2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[lfromnj]

But yeah West Henrico/Chesterfield are an obvious COI but surprisingly don't share a direct road connection.

[Frodo]

Ummm, the new and finalized lines look very different from what was initially proposed.

https://twitter.com/BPaves/status/1475942553342070792?s=20

As a Virginia voter and a Democrat, those maps (and I am not just talking about the new lines for the congressional districts) look perfectly fine to me.  And actually, they are an improvement over what we have now. 

[lfromnj]

This map is honestly the best all cycle, I have no idea why people are complaining.

(The fact that it kind of looks like some ones I drew is a good boost to my vanity).

Road Contiguity is my complaints. At the very least place Delmarva with the north east if you don't care about it.

[BoiseBoy]

I am once again asking for the Virginia shapefiles.

[Oryxslayer]

All the ugliness on this map just proves is that VA would be better served with a 12th district. Ignoring the obvious nationwide malapportionment that would ensure, the results would better serve competitiveness and COIs. Cville would still likely be stranded, but with a 12th the NOVA seats wouldn't need to reach outwards from any further than Fredericksburg - allowing the Tidewater to be paired with the rurals between the metros cleaning up that seat, and the new 12th would slide into the Richmond suburbs and give that underserved region proper representation.

[lfromnj]

But yeah if Luria actually knew where her campaign money was going instead of Marc Elias she could have tried for this. As stated I actually prefer the court's VA03 but this VA02 is better than the VA03 is worse. This would give Luria a Biden +5 seat instead of Biden +4 and the Biden +2 she is about to get. The Great Dismal Swamp definitely seems to somewhat be a barrier in the region.  The special masters definitely seemed open to legitimate COI gripes like the Richmond suburbs/Albemarle county.  Blatant partisan campaigns such as Salem or Norfolk were not getting through. Overall too much of her argument against the VA02/VA03 was just the fact she was drawn out. No one important cared about that.

Instead Luria's lawyer of Marc Elias threatened to sue the VA supreme court under its own map and demanded she get a Safe seat with all of Norfolk instead of Chesapeake. I wonder how much he managed to bill Luria for that

*Speaking about Salem. The funniest thing is Griffith specifically argued that Salem and Roanoke should be split which is a joke argument.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1475968801543970818

[lfromnj]

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::92835595-7d35-4f74-81c1-c20a70477699

Shapefiles!

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1475975863565008903

[BoiseBoy]

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::92835595-7d35-4f74-81c1-c20a70477699

Shapefiles!

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1475975863565008903

At long last

[BoiseBoy]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1475968801543970818

What are your thoughts on the actual map?

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1475968801543970818

What are your thoughts on the actual map?

Alright.

[VAR]

Assuming the safe seat rule, Wittman will carpetbag to the Richmond seat so there is a open seat based with a PWC dem base.

If its open R's can win it. Spanberger may think of carpetbagging there though.

The 7th is definitely flipping with or without an incumbent imo. I also think the long-term prospects for Republicans in that district are not particularly bleak - minority-heavy East PWC is slowly but surely shifting Republican, so it probably remains winnable throughout the decade.

[Skill and Chance]

Wow, this is interesting!

On paper, the median district got slightly more Republican (Biden +9ish 1st draft to Biden +7ish final draft), but Democrats would probably prefer a setup where Spanberger, with her track record of winning highly competitive elections, can run in the median district instead of Wexton, who severely underperformed Biden?  Note Clinton actually did better in 2016 in final draft VA-07 than in 1st draft VA-10.

Final draft VA-02 is still Biden +2ish, as in the 1st draft.  Luria is probably out of luck in 2022 unless the national environment dramatically improves.   

VA-05 takes all of Charlottesville and Albemarle, but is still just safe enough to stay Republican for the decade (Trump +11 2016 to Trump +8 2020). 

Final draft VA-01 is now much more suburban dominated and looks like a Dem flip waiting to happen (Trump +14 2016 to Trump +7 2020).

Looks like the state legislative map changes were minor?  According to the document, median district partisanship stayed almost exactly the same in both chambers, meaning the state senate slightly favors Democrats on paper and the HoD slightly favors Republicans on paper vs. statewide results.

[lfromnj]

This map is honestly the best all cycle, I have no idea why people are complaining.

(The fact that it kind of looks like some ones I drew is a good boost to my vanity).

What's your opinion of the way they drew VA02/VA03? Obviously much better than the disaster the commission was heading towards but specifically talking about Suffolk/Chesapeake

[lfromnj]

Wow, this is interesting!

On paper, the median district got slightly more Republican (Biden +9ish 1st draft to Biden +7ish final draft), but Democrats would probably prefer a setup where Spanberger, with her track record of winning highly competitive elections, can run in the median district instead of Wexton, who severely underperformed Biden?  Note Clinton actually did better in 2016 in final draft VA-07 than in 1st draft VA-10.



VA-05 takes all of Charlottesville and Albemarle, but is still just safe enough to stay Republican for the decade (Trump +11 2016 to Trump +8 2020). 

VA05 actually doesn't have all of Albemarle. A small portion remains in the north

Also Wextons current seat basically is a Frank Wolf Mander in Fairfax County.  For example even Mark Warner ran like 7 points behind Behind in cities like Great Falls.

[Skill and Chance]

Wow, this is interesting!

On paper, the median district got slightly more Republican (Biden +9ish 1st draft to Biden +7ish final draft), but Democrats would probably prefer a setup where Spanberger, with her track record of winning highly competitive elections, can run in the median district instead of Wexton, who severely underperformed Biden?  Note Clinton actually did better in 2016 in final draft VA-07 than in 1st draft VA-10.



VA-05 takes all of Charlottesville and Albemarle, but is still just safe enough to stay Republican for the decade (Trump +11 2016 to Trump +8 2020). 

VA05 actually doesn't have all of Albemarle. A small portion remains in the north

Also Wextons current seat basically is a Frank Wolf Mander in Fairfax County.  For example even Mark Warner ran like 7 points behind Behind in cities like Great Falls.

That's true.  Would love to see Youngkin #'s for final draft VA-07.  1st draft VA-10 I believe was Youngkin +4.

Also, final draft VA-02 was Trump +5 2016 to Biden +2 2020 so it's actually trending left pretty meaningfully.  It probably flips next year and then flips back in the next R president midterm? 

[VAR]

That's true.  Would love to see Youngkin #'s for final draft VA-07.  1st draft VA-10 I believe was Youngkin +4. 

Most people on Twitter are saying Youngkin carried the 7th by roughly 6 points.

[lfromnj]

This map is honestly the best all cycle, I have no idea why people are complaining.

(The fact that it kind of looks like some ones I drew is a good boost to my vanity).

Honestly its pretty close to what I was drawing as well. I can't really diss them. I just went a bit too far on road contiguity which is still important IMO but it is pretty easily fixable.

Either way in the end I will give respect to the special masters for appropriately filtering public comment to listen to genuine comments while obviously ignoring the blatantly partisan/incumbent comments. Not the easiest of jobs against multi million dollar law firms so credit due .

[Skill and Chance]

Assuming the safe seat rule, Wittman will carpetbag to the Richmond seat so there is a open seat based with a PWC dem base.

If its open R's can win it. Spanberger may think of carpetbagging there though.

The 7th is definitely flipping with or without an incumbent imo. I also think the long-term prospects for Republicans in that district are not particularly bleak - minority-heavy East PWC is slowly but surely shifting Republican, so it probably remains winnable throughout the decade.

I think Spanberger is slightly favored there in 2022, but generic R would be slightly favored over generic D.

R's have a slightly easier path to 6/5 in a good year (IMO remove slightly without Spanberger), but D's now have a path to 8/3 in a good year when they were capped at 7/4 before.

Overall, a very good map for a lean Dem but not safe state.

