2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[Idaho Conservative]

It passed

[Idaho Conservative]

It passed

Dems should have pulled this from the floor once the amendment didn’t pass. 

Why?

[Idaho Conservative]

Here's my take on a fair map (7D-3R, 2 Black VRA, etc.)



I really hate connecting Charlottesville and Richmond, but if you undo that, then you end up with a two-lobe district connected via a neck in Spotsylvania County (I'm not willing to change my Shenendoah, Southwest, and Richmond/Southside VRA seats). Are there any better ways to fix this problem?

I'm also conflicted about whether to pull a district out of Fairfax and create a more compact outer suburban seat, but I think NoVa is ultimately more characterized by three corridors outside the beltway along Dulles Toll Road, I-68, and I-95 than by inner and outer ring suburbs.

Fair? HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Idaho Conservative]

Here's my take on a fair map (7D-3R, 2 Black VRA, etc.)



I really hate connecting Charlottesville and Richmond, but if you undo that, then you end up with a two-lobe district connected via a neck in Spotsylvania County (I'm not willing to change my Shenendoah, Southwest, and Richmond/Southside VRA seats). Are there any better ways to fix this problem?

I'm also conflicted about whether to pull a district out of Fairfax and create a more compact outer suburban seat, but I think NoVa is ultimately more characterized by three corridors outside the beltway along Dulles Toll Road, I-68, and I-95 than by inner and outer ring suburbs.

Fair? HAHAHAHAHAHA

What are your specific criticisms? The Southside, Newport News-Norfolk, and Virginia Beach-Delmarva seats are basically locked in place by VRA and geography. The SWVA and Shenandoah seats are compact and follow clear COIs. Finally, four blue NoVa seats are unavoidable in any reasonable configuration. I've already discussed my issues with drawing Richmond, Charlottesville, and the Tidewater but even if you make a Tidewater-Charlottesville dumbbell seat and a more compact Richmond seat then the underlying partisanship won't change.

Dicing up Fairfax 4 ways is absurd.  Why not a compact seat in the county?  Also splitting up Richmond unnecessarily.  A compact seat could be made there.

[Idaho Conservative]

Here's my take on a fair map (7D-3R, 2 Black VRA, etc.)



I really hate connecting Charlottesville and Richmond, but if you undo that, then you end up with a two-lobe district connected via a neck in Spotsylvania County (I'm not willing to change my Shenendoah, Southwest, and Richmond/Southside VRA seats). Are there any better ways to fix this problem?

I'm also conflicted about whether to pull a district out of Fairfax and create a more compact outer suburban seat, but I think NoVa is ultimately more characterized by three corridors outside the beltway along Dulles Toll Road, I-68, and I-95 than by inner and outer ring suburbs.

Fair? HAHAHAHAHAHA

What are your specific criticisms? The Southside, Newport News-Norfolk, and Virginia Beach-Delmarva seats are basically locked in place by VRA and geography. The SWVA and Shenandoah seats are compact and follow clear COIs. Finally, four blue NoVa seats are unavoidable in any reasonable configuration. I've already discussed my issues with drawing Richmond, Charlottesville, and the Tidewater but even if you make a Tidewater-Charlottesville dumbbell seat and a more compact Richmond seat then the underlying partisanship won't change.

Dicing up Fairfax 4 ways is absurd.  Why not a compact seat in the county?  Also splitting up Richmond unnecessarily.  A compact seat could be made there.

I discussed this earlier. I think NoVa is more accurately divided into an inside the beltway region and three corridors (basically Reston-Loudoun, Vienna-Manassas, and Springfield-Fredricksburg.) Even if  I change NoVa around to consist of a Loudon-West PWC-Fauquier based seat, a Fairfax seat, a PWC-Fredricksburg seat, and an Arlington-Alexandria seat then the partisanship will be the exact same.

As for Richmond, you have to split it for VRA. It would be illegal not to do so. I can pull VA-08 in so VA-07 isn't in the metro area at all, but again, that won't change the partisanship of the map.

