very similar plans. It's funny how it's the dem seats that all look good, it's the GOP ones that go crazy for incumbents.

However, Lewis does have something new up that while bacon-stripping does start to Bus Incumbents.



Also here's a detailed version of the current map, the competitive first was never going to stay since it's VRA.

[Oryxslayer]

Keeping Union/SE Mecklenburg in with the Sandhills area is a blatant partisan gerrymander and an effort to keep Bishop's home in the seat.   There's really no other defense for it.

I think everyone agrees that from the plan on the  table right now, NC08/09 need to be cut east/west rather than north south. But you know "wE CAn'T PaIr inCUmBenTs" so sh**t happens. I mean you are already busing Holden and Walker, whats one more? Also 10/5/13 should probably reshuffle the counties between them, but once again"reSIdEnCiES." And that's the story how the North Carolina courts got the pen from the state legislature.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195028349309071361

So the suggested plan my very well be our 'final' map before the judges bang their gavel.

[Oryxslayer]

The sad thing is I don't anyone has problems with any of the dem seats - they aren't packing beyond their geographic area, and they all have clear COIs. It's the GOP seats. Why is 5 and 10 E/W rather than N/S? If the stupid 7th has to exist than everything to the west is passable...but it certainly can be improved. 13/8/9 actually make sense considering where the incumbents live, but that doesn't justify the strips.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195084351798759424


Dem's proposed a amendment, and frankly I'm happy it got shot down with that 6th.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195028349309071361

So the suggested plan my very well be our 'final' map before the judges bang their gavel.

Geez. 8 and 9 are terrible, but 5 and 10 are terrible, too. What's the reasoning behind them? It doesn't seem to be to separate incumbents or to preserve the existing map.

Indeed they are, but the 8th could be competitive with all of Cumberland County (Fayetteville) and increasingly competitive Cabarrus County (Charlotte suburbs). I'd love to see its PVI in the version including all of Cumberland.
EDIT: I found some kid on twitter that estimated the PVI on this map, if he's correct the 8th would be R+5 and 9th R+7. https://twitter.com/JacksonMartin42/status/1195024367559860225

The 7th is obviously terrible, but we knew that was likely. But the 5th and 10th are worse imo because there is no need to strip there. McHenry and Foxx would be stuck with a ton of people they haven't represented before, although solidly conservative areas, I doubt either are happy with that. I'm very confused as to why they stripped those two seats. On top of everything else, the incumbents live far apart.
I'm not as annoyed with the 8th and 9th because they were already stripped and we knew they were likely to remain so due to where the incumbents live.

I did some data estimates here, you can find it upthread. If you need Zoom to read, than here.

[Oryxslayer]

This change passed. Sounds like it added a bit more of the black ares of Pitt County into CD-01.

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195078027253866502?s=20

Continuing the trend of every Dem district being rather good but you have to scratch your head for every GOP one.

[Oryxslayer]

Not sure why you wasted a lot of ink on the 7th since its both safe R in any scenario these days,there are no more blue dogs, and these districts are drawn using 2010 data so the seat doesn't need to expand to reflect pop change until 2021. NC-01 is also D+5 following the edits made on the floor.

Also of course the courts can and probably will intervene after this passes tomorrow, even if only to make 8/9 E/W and 5/10 N/S.

7 (or 8 if we concede the stupid 7th into existence) of the seats are 'passable.' Personally I say those have reached the point of marginal returns on COIs and partisan balance. It's just that other 5 (5/8/9/10/13) that really raise eyebrows.