[lfromnj]

https://www.vacourts.gov/courts/scv/districting/2021_virginia_redistricting_memo.pdf

Here's their memo.

This leads to our second point: In consultation with the Court, we have rejected calls to
actively educate ourselves further on the residences of incumbents. Incumbency protection is, as
many have pointed out, frequently listed as an allowable consideration in redistricting. S

As stated the court wants to ignore incumbency so this system will work more like Washington next time.

Many of the comments here urged us to either utilize the district cores from the BethuneHill case, or to pair Norfolk with Virginia Beach. As an initial matter, it was difficult to separate
legitimate concerns about compactness or communities of interest from concerns based upon a
desire to protect an incumbent or desires to alter the partisan balance of the plan by taking the 5th
most Republican district in the state and giving it a substantial Democratic lean (see General
Criticisms #6 above). We did explore options that would keep northern Norfolk together with
Virginia Beach without altering the partisan balance, but that required a larger number of county
splits. We simply note that we drew the 3rd district first and identified early on that it was
possible to keep Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton and Portsmouth together in a single compact
district that, when combined with neighboring precincts, would preserve minority groups’ ability
to elect a candidate of choice. This was our starting point, and we did not see a reason to
abandon it this late in the game. We made slight changes to ensure population equality.

They stated they were very suspicious of the obvious Marc Elias rescue Luria plan of giving her all of Norfolk. They also stated they started with VA03. As I noted earlier drawing VA02/VA03 this way results in a better VA03 as it has a clear core of 4 Urban cities along with the most like part of Chesapeake. Democrats were simply idiotically greedy on this one instead of asking for the more minor fix and proper fix of just a Biden +5 district .

[Skill and Chance]

https://www.vacourts.gov/courts/scv/districting/2021_virginia_redistricting_memo.pdf

Here's their memo.

This leads to our second point: In consultation with the Court, we have rejected calls to
actively educate ourselves further on the residences of incumbents. Incumbency protection is, as
many have pointed out, frequently listed as an allowable consideration in redistricting. S

As stated the court wants to ignore incumbency so this system will work more like Washington next time.

I think the VA system will inevitably just deadlock every time until/unless there are new amendments proposed at some point.  But if this is how the deadlock gets resolved, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you are imagining a deal where R's let D's draw the congressional map in exchange for keeping the median legislative districts well right of the state (especially downballot)?
 

[lfromnj]

https://www.vacourts.gov/courts/scv/districting/2021_virginia_redistricting_memo.pdf

Here's their memo.

This leads to our second point: In consultation with the Court, we have rejected calls to
actively educate ourselves further on the residences of incumbents. Incumbency protection is, as
many have pointed out, frequently listed as an allowable consideration in redistricting. S

As stated the court wants to ignore incumbency so this system will work more like Washington next time.

I think the VA system will inevitably just deadlock every time until/unless there are new amendments proposed at some point.  But if this is how the deadlock gets resolved, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you are imagining a deal where R's let D's draw the congressional map in exchange for keeping the median legislative districts well right of the state (especially downballot)?
 

Well so many incumbents simply got punished this time around that they might remember their lesson next time around if they don't bother changing it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Weird to think that new 7 only shifted 4 points left in 2020. At face value you'd think it'd be more.

[lfromnj]

Weird to think that new 7 only shifted 4 points left in 2020. At face value you'd think it'd be more.

Im suspicious. If I had to bet its probably like Biden +8 . I think the PWC 2020 results are really off and the West County margin is really off.



It is true this area did face a lot of Gwinettification but even then the shift seems way too strong.

[Oryxslayer]

Weird to think that new 7 only shifted 4 points left in 2020. At face value you'd think it'd be more.

Im suspicious. If I had to bet its probably like Biden +8 . I think the PWC 2020 results are really off and the West County margin is really off.

At the end of the day, VA never gave us detailed VBM data. So everything provided, both by DRA and the commission, is a guesstimate.