This is still a 7-3 map:

Laughable, parts of Fairfax have more in common with other parts of Fairfax than Appalachia.  Just admit this is parrisan, you look so bad trying todeny the obvious.  Also a compact 40% black seat can be created in Richmond metro.  Due to racially polarized voting and a largely black dem primary electorate (but not so racially polarized a republican would win), a black candidate would likely win. 

[Idaho Conservative]

Here's my take on a fair map (7D-3R, 2 Black VRA, etc.)



I really hate connecting Charlottesville and Richmond, but if you undo that, then you end up with a two-lobe district connected via a neck in Spotsylvania County (I'm not willing to change my Shenendoah, Southwest, and Richmond/Southside VRA seats). Are there any better ways to fix this problem?

I'm also conflicted about whether to pull a district out of Fairfax and create a more compact outer suburban seat, but I think NoVa is ultimately more characterized by three corridors outside the beltway along Dulles Toll Road, I-68, and I-95 than by inner and outer ring suburbs.

Fair? HAHAHAHAHAHA

What are your specific criticisms? The Southside, Newport News-Norfolk, and Virginia Beach-Delmarva seats are basically locked in place by VRA and geography. The SWVA and Shenandoah seats are compact and follow clear COIs. Finally, four blue NoVa seats are unavoidable in any reasonable configuration. I've already discussed my issues with drawing Richmond, Charlottesville, and the Tidewater but even if you make a Tidewater-Charlottesville dumbbell seat and a more compact Richmond seat then the underlying partisanship won't change.

Dicing up Fairfax 4 ways is absurd.  Why not a compact seat in the county?  Also splitting up Richmond unnecessarily.  A compact seat could be made there.

I discussed this earlier. I think NoVa is more accurately divided into an inside the beltway region and three corridors (basically Reston-Loudoun, Vienna-Manassas, and Springfield-Fredricksburg.) Even if  I change NoVa around to consist of a Loudon-West PWC-Fauquier based seat, a Fairfax seat, a PWC-Fredricksburg seat, and an Arlington-Alexandria seat then the partisanship will be the exact same.

As for Richmond, you have to split it for VRA. It would be illegal not to do so. I can pull VA-08 in so VA-07 isn't in the metro area at all, but again, that won't change the partisanship of the map.

This is still a 7-3 map:

Laughable, parts of Fairfax have more in common with other parts of Fairfax than Appalachia.  Just admit this is parrisan, you look so bad trying todeny the obvious.  Also a compact 40% black seat can be created in Richmond metro.  Due to racially polarized voting and a largely black dem primary electorate (but not so racially polarized a republican would win), a black candidate would likely win. 

Uh, nobody cares about where Winchester is and moving it around for population adjustment won't significantly affect partisanship. And yeah, Reston is definitely more connected with Ashburn than it is with Springfield, Fair Oaks is more connected with Manassas than it is with Great Falls, and Lorton is more connected with Woodbridge than it is with Chantilly. This is genuinely nonpartisan. A fair map of Virginia has six to eight safe Dem seats (just as a fair map of Tennessee has one or two, despite neither breakdown accurately reflecting the partisanship of the state.)

As for Richmond, 40% black is not good enough. 45% should be a minimum.

Anyhow, this map should address all of your concerns although you should know that in 2018 it would have been 9-2 Dem:

How isn't 40% enough?  Also, mask off there.  You admitted rural interests don't matter in your map and it's all about partisanship. 

[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.

[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

[Idaho Conservative]

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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[Idaho Conservative]

LOL, 6 Trump districts in a Dem state and you're calling our maps gerrymanders.

"Exurbs" are not a COI, they are part of a metro and should be treated as such. Your map is ridiculous. I suggest you learn what a COI is.

Exurbs are absolutely a COI. I suggest you learn what a COI is.  You only deem communities COIs if it benefits the Democratic party.

[Idaho Conservative]

pretty solid 5-1-5 map the court could draw.  Not a gerrymander but tilts R.  https://davesredistricting.org/join/2bf45947-9f8c-441d-b02c-f1e566607039

[Idaho Conservative]

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.

[Idaho Conservative]

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

illegal and NoVA can be packed better