2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[Idaho Conservative]

I would probably make VA-03 take in more of Norfolk, and I've actually drawn it in such a way where you don't need to extend it west, and I'd move some of those more western parts of the 3rd into the 4th, the 4th simply went too far west, which led to the 5th being placed oddly. I actually don't have a problem with the Charlottesville to Richmond snake, but I'd shift the 1st north into your present 5th, and recreate the 5th in southern Virginia, as the 4th was pushed back to the east. Also maybe keeping the 11th compact in Fairfax/PWC avoids having to place Manassas and Fairfax into your 5th.

I really don't want to connect Virginia beach with the cities on the peninsula. (I didn't even want to do this with the Norfolk-Newport Beach district, but it is VRA mandated. Also, you can see in my new map that I cleaned up the Fairfax/PWC lines, although I'm still not convinced that makes a better map.

5-1-5 fair map.  Richmond seat is 42% black, 46% white.  The swing seat in VA beach is Trump+2, bluer than the current seat there.  I'd expect this to end up being 6D-5R, due to how SEVA trended in the gov race and senate race, but the tossup could definitely go red in an election which leans republican even by a point nationally.

Woooow. And I'm the partisan mapmaker? Four rings in NoVa is INSANE. You're connecting Woodbridge to Ashburn and Fredericksburg to Leesburg. If the most efficient route between any two points in a NoVa district involves passing through another district, then you've done something wrong. That's why the area needs wedges radiating out from the beltway, not skinny concentric rings.

Fixing that alone should make four safe D districts. You made an extremely awkward Southwest VA, Shenandoah, and Southside configuration but that's just a mistake instead of gerrymandering so I'll ignore that.

Placing the Delmarva Peninsula with the Tidewater makes no sense given where the bridge is, your VA Beach/Norfolk district line is an obvious gerrymander given it requires crossing twice from the Southside to the Peninsula to go between the two lobes of your yellow district. VA Beach needs to take in the Delmarva Peninsula and some of Norfolk under any fair map which should push it further left. Also, your Richmond district looks unnecessarily weird.

Anyway, you should clean up green and make that a safe Dem seat and move teal a couple points left if you want that seriously considered as a fair map.

Cleaned up NoVa, doesn't really change anything except aesthetics however.  And SEVA is drawn fair, could be much more gop friendly.  The Norfolk district could be made more compact, but then the VA Beach seat becomes redder

You shouldn't connect Fredricksburg to West Loudoun. Fredricksburg needs to move into the dark green district which forces some of Fairfax or PWC into the lime district. Breaking up the I-95 corridor is wrong. Also, Hampton Roads is insanely non-compact. On a map, your yellow district looks like this:



Basically, you carved out the inner neighborhoods of Portsmouth and Norfolk and attach them across a massive body of water to a butchered-up peninsula, from where you attach them back across the water to Suffolk and the Southside. At the same time, you pair the Delmarva Peninsula with the Hampton Roads Peninsula despite no fixed link attaching the two.

No reason Frecdricksburg can't be with Loudoun.  Exurb vs suburb is a bigger divide than highways  You care about roads so much lol.  Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

[lfromnj]

Northampton and Accomack (Delmarva) really does belong with Virginia Beach, it's just too awkward not to have them together.

By COI they belong with Tidewater, however the problem is the only bridge they have to the mainland is  in Virginia Beach so you have to shove them with VA beach in almost any map.

Is a bridge more important than the COI?  I don't really care about that honestly.

Uh even if it looks similar, road connections can create their own COI so often many people in the eastern shore will go down south for urban stuff like shopping etc.

[SevenEleven]

No reason Frecdricksburg can't be with Loudoun.  Exurb vs suburb is a bigger divide than highways  You care about roads so much lol.  Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

Uh, do you understand how metropolitan areas work?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

That isn't necessary though:

[Idaho Conservative]

Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

That isn't necessary though:

That isn't a swing seat tho

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

That isn't necessary though:

That isn't a swing seat tho

The point of fair maps isn't necessarily to maximize swing seats, although this definitely is one. It's Trump+3 and Northam+3.8.

[Idaho Conservative]

Also, I crossed the bay to satisfy the VRA and to make a swing seat in VA beach.

That isn't necessary though:

That isn't a swing seat tho

The point of fair maps isn't necessarily to maximize swing seats, although this definitely is one. It's Trump+3 and Northam+3.8.

I'm shocked, more conservative than the one I drew.

[lfromnj]

Heres another interesting little split I created,
5 Clinton 6 Trump
7 Northam 4 Gillepsie
8 Kaine 3 Stewart

Wanted to keep the fredricksburg area together which boxed in the tidewater. As the tidewater region is only like 200k people I decided to connect Western Henrico to the Historic Triangle both of which are very educated. Unfortunately the tidewater is stuck here. Moves half a point right to the current VA 7th. VA 1st is moved to Safe D by pushing into PWC while VA 10th is moved to tossup at Trump +1


Overall creates
5 Safe D, 2 tossups, 1 lean R and 3 Safe R.

[Nyvin]

Heres another interesting little split I created,
5 Clinton 6 Trump
7 Northam 4 Gillepsie
8 Kaine 3 Stewart

Wanted to keep the fredricksburg area together which boxed in the tidewater. As the tidewater region is only like 200k people I decided to connect Western Henrico to the Historic Triangle both of which are very educated. Unfortunately the tidewater is stuck here. Moves half a point right to the current VA 7th. VA 1st is moved to Safe D by pushing into PWC while VA 10th is moved to tossup at Trump +1


Overall creates
5 Safe D, 2 tossups, 1 lean R and 3 Safe R.

Looks kinda risky for the R's.

[lfromnj]

Heres another interesting little split I created,
5 Clinton 6 Trump
7 Northam 4 Gillepsie
8 Kaine 3 Stewart

Wanted to keep the fredricksburg area together which boxed in the tidewater. As the tidewater region is only like 200k people I decided to connect Western Henrico to the Historic Triangle both of which are very educated. Unfortunately the tidewater is stuck here. Moves half a point right to the current VA 7th. VA 1st is moved to Safe D by pushing into PWC while VA 10th is moved to tossup at Trump +1


Overall creates
5 Safe D, 2 tossups, 1 lean R and 3 Safe R.

Looks kinda risky for the R's.

It's not a gerrymander?
I'm just playing around with maps.

[Sol]

I've been playing around with two fair maps, and I'd be interesting in getting your thoughts on both.

Map 1 (link):


Hampton Roads/Richmond


NOVA:


This map has a few advantages. It keeps several logical CoIs whole or mostly whole, like the Shenandoah Valley, the Fredericksburg Area, Hampton Roads cities, greater Roanoke, etc. The lines are pretty clean. However, it has a slight Republican bias (5/11 Clinton seats) though Democrats would have a decent shot in many Trump districts. It also puts Danville in with SW VA which is very unfortunate, and does split the Winchester area. It would also be nice to have a minority-majority district in NOVA.

[lfromnj]

so mostly the same as my map, but a rotation between VA 5/VA 6 and VA 9 to make it more COI based?
I like it, also makes sense to keep the triangle with Western Richmond.

[Sol]

Map 2: (link)



(Hampton Roads is the same as before no zoom there).



In this version, VA-9 makes a bit more sense. Unfortunately, it does this by splitting the Roanoke area. VA-6 also takes in more of non-Shenandoah rural areas, like Madison and Rappahannock, which aren't great fits. It has 6 Clinton seats instead of 5.

[Sol]

so mostly the same as my map, but a rotation between VA 5/VA 6 and VA 9 to make it more COI based?
I like it, also makes sense to keep the triangle with Western Richmond.

Aw, thanks!

