2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Tennessee

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Demographically, WV should be the most Republican state in the country and KY easily in the top 5 and arguably 2nd.  I would expect Republican dominance comparable to the Mormon states during George W. Bush's presidency is coming to WV and KY within the next decade.  The redistricting laws do meaningfully help rural Dems in KY though by keeping e.g. Elliott county intact.  There are almost as many Beshear/Republican as Bevin/Dem districts in the legislature now, but I expect most will be gerrymandered away in 2021 as they are almost all within large counties.  Beshear was probably the last gasp of the KY New Deal coalition.  The next R governor will get the message and pay the teachers better.

If anything, I expect TN Dems to go up from their current numbers over the 2020's due to Nashville (70% Bredesen, and not so easily gerrymandered away at the state legislative level), and signs they are finally breaking through in Knoxville and Chattanooga. 

Democrats already have every Davidson County district in the state House, but Republicans do have one state Senate district that was Romney-Clinton and is up for re-election in 2020.  The Romney-Clinton House district that covers much of the aforementioned Senate district (though both were very narrow Clinton wins) went Democratic 51-49 in 2018 when the Republican incumbent retired.  The incumbent is running in the Senate election, so I'd call it Tossup/Tilt R for 2020.

There's also a Romney-Trump district in Western and Northern Davidson County, but Republicans have never been able to break through there for some reason.

A lot of making a safe 8-1 map relies on how confident you are that Williamson and Rutherford Counties will stay Safe R.  2018 actually showed some fairly promising signs for Republicans in Williamson County (that I have detailed numerous times here), but Rutherford looked a little more concerning.  Still, that just means that you have to give a little more rural territory/slightly less urban territory to the Rutherford-based district Trump +25 to +30, so it's pretty safe.

It would be illegal because of the VRA, but it's even possible to draw a pretty safe 9-0 map if you get aggressive with both Nashville and Memphis.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Demographically, WV should be the most Republican state in the country and KY easily in the top 5 and arguably 2nd.  I would expect Republican dominance comparable to the Mormon states during George W. Bush's presidency is coming to WV and KY within the next decade.  The redistricting laws do meaningfully help rural Dems in KY though by keeping e.g. Elliott county intact.  There are almost as many Beshear/Republican as Bevin/Dem districts in the legislature now, but I expect most will be gerrymandered away in 2021 as they are almost all within large counties.  Beshear was probably the last gasp of the KY New Deal coalition.  The next R governor will get the message and pay the teachers better.

If anything, I expect TN Dems to go up from their current numbers over the 2020's due to Nashville (70% Bredesen, and not so easily gerrymandered away at the state legislative level), and signs they are finally breaking through in Knoxville and Chattanooga. 

Democrats already have every Davidson County district in the state House, but Republicans do have one state Senate district that was Romney-Clinton and is up for re-election in 2020.  The Romney-Clinton House district that covers much of the aforementioned Senate district (though both were very narrow Clinton wins) went Democratic 51-49 in 2018 when the Republican incumbent retired.  The incumbent is running in the Senate election, so I'd call it Tossup/Tilt R for 2020.

There's also a Romney-Trump district in Western and Northern Davidson County, but Republicans have never been able to break through there for some reason.

A lot of making a safe 8-1 map relies on how confident you are that Williamson and Rutherford Counties will stay Safe R.  2018 actually showed some fairly promising signs for Republicans in Williamson County (that I have detailed numerous times here), but Rutherford looked a little more concerning.  Still, that just means that you have to give a little more rural territory/slightly less urban territory to the Rutherford-based district Trump +25 to +30, so it's pretty safe.

It would be illegal because of the VRA, but it's even possible to draw a pretty safe 9-0 map if you get aggressive with both Nashville and Memphis.

Hmmm... I think the greater issue will be Fleischmann.  He is likely going to want all of blood red Bradley back in TN-03 after seeing Bredesen come within 2% in Hamilton.  I guess you just give TN-06 Rutherford then and send TN-04 into southern Nashville with part of Williamson to offset it? 

The Southern tier of Davidson County is pretty Republican (i.e. even), so I tend to have less issues with my Williamson-based district than with a Rutherford-based one that has to go more into Democratic Southeastern Davidson County.  I've also thought about putting much of Williamson and Rutherford into a district.

