Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Coastal Elitist]

GA-2 is a Racial Gerrymander

Yep- I think racial gerrymanders are acceptable under the VRA?

Not like that they aren't.

[wbrocks67]

What are the new districts likely going to look like for Bordeaux and McBath?

[patzer]

GA-2 is a Racial Gerrymander

Yep- I think racial gerrymanders are acceptable under the VRA?

Not like that they aren't.

In that case I don’t think the GAGOP can reasonably eliminate a Dem district. It was already hard and risky enough even in the scenario of bringing the 2nd into Atlanta.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Not the prettiest set of districts, but I managed to put together a map where Biden wins a majority of districts without too many county splits:



Biden wins the Athens-Augusta seat by less than a point after Kemp wins it by about two, and Trump the Savannah-Brunswick seat by a little under seven, so this could be a genuinely competitive (for Georgia) map in practice. Five of the six core ATL seats (the Cobb district excepted) and the southwestern seat are majority-minority by VAP, with two of those being Black-majority and two more Black-plurality.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

What are the new districts likely going to look like for Bordeaux and McBath?

They're almost certainly going to be merged into one

[lfromnj]

What are the new districts likely going to look like for Bordeaux and McBath?

They're almost certainly going to be merged into one

Not exactly. Its more just the 5 atlanta democrats being merged into 4 black seats which involves 4 vertical seats.

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Here's my attempt at a 10-4 GOP Gerrymander map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/da9781ee-234a-4bfc-82e6-4c4c30a1de38

[S019]

Here's my attempt at a 10-4 GOP Gerrymander map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/da9781ee-234a-4bfc-82e6-4c4c30a1de38

GA-02 is probably still protected, I don't see this map becoming reality

[Bacon King]

submitting this map as a proof of concept to demonstrate Sanford Bishop's seat is protected by the VRA

[Bacon King]

Let me offer an explanation for the significance of the above, for anyone unaware

The Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in Gingles v. Thornburg established an important precedent governing the influence of the Voting Rights Act on redistricting.

The "Gingles Test" establishes when a minority district is required. It has three parts:

1. The minority group must be "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district"
2. The minority group must vote as a bloc
3. The majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to defeat the minority's preferred candidate

When these three elements are present, then a district must exist that reliably elects the minority's candidate of choice. The court's judgement says that discriminatory intent and causation are both completely irrelevant here, only the test itself matters. If polarized voting exists and a Gingles district can exist for a minority community, then there must be a district that can reliably elect that community's preferred candidate.

Because it's obvious that racially polarized voting occurs in the Deep South, we only need to focus on the first part of the Gingles Test, the compactness test:

Is the specific minority community populous enough and geographically compact enough that its members can constitute a majority of a district's voting age population?

This is called the "compactness test" for a reason. The sprawling 11th District here was ruled unconstitutional because it was not at all compact and the African American population of the district was not part of any coherent community. People living in urban Dekalb County don't have the same interests and priorities as people in the rural black belt or downtown Savannah, even if they're both in the same racial minority. In most circumstances though the Courts have not been very strict about the definitions of "compactness" or "community".

If the General Assembly gets rid of Sanford Bishop's seat, the state's most likely case in the ensuing lawsuit will probably be to push for a new and stricter definition of minority community here. It will probably not be successful because existing precedent covers a much broader definition but it would be the only real argument they could make.

All things considered "African Americans in southwest Georgia" can be reasonably considered a discrete minority community. As you can see, I've drawn a compact district in the area of the current 2nd District with a 50.5% black voting age population. This means a district must exist that can be expected to elect their candidate of choice (who is currently Sanford Bishop). Keep in mind the district itself does not need to be >50% black! It can certainly be less, as long as it will probably still elect the black community's candidate of choice.

Even though it's not strictly necessary, traditionally when drawing VRA districts the mapmakers have typically drawn the districts themselves to be >50% minority, either because they had no pressing reason to do otherwise, or because they deemed it necessary to ensure the election of the minority's candidate of choice

[BoiseBoy]

I love how easy it is to draw an 8-6 DEM map in Georgia. This of course will never happen for 2022; a 6-8 map is most likely, but I could see a 7-7 also happening (all depending on how ugly some of the snaking gets).

[Bacon King]

After looking at thethem census data for a bit i think the most likely outcome is a 5D, 9R map. Dem districts will be

1) Bishop's seat
2 thru 4) three metro VRA districts in a north-to-south bacon strip configuration. The southern portion of all 3 districts will cover the supermajority black portions of Fulton/Clayton/Dekalb, the northern portion of each district stretching up to the non-black Dem portions of Cobb/North Fulton/Dekalb and possibly a bit into Gwinnett as well. Basically the goal will be for all three districts to be something in the range of 50% to 53% African American VAP (not more, in order to prevent VRA lawsuits over minority vote packing) while being like >80% Dem so they're optimized as a partisan gerrymander.
5) non VRA dem seat probably based in Gwinnett, packing in all the ATL dem voters not in any of the previous three districts

If these explanations don't make sense I'll try to make a map at some point

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

After looking at thethem census data for a bit i think the most likely outcome is a 5D, 9R map. Dem districts will be

1) Bishop's seat
2 thru 4) three metro VRA districts in a north-to-south bacon strip configuration. The southern portion of all 3 districts will cover the supermajority black portions of Fulton/Clayton/Dekalb, the northern portion of each district stretching up to the non-black Dem portions of Cobb/North Fulton/Dekalb and possibly a bit into Gwinnett as well. Basically the goal will be for all three districts to be something in the range of 50% to 53% African American VAP (not more, in order to prevent VRA lawsuits over minority vote packing) while being like >80% Dem so they're optimized as a partisan gerrymander.
5) non VRA dem seat probably based in Gwinnett, packing in all the ATL dem voters not in any of the previous three districts

If these explanations don't make sense I'll try to make a map at some point

I look forward to you making a map. Your contribution will be welcome!

