2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

I think there were some modifcations but its tough to modify an amendemnt itself, I think it mostly put racial limits? but anyway my map would keep 2 AA districts and is pretty similar to the current map anyway so it would probably pass the test.  My map is the extreme R scenario where the VA supreme court basically chooses a republican to be the map drawer.

Again, why are the Dems even allowing a vote on this blatant power grab?

I don't know why, but I know that they don't have the guts to shoot this one down.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6315e14b-725b-4d94-b9e9-c705c4eb4561
I made this VA state senate map based off of 2018 estimates. Fairfax alone has 8 districts based within it, with Loudoun having 2 and Fauquier+Stafford being another.
24 Clinton districts. 21 D+ PVI seats.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I set out to make what a good, clean, compact incument protection map would look like.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/55a300f4-6852-4e0b-a256-bb74744cdd4a
This is the end result.
Luria, Spanberger, and Wexton all get noticably better districts. The 5th becomes safe GOP.
The new 12th is sort of a "fair fight" sort of district. Key word being "sort of". It'd be lean Dem if 2017 and later years are any indication.
It'd likely be 7D-4R-1S, and lock in such an advantage later on in the decade.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I set out to make what a good, clean, compact incument protection map would look like.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/55a300f4-6852-4e0b-a256-bb74744cdd4a
This is the end result.
Luria, Spanberger, and Wexton all get noticably better districts. The 5th becomes safe GOP.
The new 12th is sort of a "fair fight" sort of district. Key word being "sort of". It'd be lean Dem if 2017 and later years are any indication.
It'd likely be 7D-4R-1S, and lock in such an advantage later on in the decade.

VA is not set to get a 12th seat, unless something unusual happens. Even if it was, you drew Spanberger out of her seat.

I know Spanberger was drawn out of her seat. She could just move though.
The 12th district thing is a...graver oversight.
D'oh.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I set out to make what a good, clean, compact incument protection map would look like.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/55a300f4-6852-4e0b-a256-bb74744cdd4a
This is the end result.
Luria, Spanberger, and Wexton all get noticably better districts. The 5th becomes safe GOP.
The new 12th is sort of a "fair fight" sort of district. Key word being "sort of". It'd be lean Dem if 2017 and later years are any indication.
It'd likely be 7D-4R-1S, and lock in such an advantage later on in the decade.

VA is not set to get a 12th seat, unless something unusual happens. Even if it was, you drew Spanberger out of her seat.

I know Spanberger was drawn out of her seat. She could just move though.
The 12th district thing is a...graver oversight.
D'oh.

It could if Corona throws off all the census estimates and we end up with more high education respondents. That is however a scenario outside the 95% confidence interval.

Yeah.
2030 is a much better chance than 2020. VA has a very strong chance of gaining a CD then.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I set out to make what a good, clean, compact incument protection map would look like.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/55a300f4-6852-4e0b-a256-bb74744cdd4a
This is the end result.
Luria, Spanberger, and Wexton all get noticably better districts. The 5th becomes safe GOP.
The new 12th is sort of a "fair fight" sort of district. Key word being "sort of". It'd be lean Dem if 2017 and later years are any indication.
It'd likely be 7D-4R-1S, and lock in such an advantage later on in the decade.

VA is not set to get a 12th seat, unless something unusual happens. Even if it was, you drew Spanberger out of her seat.

I know Spanberger was drawn out of her seat. She could just move though.
The 12th district thing is a...graver oversight.
D'oh.

It could if Corona throws off all the census estimates and we end up with more high education respondents. That is however a scenario outside the 95% confidence interval.

Yeah.
2030 is a much better chance than 2020. VA has a very strong chance of gaining a CD then.

I doubt it. 2030 looks like it'll see Washington, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Florida, and maybe California gaining. Nevada, Minnesota, Georgia, and North Carolina have outside chances. Virginia seems almost certain to stay at 11 and its growth rate would have to tick up fast in the first part of the decade for that to change.

But wouldn't NOVA growth be enough to power it just over the edge to 12 seats?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/45ca9168-26d5-47f1-a5c6-58247fa1c345
Redid the map with 11 seats.
Turns out making Spanberger safe basically nukes the current VA-05 quite frequently. Also VA-09 can literally gobble ALL of Roanoke city and county and Salem.
The growth in NoVA is paid testament to by the fact that VA-10 loses most of Loudoun and you can't even nest just 3 seats in PMW, Fairfax+its cities, and Loudoun.
This map should be a reliable 7D-4R over the course of the decade.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I set out to make what a good, clean, compact incument protection map would look like.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/55a300f4-6852-4e0b-a256-bb74744cdd4a
This is the end result.
Luria, Spanberger, and Wexton all get noticably better districts. The 5th becomes safe GOP.
The new 12th is sort of a "fair fight" sort of district. Key word being "sort of". It'd be lean Dem if 2017 and later years are any indication.
It'd likely be 7D-4R-1S, and lock in such an advantage later on in the decade.

VA is not set to get a 12th seat, unless something unusual happens. Even if it was, you drew Spanberger out of her seat.