I don't see Bradley as an issue.  You really don't have to change TN 1-3 much at all.  The difference would all come in re-arranging districts 4-7 to all take a little of Nashville.  Here's a map I made that could probably be tidied up a bit.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/36044b9b-be3e-49dd-a588-e151dae7c7a8

[100% pro-life no matter what]

This article got some attention on here because of Cooper’s remarks about South Carolinians’ “extra chromosomes”, but he also discusses the potential cracking of Nashville. Essentially, his strategy seems to be get the Nashville business community to lobby the GOP to keep the city whole, and generally generate outrage surrounding it among various groups in the city.

https://www.nashvillepost.com/politics/article/21144632/jim-cooper-on-2020-2022-and-more

Personally, I think the only way Cooper survives is if parochial concerns get in the way of creating the optimal map for Republicans, and they get cold feet about trends in the suburbs.

You can do it so safely that, even if the suburbs continue to move leftwards, it shouldn't be an issue in the 2020s.  I don't think DRA has the 2020 data, but it's not hard at all to have every district being well over R+20 on DRA (and you can have the districts containing the counties that swung the most in 2020 being more like R+30 in the DRA numbers).

Also, is it just me, or does Cooper sound really condescending to the rest of Tennessee in that interview?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The potential cracking of Nashville might have quite serious implications for the TN Dems beyond merely losing a congressional seat. Nashville Democrats (traditionally white and moderate) have long been at the heart of the state’s Democratic establishment, but now they might have no opportunity for higher office beyond mayor/state legislator.

Nah, agraian West Tennessee and Memphis have always been the epicenter for TN Democrats.  Long-time Speakers of the TN House Ned McWherter (1973-87) and Jimmy Naifeh (1991-2009) were West TN Democrats.

Politics in Nashville has always had a stronger "professional" constituency tilted towards high-earning MBAs, MDs and JDs at the expense of business owners, farmers and other good ol' boys.  In the previous alignment, this made White Nashvillians the base of the TN-GOP (similar to how Jefferson County, AL or Fulton/Cobb County, GA Whites were once the base of the GOP in their respective states, too.)  It's no coincidence that Bill Frist, Fred Thompson, Beth Harwell and Bill Lee all hail from Nashville.      

Interesting; I guess you’re right. My perception (correct me if I’m wrong) was that rural West TN was more plantation South, while rural Middle TN had stronger New Deal/TVA Democratic roots.

I would have also thought that the TNGOP base until quite recently was more the relatively moderate Republicans from the ancestral heartland in East TN (Baker, Alexander, Haslam and Corker), and was actually less dominated by right-wing suburbanites than many other Southern states.

There have always really been two wings- the East Tennessee Establishment Republicans (Haslam, Corker, Alexander, Randy Boyd, etc.) who are relatively non-ideological and the Suburban Nashville Conservatives (Blackburn, Lee, Frist, Thompson, etc.).  That's independent of the growing rise of Trumpism.  Also, West Tennessee tends to go more for the "good ol' boys", more in line with East Tennessee.  Look at the Sethi vs. Hagerty primary map.  While both were from Middle Tennessee, it's clear which one was trying to be the Suburban Nashville Conservative and which one was trying to be the Good Ol' Tennessee Republican.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Here's a much cleaner map of Tennesse that splits Nashville: https://davesredistricting.org/join/26814ee0-6d47-4106-b24d-1a081b7b8296

If you are going to crack Nashville, I think something like this makes the most logical sense.  I'm most familiar with the Southern half of Davidson County and the suburban counties south of it (Williamson, Rutherford, Northern Maury).  In a way, Southeastern Nashville (especially areas like Antioch) has started to spill over into Northwestern Rutherford County (especially La Vergne and Smyrna), so, if you are cracking Nashville, it makes sense to orient Antioch/SE Nashville with Rutherford County.  Then, portions of Southern and Southwestern Davidson County are super wealthy and historically very Republican (many even leaning Republican to this day).  Many of these areas were in a district with Williamson County in the 2000s and are culturally not too dissimilar from Brentwood and Franklin.

From there, I feel very strongly that Maury County should be in the same district as Williamson County.  Maury is rapidly growing, especially in Columbia and Spring Hill, but its growth is very much oriented towards Williamson County.  A lot of people who are priced out of living in Franklin or Brentwood but prefer a more suburban/exurban lifestyle to an urban one are winding up in Maury County.  Many here don't realize this and just think it's a random rural county, but that's not really true anymore.

The last thing you want to do is just tinker with how much of Nashville you give to each district.  While I'm not really a "trends are permanent" person, I think it's best to take a little insurance in case I am wrong.  To do this, I like to have my districts taking Williamson and Rutherford Counties a few points to the right of the ones heading in other directions.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The 2020 Census allocations may have been bad news for a 8-1 map because of a combination of two factors.  First, Nashville (and its suburbs) are growing MUCH faster than the state as a whole, which is limiting the amount of Republican territory that can be added to these districts, even though the suburban counties are all still pretty red.  Heavily Republican exurban Maury County (south of Williamson) is now the fastest growing county in the state (excluding tiny Trousdale, whose growth is entirely related to a new jail).  Secondly, Memphis is actually growing much slower than the state as a whole, requiring the Shelby County-based Democratic district to eat up more Republican territory and get ever so slightly less Democratic.

