Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Coastal Elitist]

Not sure why so many dems think Kemp and republicans won't go all out in Georgia. This an 11-3 map based on 2018 Governor results. Districts 1-4 actually fit great with 2018 population numbers and probably won't trend much compared to the Atlanta area: https://davesredistricting.org/join/efdd6266-17d2-42c3-a4b8-21a217dc07aa

GA-1: Kemp+12
GA-2: Kemp+12
GA-3: Kemp +14
GA-4: Kemp+14
GA-5: Abrams+64
GA-6: Kemp+22
GA-7: Kemp+21
GA-8: Abrams+66
GA-9: Kemp+23
GA-10: Kemp+34
GA-11: Kemp+26
GA-12: Kemp+20
GA-13: Kemp+22
GA-14: Abrams+72

You can easily get rid of McBath with this map and it's unlikely that this will fail in 10 years.

[Coastal Elitist]

Not sure why so many dems think Kemp and republicans won't go all out in Georgia. This an 11-3 map based on 2018 Governor results. Districts 1-4 actually fit great with 2018 population numbers and probably won't trend much compared to the Atlanta area: https://davesredistricting.org/join/efdd6266-17d2-42c3-a4b8-21a217dc07aa

GA-1: Kemp+12
GA-2: Kemp+12
GA-3: Kemp +14
GA-4: Kemp+14
GA-5: Abrams+64
GA-6: Kemp+22
GA-7: Kemp+21
GA-8: Abrams+66
GA-9: Kemp+23
GA-10: Kemp+34
GA-11: Kemp+26
GA-12: Kemp+20
GA-13: Kemp+22
GA-14: Abrams+72

You can easily get rid of McBath with this map and it's unlikely that this will fail in 10 years.

Again, how is the 52% black GA-02 not protected under the VRA?

According to DRA it's only 49.4% black and I'm not aware of that being true.

[Coastal Elitist]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/2d5fdc7d-5ed8-4c5c-9d27-c438f9ca43b0

I've been tinkering with this for a while to see what the GOP could do if they really don't want to concede a 4th pack in Atlanta. It's just as VRA compliant as the current map (and the very Trumpy 5th circuit shouldn't find any problems no matter what). All 10 republican seats should be totally rock-solid for the entire decade, and they would have decent odds of picking up the 2nd. Kemp won all the Atlanta suburban seats by at least 25% so I really doubt they'll be marginal in 10 years time.


GA-01: Buddy Carter's seat is basically unchanged, still stretching along the Georgia Coast. Trends still mildly favour the Republicans in this seat going forward.

GA-02: Sandford Bishop's seat becomes 0.1% more Black than its current iteration while the PVI halves. Abrams' margin of victory goes from 12% to 5%. Bishop still has some crossover appeal and outran Biden by 6%, but when he retires this seat is a ripe pickup opportunity. And it's just as VRA compliant as the current district.

GA-03: Drew Ferguson's seat loses it's eastern arm out to Henry and instead stretches further north up to Cobb. However the character of the district barely changes with the small slice of blueing Atlanta suburbs easily outweighed by rural West Central Georgia.

GA-04: Hank Johnson's seat remains based in DeKalb though it gains a significant amount of deep blue territory in Gwinnett.

GA-05: Still based in Atlanta, John Lewis's old seat loses most of Clayton for more of DeKalb. This seat is Nikema Williams's for as long as she wants it.

GA-06: Marjorie Taylor Greene is the big winner under this map, with her seat now stretching from Dalton, her base in the primary and the runoff, to take in her old home town of Alpharetta in suburban Fulton County. And with Kemp winning this seat by 27% she should have no problems in the general. Northern Fulton and Forsyth are both zooming leftwards however Gainesville and Appalachia completely overpower them.

GA-07: Carolyn Bordeaux is the one big loser in this map with absolutely nowhere to go. The radically redrawn 7th is now R+21 PVI and voted for Kemp by 27%. A wide-open seat it should see a divisive primary between a Gainesville-based Republican and a Gwinnett-based Republican but whoever wins shouldn't have to sweat about winning election at any point in the next decade.

GA-08: Austin Scott's district snakes through Central Georgia up to Athens and drops 6 PVI points in the process. It wouldn't be the snoozefest he's accustomed to but Scott shouldn't have any problem holding this seat.

GA-09: Freshman Andrew Clyde's Northeastern seat is rather radically altered and he now has to deal with a significant democratic constituency with Kemp's margin of victory falls from 59% to 26%. Gwinnett may be zooming leftwards but this is still the seat where Deliverance was filmed.

