Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Given how no one has drawn a white Dem district (is one even possible?); the number of Dem seats equals the number of black seats

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ff94e92e-dccf-4c8f-a4da-d883ec0e9b2f

Here's a map of five Safe/Likely D seats all based in Atlanta that include 3 VRA Black districts, a majority-White Dem district (59% Obama, 61% White), and a Maj-Min district based in Gwinnett.

COI's not very intact though.

I guess that would be how a fair map would look like? (Plus GA-02 outside Atlanta in terms of Dem seats)

A "fair" map is probably 9-5 GOP with 4 Black districts (3 in Atlanta, 1 in SWGA) and the Gwinnett Maj-Min district.  I can't see a White Atlanta district being created.    For proportionality I think you need two Republican-leaning districts based in the North ATL suburbs, and a majority-White Dem seat in Atlanta pretty much precludes this.  While you can draw a majority-White Dem seat in Atlanta, you have to pick up a lot of currently Republican suburbs or majority-Black urban precincts to get it up to population - so White, liberal Atlantans aren't really numerous enough to demand their own district just yet.  The current GA-06 is probably shifted north and sheds some of its more Democratic precincts to the Maj-Min districts in ATL/Gwinnett.

I think a 10-4 has too much dummymander potential from having to crack fast-growing Atlanta suburbs too much, so the GA-GOP would do best to avoid that.  And, as has been discussed to death in this thread, a Black pack in SWGA shores up South Georgia and preempts a VRA challenge.   

A "fair" Georgia map at this point is 6-8 if not 7-7. One SW GA black seat, one majority minority Gwinnett seat, 3 black Atlanta seats, and 1 white liberal North Fulton/SW Cobb seat.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Anyway, now that 2018 population figures are in DRA, this is what I would consider a "fair" 6-8 GA map. Dens have the 3 black ATL seats, the Gwinnett seat, the VRA SW GA seat, and the white liberal north Fulton seat.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Anyway, now that 2018 population figures are in DRA, this is what I would consider a "fair" 6-8 GA map. Dens have the 3 black ATL seats, the Gwinnett seat, the VRA SW GA seat, and the white liberal north Fulton seat.

Nice map! A few nitpicks:

-Why not put all of Cherokee County in the Cyan district? Better to keep the Atlanta area together.
-Is it possible to avoid the tri-chop of Atlanta?
-If you give the eastern half of Spaulding to the teal district, and then send the grey district deeper into Columbia County, it better follows metro areas and communities.

Thanks.
1. Easy enough to do.
2. Yes, but I'm not sure it actually produces a better map. I'm undecided if the city limits are a good COI or wedges radiating out from central Atlanta are better.
3. I can fix Columbia County easily enough, but changing Spaulding forces a bunch of new county splits in the NW part of the state.

New map with Atlanta adjustment:


Without Atlanta adjustment:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Anyway, now that 2018 population figures are in DRA, this is what I would consider a "fair" 6-8 GA map. Dens have the 3 black ATL seats, the Gwinnett seat, the VRA SW GA seat, and the white liberal north Fulton seat.

Nice map! A few nitpicks:

-Why not put all of Cherokee County in the Cyan district? Better to keep the Atlanta area together.
-Is it possible to avoid the tri-chop of Atlanta?
-If you give the eastern half of Spaulding to the teal district, and then send the grey district deeper into Columbia County, it better follows metro areas and communities.

Thanks.
1. Easy enough to do.
2. Yes, but I'm not sure it actually produces a better map. I'm undecided if the city limits are a good COI or wedges radiating out from central Atlanta are better.
3. I can fix Columbia County easily enough, but changing Spaulding forces a bunch of new county splits in the NW part of the state.

New map with Atlanta adjustment:


Without Atlanta adjustment:

What about if you put South Atlanta into the district with Cobb and Douglas?

These maps are splendid by the way; my nitpicking is a sign of affection for this lovely map .

It's possible, but it forces a bunch of changes. The Douglass/Cobb district loses it's Cobb portion, which means a new Cobb-only Dem district is created, which forces the nonmetropolitan districts of Northern and Central GA to change their entire orientation. It shifts the map from 6D-8R to 7D-6R-1T, at least at first. Given the way the black belt is going, I wouldn't be surprised if in 2030, this has 6 Dem seats in Atlanta and 8 Dem seats downstate. Anyway, here you go:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Here's five Democratic districts in Atlanta that has the same effects of Blairite's maps (3 Black VAP districts, a majority-White district, and a Gwinnett Maj-Min districts) that only splits Atlanta once along racial lines.

That's probably a better map. I assumed it was better to split Atlanta than have multiple Cobb splits or a Fulton/De Kalb split, but the COIs are probably better respected there. Cobb still looks weird though.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Here's five Democratic districts in Atlanta that has the same effects of Blairite's maps (3 Black VAP districts, a majority-White district, and a Gwinnett Maj-Min districts) that only splits Atlanta once along racial lines.

That's probably a better map. I assumed it was better to split Atlanta than have multiple Cobb splits or a Fulton/De Kalb split, but the COIs are probably better respected there. Cobb still looks weird though.

Now that I revisit this map, I realize it's incredibly similar to the current district alignment in Metro ATL.  The current map is almost fair, although it really should have 2 Likely Dem and 4 Safe Dem seats in Metro Atlanta under a truly fair map Democratic gerrymander, so it seems.  No way anything like the current GA-06 survives 2021 redistricting.

FIFY

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I think would be a relatively fair map of the Atlanta region. Only splits Atlanta once because I chose to keep Dekalb county whole.

