North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

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So David Price is retiring. Wonder if the Republicans will try to draw out his district to prevent another Dem from winning there

[patzer]

So David Price is retiring. Wonder if the Republicans will try to draw out his district to prevent another Dem from winning there

Why would the GOP ever want to crack Durham and Chapel Hill?
Super high turnout areas that are 75% +D.

No it is pretty much given now that the goal is to just remove the 3 rural/exurban counties attached to this district and add a few ten thousand more from Wake. That is the one constant in all the maps that has happened in that it is just Durham + OC.

You’d add Durham and Chapel Hill to the Raleigh district (which would lost some of its redder bits), and keep the 4th anchored in its more rural areas.

[patzer]

So David Price is retiring. Wonder if the Republicans will try to draw out his district to prevent another Dem from winning there

Wow. I live in NC-4. Just saw this here first.

I'm friends with David Price's grandson on discord; he'd known for a while but spoke about it as soon as the news went public.

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Had only the Democrats controlled the NC legislature and been as aggressive as they could, we could have seen something like this...

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So what is the TLDR for this point in time on the outcome?

The map used in 2020 was pretty damn fair, it's frustrating that it couldn't just have been kept in place, since that *should* satisfy the rationals on both sides.

There's 14 districts in the first place.

Ye a least change map was always going to be tricky since there was no obvious place to put the new district other than “in the triangle”, which means most parts of the state where redistricting is decisive would have to be shifted significantly anyways. Doesn’t excuse the GOP Gerry though.

Here's my try at what a least change map could have looked like. The current 8th gets split equally into a rump 8th and a new 14th, with each of the two taking on more areas in the triangle and the Charlotte area respectively. New 8th is Biden+6 in 2020, new 14th is Trump+18. Every other district avoids any major changes, only really get what they need to keep population equality and that's it.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a292ac55-346b-419c-a21a-3a08569aefe6

[patzer]

Here's my go at a fair map. 8 Trump-6 Biden in 2020, but two of the Trump districts are Trump+1 and Trump+2 so essentially tossups, making a 6-6-2 map. I tried to largely base it around existing districts and incumbents- flipped the 13th blue because its incumbent is retiring.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/67e98765-689f-491f-ae3c-f161f714ad8f

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RIP to one of Hudson/Bishop

To be fair, there are only seven Republican incumbents running for reelection- it's quite possible to make a 7-7 map shoring up all of them.

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https://twitter.com/MurphinNC/status/1493987204548501507?s=20&t=kxsjFLVEjq71...

Funnily enough a lot of the districts there are similar to a competitivemander I started making earlier today.

Though I had the 8th going to Forsyth, not Alamance. Take it to Forsyth and it's much more even rather than R-leaning.

[patzer]

Thought I'd try making a highly competitive NC map. Tried to avoid splitting communities of interest too egregiously but it ended up with more county splits than I'd wanted. Oh well.

3R-3D-8C; 8 Trump to 6 Biden in 2020. Made the VRA 1st district safe dem.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/53adcdec-4761-4220-837a-dcc2263ac3a6

[patzer]

Good decision. Aside from the split of Fayetteville this map works well, 6R-5D-3C is perfect proportionally for NC, districts are compact, communities of interest generally kept together. And no incumbents being double-bunked is a bonus.

[patzer]

It occurs to me that if there's a mid-decade redistricting after 2022 (which seems feasible), whichever Democrat wins the new 14th district will most likely end up in a primary with Alma Adams when the Republicans condense Charlotte back down to one seat. Unless Adams retires in such a scenario to avoid a primary (possible given she's getting on a bit).

This year I expect there'll probably be quite the scramble for the 14th... Jeff Jackson is probably the strongest candidate if he wants to run.

[patzer]

That map is almost as awesome as Illinois' and New York's.

Eh Illinois and New York were gerrymanders to maximize Democratic members, whereas this map is a compact fair map. Which you prefer depends on whether you value a pro-Democrat map or a fair map.

[patzer]

If the Republicans are bold enough to do a mid decade gerrymander, I wonder who would likely win the primaries where Democrat incumbents get shoved together? Presumably Jeff Jackson and Alma Adams in a Charlotte district, and Wiley Nickel and Deborah Ross in a Raleigh one.

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I assume Ross would also have the strong advantage against Nickel.

Might depend on how the new seat is drawn? If they drew it towards the south of Wake County to be akin to the 2021-23 2nd district, it’d probably contain more of Nickel’s base than Ross’s.

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Don't think the court would look too fondly on cutting the number of seats with significant black populations from 3 to 2 with the elimination of the Durham seat, given that 3 is the proportional number for the state's demographics.

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Will be interesting to see if Wiley Nickel runs for reelection in the 2nd or the 4th, given his home seems to be close to the border between the two. Or if he decides to not run in either primary and opt for another course of action.

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At first, I was going to say it was similar to Texas, but I don't think that's accurate. Texas geography is actually good for Democrats. It's just that the gerrymanders are doing a massive amount of work. I remember playing around with DRA years ago and it wasn't hard to get Democrats to a nearly 50% share of the Congressional delegation (I think those where Obama-McCain numbers). I think it's only become worse for Republicans though. The major difference though is that Texas is far more urban/suburban than NC. A Democratic gerrymander of Texas would probably surprise most in what could be accomplished.

Most natural/compact Texas maps result in a Dem majority whether at the congressional level or state house/senate level. It doesn't even need to be an intentional gerrymander- it's basically a reverse Wisconsin in terms of how bad the geography is.