GA-10: Jody Hice's district loses the rural eastern counties and instead wraps around west to Henry and Fayette and south to Macon. Not quite as safe as the Northern seats however Kemp still won it by 24%.

GA-11: Barry Loudermilk's seat keeps its basic shape but loses about half of Cobb in exchange for taking two more deep red Northern counties. It moves 4 PVI points right and Kemp won it by 27%, so Loudermilk should have no problem holding this seat.

GA-12: Still anchored by Augusta Rick Allen's seat has mild changes that don't affect the partisan balance. Trends should only strengthen the Republican hold on this seat.

GA-13: Sets up a very nasty primary between Lucy McBath and David Scott in this Rorschach blot (which is still less ugly than MD-03). David Scott is a noted DINO who was almost forced into a runoff against an unfunded nobody this cycle, meanwhile McBath is hindered by currently representing exactly 0.7% of this district, including herself. A dark horse in the vein of Keisha Waites could even come through the middle and defeat both of them.

GA-14: Though it's the successor to the current 14th MTG should move to the 6th making this one of two Open seats. It keeps its basic shape taking in Northwestern Georgia however it loses MTG's base of Dalton for a large slice of rapidly diversifying Cobb. Whoever wins the Republican primary should have no problem holding this seat, given Kemp won it by 26%.

The current GA-11 literally swung from Trump+35 to Trump+14, the Atlanta area is moving quicker than many realize, and these Appalachia-Atlanta seats are just asking for trouble, that green especially is very risky, given how the exurbs are slowly bluing, the suburbs are rapidly bluing, and north Georgia is more or less maxed out, and Greene is unusually weak, so drawing her into Cobb County is just asking for trouble by the end of the decade. Given how the current GA-11 swung 21 pts in 4 years, adding 7 pts to the seat won't save it, at that rate it would still flip by the end of the decade. The current 6th swung from Trump+1 to Biden+10 and the current 7th from Trump+6 to Biden+5, these are insane swings and this map is going to become a dummymander, if they continue.

GA-11 was Trump+25 in 2016 not +35. Also you can easily make an 11-3 map where the closest North Georgia district is Kemp+22 and there's basically no chance of it becoming a dummymander. Maybe they'll be competitive by the end of the decade but I doubt it.

[Coastal Elitist]

Here is a new and exciting Pubmander concept. The Pubs would be unseating in all probability the moderate Dem Sanford Bishop however, who lives in Columbus.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe2b61e6-3b55-45fc-a705-3b8f5f3cf958

As to the black BCVAP figures, no doubt the Pubs would defer to the Dems as to how they want to carve up the Dem vote sinks.

For example, below are some hideous lines driven solely by race - a racial gerrymander. Oh wait a minute!  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/42aaef29-d498-4c6a-b01b-e9b68cc917a6

Sanford Bishop is in Albany. Also you can make a map with 4 majority-black districts in Atlanta and then four fairly compact Southern districts centered around Albany, Macon, Augusta and Savannah that all voted for Trump by at least 11. Hard to believe that the 9-0 Georgia Supreme Court will reject this map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/11921747-10a1-40b6-998f-9bc166066cf4

[Coastal Elitist]

Here is a new and exciting Pubmander concept. The Pubs would be unseating in all probability the moderate Dem Sanford Bishop however, who lives in Columbus.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe2b61e6-3b55-45fc-a705-3b8f5f3cf958

As to the black BCVAP figures, no doubt the Pubs would defer to the Dems as to how they want to carve up the Dem vote sinks.

For example, below are some hideous lines driven solely by race - a racial gerrymander. Oh wait a minute!  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/42aaef29-d498-4c6a-b01b-e9b68cc917a6

Sanford Bishop is in Albany. Also you can make a map with 4 majority-black districts in Atlanta and then four fairly compact Southern districts centered around Albany, Macon, Augusta and Savannah that all voted for Trump by at least 11. Hard to believe that the 9-0 Georgia Supreme Court will reject this map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/11921747-10a1-40b6-998f-9bc166066cf4

The problem legally will be with SCOTUS and the VRA, since you can draw 5 reasonably compact 50%+ BCVAP districts, triggering a "quota" of 5 performing black CD's under Gingles.

I would take that case for free just to be able to argue a case before SCOTUS. I think I would probably win. Ha!

I mean we've seen how partisan the courts have been recently especially with Pennyslvania's making up election law and other Democratic-controlled courts doing similar things so I doubt it but we'll see. You can easily make the argument that the current one isn't compact and with population change in the area it might not be possible anymore.

[Coastal Elitist]

GA-2 is a Racial Gerrymander

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

Not like that they aren't.