[patzer]

I just realized it's possible to make the 7th into a Hispanic-opportunity district. Don't think it's mandated VRA though, as the Hispanic population, while constituting a plurality, is still only 34% of the population.

[Biden his time]

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

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%.

80/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
71/100 on the Compactness Index
70/100 on County Splitting
90/100 on the Minority Representation index
20/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Senate Election in Georgia: 10R to 4D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Georgia: 8R to 6D

2018 Georgia Attorney General Election: 8R to 6D

2018 Georgia Gubernatorial Election: 8R to 6D

2018 Georgia Lieutenant Governor Election: 8R to 6D

2020 U.S. Senate Election in Georgia: 8R to 6D

2020 U.S. Senate Election in Georgia (special): 8R to 6D

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Georgia: 8R to 6D

2021 U.S. Senate Election in Georgia (runoff): 8R to 6D

2021 U.S. Senate Election in Georgia (special runoff): 8R to 6D


The map has three majority-black seats in the Atlanta metro area (by VAP, 58%, 53%, 55% Black). There is a fourth black seat in the Southwestern region of the state, which while being majority-black in terms of total population (51.1%) is only plurality black in terms of VAP (49.0%).

There is another seat that is based entirely in the county of Gwinnett, which is the only one in the state to have a significant Hispanic population, representing an opportunity for them. Hispanics make up a whopping 25.5% of the district's population and 22.8% of the district's voting-age population (which is almost as much as Florida statewide!).

Finally, there's a special seat in the Northern Atlanta suburbs which is based around Northern Fulton County and includes Southern Forsyth, Northeastern Cobb, and Northern Gwinnett. This seat perfectly exemplifies the rapid growth and diversification of the Atlanta metro area which has reacted most poorly to Trump's new Republican party and thus delivered Georgia for Joe Biden in November.

It is notable for its large and fast-growing Asian population, which uniquely make up the largest minority group in the district. This district, despite being 11.7% Asian in 2010 (in terms of population) has seen its share spike to a whopping 18.8% in 2020 (this occurred even as the district's population as a whole grew by 19%).

Another way it is notable is the speed at which it has trended Democratic over the past years. Here's a quick look back at its election results:

2016 U.S. Senate: R+33.3 (30.8% D, 64.1% R)

2016 Presidential: R+17.7 (38.8% D, 56.5% R)

2018 Gubernatorial: R+12.0 (43.3% D, 55.3% R)

2020 Presidential: R+3.3 (47.6% D, 50.9% R)

2020 Special Senate Runoff: R+5.8 (47.1% D, 52.9% R)


Opinions?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Here's a 4-10 map that could become a 5-9 0r 6-8, but also could not. Either way this is a pretty clean gerrymander for Republicans and likely the lowest they can get VRA wise.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I just realized it's possible to make the 7th into a Hispanic-opportunity district. Don't think it's mandated VRA though, as the Hispanic population, while constituting a plurality, is still only 34% of the population.

Also a pretty high Asian population (relatively speaking).

[Nyvin]

Draw the required VRA district in the southwest and it wouldn't be too bad,  1 and 12 probably flip in like 2-3 elections.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Draw the required VRA district in the southwest and it wouldn't be too bad,  1 and 12 probably flip in like 2-3 elections.

I would think 11 is the most vulnerable?

[Torie]

I still like the basic design of my previous legal Pubmander, adjusted for the 2020 census figures, so I am sticking with it.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/271e317c-5eaf-4b6b-905b-93338b4ca23b

[Del Tachi]

What software was used to make this map?

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Here's a plausible 9-5 R GA map. (2020 Election data)

https://davesredistricting.org/join/694f591a-0eb8-4cd7-beac-05633b171e87




Bordeaux gets drawn out.
McBath gets a dem sink.
Districts 7, 9, 10, 11 and 14 takes in some part of Atlanta.
They're 10 Minority opportunity seats and 4 AA potential seats.

[Roll Roons]

How likely is it that a certain individual who shall not be named actually gets part of Cobb?

[Del Tachi]

How likely is it that a certain individual who shall not be named actually gets part of Cobb?

Very likely.  GA-14 can get unpacked and pickup Dem-voting parts of Cobb to further shore up the GA-07 and GA-06 redraws. 

[ProgressiveModerate]

How likely is it that a certain individual who shall not be named actually gets part of Cobb?

Definately. GA-14 has a lot of R votes to shed, and can take in northern Cobb without putting it in immediate danger. Infact, I'd argue if the GOP doesn't, they're probably making a dummymander.