Anyway
Purple =Clinton +3 Almost all of Cobb County besides 2 precints, perfectly good COI to keep whole- Lean/Likely D rn but quickly approaching Safe D.
Green = Most of Milton +Forsyth and most of Cherokee- 63% Trump and should be Safe R even by the end of 2030
Blue = most o Atlanta +SW dekalb and part of Milton county. Titanium D at 78% Clinton and 58% Black by 2018 population.
Red = Middle class suburbs +white flight suburbs South of Atlanta+ tiny chop of dekalb county. Majority black but still has relative racial polarization to keep it at only 65% Clinton
Yellow = Dekalb county and Titanium D, doesn't include a few thousand people in the SW for population purposes.
Teal = Inner Gwinett county and used to be competitive for the GOP but its +15 Clinton so Safe D and +24 Abrams so obviously Safe D. Was Mccain +4.

Overall is a 4-1-1 map with the swing district quickly becoming Safe D.

Reasonable enough, although I'd favor a map that looks more like this:



4 Safe D (Fulton/Douglass, Clayton/Henry, DeKalb, and Gwinnett)
1 Likely D (Cobb)
1 Lean R (Milton/Douglas)

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

You should probably move the Gwinett, Cobb and Milton seat each a tier towards the GOP at least by rating, considering their base partisanship. Your Milton seat is +9 Trump, Your Cobb seat is +1 Clinton, and your Gwinett  seat is +6 Clinton. That looks like Lean/Likely R, Tossup, and Lean/Likely D to me.

Honestly, I think Abrams/Kemp numbers are more relevant for Georgia.

Milton is Kemp+4
Cobb is Abrams+9
Gwinett is Abrams+15

These districts are zooming left incredibly fast and not moving back. I'm comfortable with my ratings. Also, I adjusted my map a little because I realized my red district was less than 50% black, but that doesn't impact the three aforementioned districts.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

One problem for the GOP gerrymanders: as of 2018, it's really easy to draw five compact, majority black districts in Georgia. Democrats could absolutely sue for this on VRA grounds:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Could you solve that problem just by packing the Atlanta VRA districts? There's no VRA issue in doing this with Gwinnett Latinos and with the current Supreme Court they'd have a decent chance at getting away with moving the VRA districts from the 50s% black to the mid 60s% and getting away with it.

I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Gingles test stipulates that if a protected minority group constitutes a majority of the electorate in a hypothetical compactly-drawn district. African Americans are the only group to which this status applies in Georgia (Gwinnett Latinos couldn't be the majority in any district so can crack them either way). Given it is now possible to draw five compact, majority African American districts in Georgia (Macon-Columbus, South Atlanta Burbs, South Fulton/Douglass/Cobb, Core Atlanta, and East DeKalb/South Gwinnett), it can easily be argued that collapsing the latter four districts into three is an illegal racial gerrymander because it dilutes the natural voting power of Atlanta-area African Americans.

That, however, is the best Dems are getting in GA. The GOP shouldn't run into legal trouble stripping North Fulton/North Cobb/North Gwinnett deep into Appalachia.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Could you solve that problem just by packing the Atlanta VRA districts? There's no VRA issue in doing this with Gwinnett Latinos and with the current Supreme Court they'd have a decent chance at getting away with moving the VRA districts from the 50s% black to the mid 60s% and getting away with it.

I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Gingles test stipulates that if a protected minority group constitutes a majority of the electorate in a hypothetical compactly-drawn district. African Americans are the only group to which this status applies in Georgia (Gwinnett Latinos couldn't be the majority in any district so can crack them either way). Given it is now possible to draw five compact, majority African American districts in Georgia (Macon-Columbus, South Atlanta Burbs, South Fulton/Douglass/Cobb, Core Atlanta, and East DeKalb/South Gwinnett), it can easily be argued that collapsing the latter four districts into three is an illegal racial gerrymander because it dilutes the natural voting power of Atlanta-area African Americans.

That, however, is the best Dems are getting in GA. The GOP shouldn't run into legal trouble stripping North Fulton/North Cobb/North Gwinnett deep into Appalachia.

Yeah, I didn't mean denying a fourth AA district in metro Atlanta - the only way you're avoiding that is if the Supreme Court is willing to radically reinterpret or strike down the VRA. I meant using those four districts to ensure that you can't draw a fifth Democratic district in the city.

I don't think that's relevant so long as AA voting power isn't diluted. SCOTUS reaffirmed partisan redistricting as constitutional and GA doesn't have any state level rules of the sort. I really don't see why the GAGOP wouldn't try and crack that natural Sandy Springs/Alpharetta/Dunwoody/Duluth/East Cobb seat. It's gonna be 5-8.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Dealing with ATL can be incredibly tricky. I get how awkward things can be, especially once you have to deal with the NW corner of the state, but I really hate not splitting DeKalb. I really don't see the DeKalb/Fulton line as relevant. Both sides are thoroughly urban Atlanta, it makes things uncompact, and quite frankly, there are more relevant divides in the area (the Atlanta/Sandy Springs line, the Perimeter, the Chattahoochee River, etc.) Of course, dealing with this while keeping Cobb intact is tricky but I thing it should be done.

Second, I really see Fayette, Clayton, Henry, and Spalding as a COI. I really wouldn't split these to pair with Rockdale/Newton and/or Douglass/South Fulton.

Also, if we're being race-blind, cutting up Macon-Warner Robbins and Columbus just to pair things with Albany is a really weird choice.

Just my two cents.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

There are some areas where I'd want to fine-tune this (particularly around the Fulton/DeKalb/Gwinnett tripoint and the placement of Athens) but I'd propose something like this as a fix to the GA-03 problem in OBD's otherwise excellent updated map: