2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[VAR]

Memes aside, here's a slightly eccentric fair map with 4 truly competitive seats:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/09afb652-f0c5-4e81-8b1a-2c7af80e4e93

-As usual, NoVA gets its 3 Safe Dem seats, all of which are decently compact. Don't have much to say here, honestly.
-VA-06 expands to take in all of the northwestern NoVA exurbs. Shenandoah Valley is kept whole for the most part.
-VA-05 becomes a college town district, stretching from Harrisonburg to Blacksburg. It looks pretty decent and is Trump +2/Northam +3/Kaine +10. I'd have to think Biden won it narrowly. Tossup in 2022.
-VA-07 shifts a point or so to the left, becoming Trump +4/Gillespie +2/Kaine +5. The second-largest population center in the district is now James City/Williamsburg rather than Culpeper/Spotsylvania. And yes, Henrico is entirely in this district. Tossup.
-VA-01 takes in East PWC and sheds Hanover and James City. It is now Trump +6/Gillespie +3/Kaine +5. Biden most likely carried it, but it's possible minorities swinging R in East PWC counteracted the pro-Dem swings in Stafford/Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania. Tossup.

Now, the biggest "problem" here is VA-03 is kind of hideous (but it's also 47% black, so that's pretty good.) I paired Virginia Beach w/ Chesapeake since that's what I always do.

This is the only way to satisfy Charlottesville, IMO. Putting them and the hicks together is just too cruel, and pairing them w/ rich formerly GOP suburbanites around Richmond wouldn't be great either. Also, this configuration would allow Spanberger to run in her own swing seat, which I'd argue is a plus for Dems, as overrated as she is.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Memes aside, here's a slightly eccentric fair map with 4 truly competitive seats:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/09afb652-f0c5-4e81-8b1a-2c7af80e4e93

-As usual, NoVA gets its 3 Safe Dem seats, all of which are decently compact. Don't have much to say here, honestly.
-VA-06 expands to take in all of the northwestern NoVA exurbs. Shenandoah Valley is kept whole for the most part.
-VA-05 becomes a college town district, stretching from Harrisonburg to Blacksburg. It looks pretty decent and is Trump +2/Northam +3/Kaine +10. I'd have to think Biden won it narrowly. Tossup in 2022.
-VA-07 shifts a point or so to the left, becoming Trump +4/Gillespie +2/Kaine +5. The second-largest population center in the district is now James City/Williamsburg rather than Culpeper/Spotsylvania. And yes, Henrico is entirely in this district. Tossup.
-VA-01 takes in East PWC and sheds Hanover and James City. It is now Trump +6/Gillespie +3/Kaine +5. Biden most likely carried it, but it's possible minorities swinging R in East PWC counteracted the pro-Dem swings in Stafford/Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania. Tossup.

Now, the biggest "problem" here is VA-03 is kind of hideous (but it's also 47% black, so that's pretty good.) I paired Virginia Beach w/ Chesapeake since that's what I always do.

This is the only way to satisfy Charlottesville, IMO. Putting them and the hicks together is just too cruel, and pairing them w/ rich formerly GOP suburbanites around Richmond wouldn't be great either. Also, this configuration would allow Spanberger to run in her own swing seat, which I'd argue is a plus for Dems, as overrated as she is.

I don't like your VA-05/VA-07, but I like the rest.

[VAR]

Aight, so I drew a Virginia State Senate map during my brief absence from the forum. It turned out to be easier than I’d thought.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/fa5d7cdb-dfcb-4d17-93c2-88fcc4a26c37

2016: 20 Clinton districts - 20 Trump districts
2017: 24 Northam districts - 16 Gillespie districts
2018: 28 Kaine districts - 12 Stewart districts

Idk if the VRA seats should be >50% black, but there are six >40% Black Safe D seats on my map.

[VAR]

I don't like your VA-05/VA-07, but I like the rest.

Thanks for the feedback. I tweaked it and VA-05/VA-07 look somewhat prettier now.

[VAR]

Both Democratic districts in ROVA are VRA-compliant.

[amateur_psepho]

first post on the forum lol, lurker for about a year though. was working my way through the commission states for 2022 to make my predictions and this is what i came up with

can't do a hyperlink or image bc im too new BUT
davesredistricting.org/join/b3e3c77b-5881-4a7a-9c23-20cfa82f5d51 - heres the url for y'all that are willing to copy and paste tho.

tried to draw a soft d-mander that would be acceptable by an independent commission and preserved the 2017 district shapes while doing the bare minimum to shore up incumbents in a somewhat realistic 5-2-4 map

break down of districts:

VA-01 - made it a true swing district by swapping out manassas for daly city. seems like the perfect kind of durable swing district in terms of evolving coalitions based on movement left in nova exurbs and military areas in conjunction with a shift right of mixed race rurals along the chesapeake coast. probably moves left but is maintained by wittman in 22 tho. trump-gillespie-kaine-biden(i think?) district

VA-02 - tried shoring up luria a bit by placing blacker areas of portsmouth that border chesapeake in while cutting the arm into the inner peninsulas. pretty sure it makes va-03 not outright majority-minority which may be a vra violation, but fairly certain it could be argued that black va-03 voters would still get their choice of rep. (47.1%) trump-northam-kaine-biden

VA-03 - newport news + portsmouth + hampton district reaching up to williamsburg. like i said above, technically not a majority-minority district (53% white). imo cleaner borders without bay hopping this way.

VA-04 - basic richmond + southern va black rurals district. takes in new kent while losing some white suburbs and neighborhoods in richmond to spanberger. 52% minority, 46% black.

VA-05 - firmly r-leaning swing that loses western rurals in exchange for more moderate culpepper and black rurals in the south. thought about drawing roanoke in to make it more swingy but decided against. went for kaine by a little over 1%, but certainly winnable by someone strong like webb considering albemarle isn't yet maxed out and rurals are losing population

VA-06 - traditional appalachian stretch district, but takes in winchester and the other nwva counties to shore up wexton and shed lynchburg to the 5th. leaves both roanoke and salem for the 9th, but does stretch down to blacksburg in order to split population cleanly.

VA-07 - drops culpepper and nottoway to center around richmond suburbs a bit more and get favorable demographic shifts in spotsylvania and chesterfield. takes in more of richmond city (which may be controversial for a fair map), but ultimately gives spanberger a good-fit district that shores her up slightly. trump-gillespie-kaine-(probably) biden.

VA-08 - arlington-alexandria district. 38.12% minority, split evenly between asian, black and hispanic

VA-09 - southern VA, takes in all of roanoke city. if there's a cleaner way to split this and the 6th without splitting roanoke and salem (which i dislike strongly) or breaking into those cities proper please tell me

VA-10 - outer NOVA suburbs, trades winchester and clarke for fauquier and the rest of culpepper. may slightly decrease the PVI of the district, but not enough to make it non-safe even in wave environments (northam won by 18% with 58% of the vote)

VA-11 - inner DC burbs, cleaner manassas allocation than the status quo. 37% minority, similar racial makeup to the 8th

if i'm missing a blatant vra violation or something just tell me - i'm still somewhat new to all of this and like to think i have cracked the code but i don't know everything

[SevenEleven]

Welcome to the forum!!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Welcome to the forum!!

[S019]

Attempted a slight Republican gerrymander/GOP favored map that looks fair: https://davesredistricting.org/join/a83fefcb-d0fc-4304-bd3d-edb4f9c60693

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at a fair VA map that respects where incumbents live. Both districts 3 and 4 are black VRA seats

VA-1 and 2 were almost certainly both Trump-Biden districts. Biden probably narrowly lost this version of VA-7.

This map is 6R-5D on 2016 numbers which is kinda hard to avoid when respecting where incumbents live and Rs slight geography advantage in the state at the time. An ideal map should be 6D-5R in 2016 and 7-11 in 2020.

Ideally, I'm going to try and make a more competative map and will post it here.

[_.]

I tried my hand at a fair 11-district map of Virginia.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is 0.03%, and it reflects 2015 - 2019 ACS Data.

100/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
62/100 on the Compactness Index
42/100 on County Splitting
62/100 on the Minority Representation index (everywhere's super mixed)
31/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election (the closest to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election out of the choices given).

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Virginia: 6D to 5R

2017 Virginia Attorney General Election: 6R to 5D

2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election: 6D to 5R

2017 Virginia Lieutenant Governor Election: 6R to 5D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Virginia: 8D to 3R


Opinions?

[rhg2052]

First pass at a map with the new data. Big takeaway is VA-10 needs to drastically reduce in size with the new growth in population, basically losing everything west of Ashburn.

[_.]

I tried my hand at a fair congressional map of Virginia using the 2020 census results.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%, and it reflects the 2020 Census.

89/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
53/100 on the Compactness Index
55/100 on County Splitting
63/100 on the Minority Representation index
20/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election (the closest to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election out of the choices given).

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Virginia: 6R to 5D

2017 Virginia Attorney General Election: 6R to 5D

2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election: 6D to 5R

2017 Virginia Lieutenant Governor Election: 6R to 5D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Virginia: 6D to 5R


While this map has five solidly Democratic seats, all of them are packs with the Democratic Party consistently being able to win each seat with over 60% of the vote. On top of this, there's a competitive seat in Southeastern Virginia that contains Virginia Beach.

All the other seats vote quite solidly Republican, but much closer than do the Democratic seats, and Tim Kaine got close (within 10%) in four of the Republican seats. It is plausible that one of these current Republican seats flips Democratic at some point during the decade.

There are two Black-opportunity districts in the Southeastern portion of the state, with the Norfolk seat being 45% African-American (and having a plurality) in terms of VAP and the Richmond seat being 36% African-American.

The Northwestern NoVA district is a failed attempt at making an Asian seat for Virginia, with 28% of the Voting-Age population of that seat being Asian Alone or in combination.


Opinions?

[Nyvin]

Just a thought, but is it possible that VA-10 keeps it's western counties out to Frederick and instead VA-1 is the district pulled into NoVA to balance the population?

[Skill and Chance]

Just thought, but is it possible that VA-10 keeps it's western counties out to Frederick and instead VA-1 is the district pulled into NoVA to balance the population?

This is quite possible.  The cleanest way to draw NOVA is 2 all-Fairfax districts (VA-08 and VA-11), then put all of Loudoun and the remaining slice of western Fairfax (<20K people) in VA-10 and then put all of Prince William/Manassas in VA-01.  It is not necessary to split Loudoun or Prince William.  This obviously flips VA-01 decisively to the Democrats-this version of VA-01 would barely get south of Fredericksburg.  This VA-10 would either be a Trump->Biden swing district or Lean Dem depending on which exact rural areas it gets.  The Dem commissioners would want to give it Charlottesville and the GOP commissioners would want to draw it into the Shenandoah Valley.  However, this configuration would also force an E-W safe R VA-07 cutting across central VA north of Henrico, so both sides would be sacrificing an incumbent by placing them in an opposition party +15 district.  It might not even be considered.   

[Tekken_Guy]

I tried my hand at a fair congressional map of Virginia using the 2020 census results.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%, and it reflects the 2020 Census.

89/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
53/100 on the Compactness Index
55/100 on County Splitting
63/100 on the Minority Representation index
20/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election (the closest to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election out of the choices given).

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Virginia: 6R to 5D

2017 Virginia Attorney General Election: 6R to 5D

2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election: 6D to 5R

2017 Virginia Lieutenant Governor Election: 6R to 5D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Virginia: 6D to 5R


While this map has five solidly Democratic seats, all of them are packs with the Democratic Party consistently being able to win each seat with over 60% of the vote. On top of this, there's a competitive seat in Southeastern Virginia that contains Virginia Beach.

All the other seats vote quite solidly Republican, but much closer than do the Democratic seats, and Tim Kaine got close (within 10%) in four of the Republican seats. It is plausible that one of these current Republican seats flips Democratic at some point during the decade.

There are two Black-opportunity districts in the Southeastern portion of the state, with the Norfolk seat being 45% African-American (and having a plurality) in terms of VAP and the Richmond seat being 36% African-American.

The Northwestern NoVA district is a failed attempt at making an Asian seat for Virginia, with 28% of the Voting-Age population of that seat being Asian Alone or in combination.


Opinions?

I assume Jill Vogel would run in that new Northern VA GOP seat. I think Winsome Sears is now in Winchester too, so she might run if she loses her LG bid.

[Nyvin]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c0ec3dc-d539-4dd9-91df-1fb614e4b396

[Tekken_Guy]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c0ec3dc-d539-4dd9-91df-1fb614e4b396

With that map, Morgan Griffith and Bob Good would essentially swap dristricts. And Griffith will be in the same district as Cline. That teal seat around Winchester would be an open race here.

[Nyvin]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c0ec3dc-d539-4dd9-91df-1fb614e4b396

With that map, Morgan Griffith and Bob Good would essentially swap dristricts. And Griffith will be in the same district as Cline. That teal seat around Winchester would be an open race here.

The western districts are the most changed, that's due to removing VA-1 from Prince William and all the districts in general getting pulled in toward NoVA.  

Basically there's around 135k people that need to move toward NoVA, around 195k from taking VA-1 out of Prince William, and also about 98k for getting rid of that ugly northern arm of VA-5.

That's 428k people to move north from somewhere.   If that much of VA-6 gets moved north then it's basically a whole new district.  

It's possible to leave VA-1 in Prince William and pull it even more in with that 135k of excess from the three districts, but then there's nothing to fill in the lost parts with down south due to the two AA districts and the inflexibility of VA-2.

So if Staunton gets moved to VA-6 will that make Cline happy?

[Nyvin]

incumbent friendly version -



https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c0ec3dc-d539-4dd9-91df-1fb614e4b396

[Non Swing Voter]

incumbent friendly version -



https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c0ec3dc-d539-4dd9-91df-1fb614e4b396

Is that incumbent friendly?  It looks like Wexton is pushed out of her district into a GOP district.  I should probably be able to tell considering I live in her district but it looks like Leesberg is no longer part of the Dem district that includes Fairfax.

[Non Swing Voter]

Just thought, but is it possible that VA-10 keeps it's western counties out to Frederick and instead VA-1 is the district pulled into NoVA to balance the population?

This is quite possible.  The cleanest way to draw NOVA is 2 all-Fairfax districts (VA-08 and VA-11), then put all of Loudoun and the remaining slice of western Fairfax (<20K people) in VA-10 and then put all of Prince William/Manassas in VA-01.  It is not necessary to split Loudoun or Prince William.  This obviously flips VA-01 decisively to the Democrats-this version of VA-01 would barely get south of Fredericksburg.  This VA-10 would either be a Trump->Biden swing district or Lean Dem depending on which exact rural areas it gets.  The Dem commissioners would want to give it Charlottesville and the GOP commissioners would want to draw it into the Shenandoah Valley.  However, this configuration would also force an E-W safe R VA-07 cutting across central VA north of Henrico, so both sides would be sacrificing an incumbent by placing them in an opposition party +15 district.  It might not even be considered.   

So are you saying VA-10 essentially stays the same except you chop out McLean, Prince William and some other parts of Fairfax but keep Great Falls in with Loudoun county?  That would probably be a pretty swingy district the first few years but then become clearly lean Dem as Loudoun grows.  This is what I would do if I wanted to gerrymander 4 NOVA based Dem districts.

[Skill and Chance]

Just thought, but is it possible that VA-10 keeps it's western counties out to Frederick and instead VA-1 is the district pulled into NoVA to balance the population?

This is quite possible.  The cleanest way to draw NOVA is 2 all-Fairfax districts (VA-08 and VA-11), then put all of Loudoun and the remaining slice of western Fairfax (<20K people) in VA-10 and then put all of Prince William/Manassas in VA-01.  It is not necessary to split Loudoun or Prince William.  This obviously flips VA-01 decisively to the Democrats-this version of VA-01 would barely get south of Fredericksburg.  This VA-10 would either be a Trump->Biden swing district or Lean Dem depending on which exact rural areas it gets.  The Dem commissioners would want to give it Charlottesville and the GOP commissioners would want to draw it into the Shenandoah Valley.  However, this configuration would also force an E-W safe R VA-07 cutting across central VA north of Henrico, so both sides would be sacrificing an incumbent by placing them in an opposition party +15 district.  It might not even be considered.   

So are you saying VA-10 essentially stays the same except you chop out McLean, Prince William and some other parts of Fairfax but keep Great Falls in with Loudoun county?  That would probably be a pretty swingy district the first few years but then become clearly lean Dem as Loudoun grows.  This is what I would do if I wanted to gerrymander 4 NOVA based Dem districts.

Yes, but it could be either Lean D or Lean R depending on the configuration.  There is no need to split Loudoun or Prince William.  Fairfax has to be split.  The trouble is how much rural territory you have to attach to VA-10 south/west of Loudoun, which may lead the commission to favor a Loudoun+western Prince William COI.  If they refuse to split Prince William, VA-10 either has to go west to Winchester and nearly to Harrisonburg (R favoring map) or down the Blue Ridge to Charlottesville (D favoring map).  It is possible to do either version with just one county split (in addition to the required one in Fairfax). 

The all-Fairfax VA-11 and Fredericksburg-Manassass version of VA-01 are very clean. 

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/gmoomaw/status/1427623170551517187?s=21

[S019]

https://twitter.com/gmoomaw/status/1427623170551517187?s=21

Do we know the partisan breakdown of this vote?