I know Spanberger was drawn out of her seat. She could just move though.
The 12th district thing is a...graver oversight.
D'oh.

It could if Corona throws off all the census estimates and we end up with more high education respondents. That is however a scenario outside the 95% confidence interval.

Yeah.
2030 is a much better chance than 2020. VA has a very strong chance of gaining a CD then.

I doubt it. 2030 looks like it'll see Washington, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Florida, and maybe California gaining. Nevada, Minnesota, Georgia, and North Carolina have outside chances. Virginia seems almost certain to stay at 11 and its growth rate would have to tick up fast in the first part of the decade for that to change.

But wouldn't NOVA growth be enough to power it just over the edge to 12 seats?

Probably not. Between 2010 and 2018, NoVa added 240,000 people. If that continues through 2030, NoVa gets to 2,830,000 people. To get a 12th district in 2030, Virginia has to have 9,450,000 people.  If the rest of Virginia keeps growing at its 2010-2016 rate, it hits 6,380,000 people in 2030. That leaves Virginia 240,000 people short of a 12th district in 2030, so unless growth rates pick up, it isn't getting a 12th until 2040.

Huh. I stand corrected then.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is not a fair map, this is a non-partisan map, and all that entails.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

VA Reps may push the 5-1 court to do something like this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/bce45050-8fd6-4923-9e68-81b01682d91d


5 and 7 are the leftovers, but the leftovers clearly benefit the GOP, the VRA seats are strengthened, which just happens to help shore up 2, and Albemarle honestly doesn't have a clear place to go, so I can see the 5-1 court just sticking it in Appalachia. In a vacuum, each of these decisions can clearly be justified as fine pairings, but on the broader scale, the side effects create a blatantly lopsided map, 6 might be vulnerable, but Appalachia is probably inelastic enough, 7 might also be vulnerable, but is currently D held anyways, I would not be shocked if the final map looks more like this than the quad cuts of Fairfax being proposed in this thread, and other than the NoVA seats, this map isn't even that ugly.

The Virginia Supreme Court is nominally 5 republicans and 2 democrats, but of those 5 republicans, only three are partisan hacks. One of them is basically a liberal democrat, and another is a hardcore ideologue but a very weak partisan. There is no way anything like what you've drawn becomes the map.

Everyone is acting like the Virginia Supreme Court is going to draw like a 8 to 3 or 9 to  2 GOP gerrymander and that the amendment passing prevents Democrats from winning any statewide offices next year. Its getting a bit ridiculous with the takes on this amendment.

Looking at the 2020 results...would Republicans really even "want" a 8R-3D map anymore?   Republicans in eastern Virginia (east of VA-6 basically) are kinda on thin ice as it is right now.  I don't think they really have the room to gerrymander the map all that much (sane maps that a commission would draw). 

I'm thinking it's more realistic they agree to concede VA-7 in exchange for making VA-5 and VA-1 safer.  Not much you can do with VA-2 anyway.

I don't think a sustainable 8R-3D is even realistic anymore even with the most hackish R elected officials imaginable holding the crayons. 7-4 might be possible, key word being might. An ironclad 6R-5D is the best option for VA Rs if they had total control.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

VA Reps may push the 5-1 court to do something like this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/bce45050-8fd6-4923-9e68-81b01682d91d


5 and 7 are the leftovers, but the leftovers clearly benefit the GOP, the VRA seats are strengthened, which just happens to help shore up 2, and Albemarle honestly doesn't have a clear place to go, so I can see the 5-1 court just sticking it in Appalachia. In a vacuum, each of these decisions can clearly be justified as fine pairings, but on the broader scale, the side effects create a blatantly lopsided map, 6 might be vulnerable, but Appalachia is probably inelastic enough, 7 might also be vulnerable, but is currently D held anyways, I would not be shocked if the final map looks more like this than the quad cuts of Fairfax being proposed in this thread, and other than the NoVA seats, this map isn't even that ugly.

The Virginia Supreme Court is nominally 5 republicans and 2 democrats, but of those 5 republicans, only three are partisan hacks. One of them is basically a liberal democrat, and another is a hardcore ideologue but a very weak partisan. There is no way anything like what you've drawn becomes the map.

Everyone is acting like the Virginia Supreme Court is going to draw like a 8 to 3 or 9 to  2 GOP gerrymander and that the amendment passing prevents Democrats from winning any statewide offices next year. Its getting a bit ridiculous with the takes on this amendment.

Looking at the 2020 results...would Republicans really even "want" a 8R-3D map anymore?   Republicans in eastern Virginia (east of VA-6 basically) are kinda on thin ice as it is right now.  I don't think they really have the room to gerrymander the map all that much (sane maps that a commission would draw). 

I'm thinking it's more realistic they agree to concede VA-7 in exchange for making VA-5 and VA-1 safer.  Not much you can do with VA-2 anyway.

I don't think a sustainable 8R-3D is even realistic anymore even with the most hackish R elected officials imaginable holding the crayons. 7-4 might be possible, key word being might. An ironclad 6R-5D is the best option for VA Rs if they had total control.