[Idaho Conservative]

so mostly the same as my map, but a rotation between VA 5/VA 6 and VA 9 to make it more COI based?
I like it, also makes sense to keep the triangle with Western Richmond.

Aw, thanks!

Richmond doesn't need to be cracked.  Also, Southern PWC has more in common with Loudoun than rural VA.

[Sol]

Richmond doesn't need to be cracked. 

This is true, but it kind of screws up the neighboring districts. My 1st needs to pick up population, and it'll end up having to dive into central Virginia or NOVA, neither of which seem to be too attractive relative to Richmond from a CoI perspective.

Also, Southern PWC has more in common with Loudoun than rural VA.

This is fair, so maybe you might prefer my first map?

[Del Tachi]

Northampton and Accomack (Delmarva) really does belong with Virginia Beach, it's just too awkward not to have them together.

Placing the Delmarva Peninsula with the Tidewater makes no sense given where the bridge is

This seems like something silly to insist on, as the Delmarva-Virginia Beach connection is a pretty recent configuration (didn't exist before 2003) and the current VA-02 relies on water contiguity already to pick up Poquoson and York.  

[Nyvin]

Northampton and Accomack (Delmarva) really does belong with Virginia Beach, it's just too awkward not to have them together.

Placing the Delmarva Peninsula with the Tidewater makes no sense given where the bridge is

This seems like something silly to insist on, as the Delmarva-Virginia Beach connection is a pretty recent configuration (didn't exist before 2003) and the current VA-02 relies on water contiguity already to pick up Poquoson and York. 

 2003 is 17 years ago,  that's quite a significant amount of time.

The water crossing in the current VA-2 is one of the most ugly parts of the current map and should be removed, it's not needed for anything.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Northampton and Accomack (Delmarva) really does belong with Virginia Beach, it's just too awkward not to have them together.

Placing the Delmarva Peninsula with the Tidewater makes no sense given where the bridge is

This seems like something silly to insist on, as the Delmarva-Virginia Beach connection is a pretty recent configuration (didn't exist before 2003) and the current VA-02 relies on water contiguity already to pick up Poquoson and York.  

Well, I also oppose that. I think water contiguity should never be allowed, except in obvious locations like Hawaii.

[SevenEleven]

Here's my Virginia fair map.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Here's my Virginia fair map.

That is...almost identical to my first Fair VA map a few pages back. As a heads up, everyone is going to lose their minds over the Fairfax County quad cut.

[lfromnj]

Because the fairfax quad cut is literally a blatant Democrat Gerrymander designed to give a 4th Safe D seat in NOVA. You literally have a Shenandoah to coastal district lol and drew a 8 Safe D and 3 Safe R map.

Theres 0 excuse to split the Richmond metro but then pair VA beach with Norfolk.

[SevenEleven]

Because the fairfax quad cut is literally a blatant Democrat Gerrymander designed to give a 4th Safe D seat in NOVA. You literally have a Shenandoah to coastal district lol and drew a 8 Safe D and 3 Safe R map.

Theres 0 excuse to split the Richmond metro but then pair VA beach with Norfolk.

VA-10 has to get population from somewhere.

Where do you want Norfolk to go if not with Virginia Beach? This is the most relevant connection to make.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The quad-cut aside, you should drop Albemarle from the brown district and have it take in all the non-AA parts of the Richmond metro. Put Albemarle in Yellow, push the Lynchburg district north up the Shenandoah Valley, and backfill the Southside with red. That's basically how you clean this map up to make it look more reasonable.

[SevenEleven]

The quad-cut aside, you should drop Albemarle from the brown district and have it take in all the non-AA parts of the Richmond metro. Put Albemarle in Yellow, push the Lynchburg district north up the Shenandoah Valley, and backfill the Southside with red. That's basically how you clean this map up to make it look more reasonable.

It might look cleaner but it has the unfortunate effect of spreading out some of the rural areas.

These maps that have VA-11 circling around VA-8 are awful.