North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Dan the Roman]

Why are people assuming this map is going to get struck down at all lmao

This proposal is playing with fire regarding racial gerrymandering, and the North Carolina Supreme Court is 4D-3R

A federal suit’s likely result would be SCOTUS easing or eliminating the VRA district requirement, and the NCSC will be majority Republican by the time this reaches them. The map will hold up.

The state suit happens first, not the federal one. Democrats would be stupid to sue in federal court, and there's no removal if the suit is based on the state constitution.

Yes, but as I also pointed out, the full NCSC will probably not rule on this until after 2022 when it will likely have a GOP majority. So both avenues are fruitless.

Why would you think it would take that long? The NC SC will rule in late 2021, or at the latest early 2022. Even if you assume the Republicans win, the court election isn't until Nov. 2022 and the change in office not until Jan. 1, 2023. In any event, I don't think it's certain at all that all of the Republicans on the NC SC would vote to overturn their precedents on partisan gerrymandering.

Because can’t the Chief Justice hold up the case? The dude seems like a pretty right wing justice

And as is usual in NC there is bad blood. He was the most senior associate justice and normally that would mean he would have been appointed by the governor as Chief, but as he was the sole Republican Cooper stiffed him. He then gave up his seat to challenge the Chief Justice probably ensuring the court was 4-3 D not 5-2.

[Dan the Roman]

This has been a disaster this cycle for the GOP

On the Margin

Midterms have never been determined by redistricting

It hasn't determined which party had a majority, but there is a substantial difference between an R+15-20 majority and an R+30 majority.

This could make it far easier for Democrats to take back the House in 2024.

NC gop will certainly do a mid decade redraw for 2023 unless the court doesn't flip.

How safe would the R majorities in the state legislature be, though?  They literally read efficiency gap into the state constitution!

Also, worth noting that mid-decade redraws for state legislative maps aren't allowed in NC, so whatever legislative maps result from this process are for the whole decade.

I suppose they could go to SCOTUS with the "independent state legislature" argument since congressional maps are for federal elections.  A favorable ruling would give them back control of NC, OH, and AZ and also throw out the rules in FL, but it would also give Dems a chance to draw 49 67% Biden districts in CA and the NY courts would lose their ability to block the gerrymander there.  It would also result in immediate Dem control of WA and CO redistricting and a probable mid-decade Dem gerrymander in VA.

Pretty safe. The Democrats' real chance to win a State Senate majority was in 2020, when despite losing 5 seats in the State House they gained one in the Senate, and probably would have won a majority with a 1% popular vote lead, almost definitely with a 2% one. The issue for Democrats is they have a bit of an exaggerated view of what gerrymandering does in NC as they view NC like Wisconsin as being about 5% more Democratic than it actually is.

Democrats kind of view NC as a D+1 state which due to gerrymandering behaves like a R+7 one. In reality, it is an R+3 state which because of gerrymandering behaves like an R+7 one. Democrats might win legislative majorities on entirely non-partisan maps in a landslide year like 2018, but even then you would be talking about maybe one to two seat margins. Notice the NCSC Ds went further than last time. They realized that neutral/nonpartisan maps will probably never produce D majorities so demanded affirmative gerrymanders in favor of Democrats with the proportionality stuff.

In short, gerrymandering is largely why the GOP generically would have 32-18 and 73-47 majorities rather than 28-22 and 66-54 ones most years. Democrats range from 45-50% of statewide vote and GOP from 48-54%. As was seen with 2020 statewide races, even a landslide reelection for Cooper wasn't that wide.