North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[If my soul was made of stone]

That 11th is pretty ideal, and the idea of a competitive Fayetteville-Wilmington seat would be solid if it actually had Wilmington in it and Robeson were removed. The rest of the map, however, is abominable, and I hope that the proper groups sue on VRA grounds for that awful dismantling of Butterfield's seat.

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/lekhashupeck/status/1448698473348542466

State senate draft

Democrats could try a VRA lawsuit between 1 and 2 for the county splits but I think those clusters were forced by the algorithm. Nothing too crazy besides Wilmington I guess. Fayetteville I guess is weird but honestly just blame the algorithm there.

In addition to the VRA violation, the 2nd lacks road contiguity. Hyde and Pamlico Counties are not connected (nor are Hyde and Carteret).

[If my soul was made of stone]

God why do NC laws basically guarantee  the legislature can guarantee no matter what.

Because old world Democrats were afraid of a Republican winning the Governor's seat and did all they could to seal their powers. Little did they know that some day that the situation would be reversed and a Democratic Governor would be hamstrung.

The office of North Carolina Governor didn't have veto power over anything until the 90s, and since then overrides only require three-fifths of the legislature!

[If my soul was made of stone]

Butterfield's seat here is extremely unoptimized. I have no idea why there are so many rural white counties in there when they could just scoop out Goldsboro and Kinston instead. (I mean, I know it's to make it "competitive", but shouldn't ensuring minority representation be more important?)

[If my soul was made of stone]

NC tends to be quite an awkward state to redistrict, especially just with the sizes of various COIs and Cities, they always seem just slightly too large or too small for a district. Here I tried to give a go at drawing the "ideal" NC map that really does it's best to follows COIs in a neat way.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/4fa3a1cb-6788-4c70-ab08-8082d7b3bc67

This is 2020 Pres numbers, though 9 goes to Ds in the 2016-2020 composite and 13 goes R.

Overall while it may be a bit rough around the edges, I feel like this map does a really good job at balancing several considerations of a good map, including COIs, compactness, county splitting, partisan fairness, and competitive districts.

In 2030, I'll be really curious to see who controls redistricting as well as whether NC gains an additional district or not. Regardless, Charlotte and Raliegh districts will likely be overpopulated and hence need to shrink making things a bit easier perhaps since Mecklenburg and Wake Counties would be closer to supporting 2 whole districts within them.

It would be better for the First to scoop in Goldsboro and Kinston (while avoiding most of their white environs) than to reach into whiter parts of the Albemarle as it does here.

[If my soul was made of stone]

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