How's 7-4 even possible?  There have to be 2 VRA seats in southern VA and 3 Dem packs are needed in NoVA.  The best map for Republicans that could be realistically drawn is 6-5 R.  If you get rid of the VRA and draw bacon strips maybe a 7-4 but that's not what's going to happen.

A 7R-4D map can be made, albeit it'd only function in 2022 and be a dummymander for the rest of the decade.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5735689a-0876-4256-97e0-31087e34cb7e

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A 7R-4D map can be made, albeit it'd only function in 2022 and be a dummymander for the rest of the decade.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/5735689a-0876-4256-97e0-31087e34cb7e

Not VRA compliant. That ROVA Dem district is an illegal AA pack.

It's not an AA pack, because it's not AA majority. If it were an AA pack it wouldn't have took in so many white areas. I didn't even go into the map mode that shows the AA % when drawing it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It’s theoretically possible to connect Delmarva to Bobby Scott’s VRA seat. Would it be a bad COI?

Sounds bad. Either connect it to Virginia Beach (the ideal choice, regardless of anything else), or maaayyyybeee VA-01.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/e5e040a5-8c7b-41d8-93af-ef83298712fe
9 Clinton districts in a (mostly) reasonable-looking map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Started off with a county-integrity focus, but this became a compactness map by the time I finished it.
Map is highly proportional as well.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/dbf39aa7-bef0-49cc-af0a-e076b8623985

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Welcome to the forum!!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

(shaded by 2016 presidential data)
Which of the following does this look like? D gerrymander, R gerrymander, competitive-mander (gerrymander designed to produce competitive seats), fair-proportional map, fair-non-partisan map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Hot take coming, but I anticipate whatever the commission draws is going to get tossed out if the GOP doesn't like it, if they get a bad map, they'll take their chances with a 5-1 R court, which is probably a smart gamble from their perspective.

(shaded by 2016 presidential data)
Which of the following does this look like? D gerrymander, R gerrymander, competitive-mander (gerrymander designed to produce competitive seats), fair-proportional map, fair-non-partisan map.

little bit of everything, compact in Fairfax, R gerrymander in NoVA and D gerrymander in Richmond and the Hampton Roads area. Also I wonder if that Newport News seat is VRA compliant.

Newport News CD is 44% black total population and 42% black VAP. Petersburg CD is 40% black total population and 39% black VAP.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

(shaded by 2016 presidential data)
Which of the following does this look like? D gerrymander, R gerrymander, competitive-mander (gerrymander designed to produce competitive seats), fair-proportional map, fair-non-partisan map.

Is this a 9-2 Biden map? Looks like a D gambitmander that gambles on current trends to hold. But yes, four of the seats are marginal, so it's a map that leaves Republicans a real chance to come back to 6R-5D and can in that sense be considered a competitive-mander, too, and a fair-non-partisan-map of sorts. An R gerrymander certainly not (at least in 2021) and the concept of fair-proportional map needs further definition because I think that people don't agree on what it means.

'Fair-proportional' means a map on giving Rs a share of seats equal to the statewide share.

But you are absolutely correct. It is a D gambitmander map.
I wish I had 2020 presidential data. I think Biden probably won 9 seats here, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/ankitjain992/status/1450086623769767939

Also person tagged the wrong Jason Torchinsky in the thread lol

honestly, this "commission" was a mess and it seems like it was for the best to just end it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Williamsburg seems to be the Greeley of Virginia.(retarded idea on COI grounds that stretches a district but probably doesn't affect overall partisanship that much)

Interesting perspective. I don't necessarily disagree.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyone have any idea what the post-2020 census HoD map will look like?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does John Edwards have a good seat to run in here?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does John Edwards have a good seat to run in here?

They compromised on a much milder gerrymander that brings his seat to Trump +7 in 2016 and Trump +0.6 in 2020. He probably couldn't hold on in this political environment but could still in 2023.

In total, how many Biden districts in the House and how many in the Senate, under these lines?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does John Edwards have a good seat to run in here?

They compromised on a much milder gerrymander that brings his seat to Trump +7 in 2016 and Trump +0.6 in 2020. He probably couldn't hold on in this political environment but could still in 2023.

In total, how many Biden districts in the House and how many in the Senate, under these lines?

Senate Map

Pres 2016: 23D-17R
Gov 2017: 24D-16R
Sen 2018: 26D-14R
Pres 2020: 24D-16R

House Map

Pres 2016: 52D-48R
Gov 2017: 56D-44R
Sen 2018: 68D-32R
Pres 2020: 60D-40R

Notably, because of reapportionment and undoing some of the State House 2011 Gerry in places like Charlottesville and Fredericksburg, the GOP would need to win in 2023 by even more than in 2021 to hold the state house.

The HoD looks next to impossible for R's to hold, but the Senate probably got a bit easier for R's to pick up.  D's likely have to flip a narrow Clinton->Biden->Youngkin outer NOVA R seat to hold the Senate. 

Well, that is to be expected when you un-gerry a pair of state legislative maps, one done for each party.