I was able to still do a 4 district crack and get Trump +26, Trump +30, Trump +27, and Trump +24, the latter of which doesn't contain suburbs that trended heavily Democratic in 2016 and 2020.  But, those are based on 2016 numbers.  I did make the Rutherford and Williamson-based districts the more Republican ones, but they might have been Trump +18-20 in 2020.  Especially at the Congressional level, I'm pretty sure that these would be safe for 10 years, but I could understand some of the representatives not wanting to take that shot.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/e2eac231-50e1-4e4e-a46e-826eca5a1141

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Fail to see how something like this is a dummymander risk.

This is the first time I've seen a five-way crack of Nashville attempted.  I'd typically seen it done with four districts before, but it might be helpful to let five districts have a bit of Davidson County.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I can’t remember if this is correct, but didn’t DesJarlais tell people he didn’t want TN-04 to take in part of Davidson?

I wonder if DesJarlais can pressure and badger the legislature to kill this proposal before it becomes viable and takes on a life of its own.

If TN-05 is kept competitive for Ds, then it is quite likely that the singular biggest reason was incumbent grumbling like that of DesJarlais.

If the TN GOP had to sacrifice one of its representatives, I could almost guarantee it would be DesJarlais.  It wouldn't be that hard to find some Murfreesboro Republican to run in that district.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

An interesting factor that helps the TN legislature push for this map is the current gerrymander cracking Nashville suburbs with rural areas.

I wouldn't really call the current map a gerrymander.  Unless you actually split Nashville for that purpose, it wouldn't be possible to draw two Democratic or competitive districts in Middle Tennessee.

A hypothetical "ultimate suburban" district containing Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, and either Maury or Sumner would easily be Trump +25.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Another 8R-1D map I made. DesJarlais moves to the 5th district, but all over incumbents besides Cooper obviously are in there same numbered districts. Nashville is sliced into 4 seats. All districts are safe.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b8bc61f5-47e9-4a6c-8629-ae62c8da10ce

I think DesJarlais might still try to run in the 4th in a map like that.  It's most of the familiar voters to him, and I think it's likely he'd lose a primary in that 5th to a Williamson County/Suburban Nashville Republican.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

https://twitter.com/baseballot/status/1461038110897287183?s=21

It's a moot hypothetical, but I really don't think DesJarlais would run in that 4th.  He'd moreso be double-bunked with Rose in the 6th.  Rutherford County has always been his weak spot in GOP Primaries, and I really think he'd struggle in the primary of a Williamson-Rutherford-Wilson district.

If it stays 7-2, I can't see that drastic of a change to Middle Tennessee happening.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2021/12/08/jim-cooper-heres-what-happens-if-legislature-slices-up-nashville/6424567001/

A theory making the rounds is that any slice of Nashville will be so indigestible that Republican officials are gagging at the thought, like eating anchovy pizza. But guess what: they would still get solidly Republican districts, although winnable by only 15 points instead of 30. That’s still near-certain victory. A sweetener is that their worries of being primaried diminish.

Cooper really should not frame it this way.

IDK it's lowkey one of the bigger 2026/30 risks either party is taking if they go through with it.  Imagine if TN of all places ended up 5R/4D after a midterm wave!

That still seems pretty unlikely; if I were the GOP I'd rather take that small risk than cede a seat to Dems for the entire decade. If that were to actually end up happenning the GOP would already be in teh deep minority nationally most likely

Suffice it to say I have heterodox views on where Tennessee is going post-Roe.  This isn't a boring Dems will improve everywhere scenario I have in mind.

Let me guess: you think Tennessee is only a conservative state because of abortion?

Not statewide, but I think the Nashville suburbs go the way of the Austin suburbs the moment the issue is taken off the table, with a very fast statewide shift back to 55R/45D or so.

I expect a similar federal shift from the JBE voters in the NOLA suburbs and the Andy Beshear voters in the Kentucky suburbs.  Abortion is the #1 thing keeping culturally Southern suburbs from going Fairfax.

Just because a voter votes for a Democrat once in a gubernatorial race does not mean they are otherwise liberal single-issue pro-life voters, especially when both JBE and Beshear only were able to amass the support they did due to extremely unpopular opponents. One can look to election results, local voting habits, and more for proof of this. For instance, we can see the conservatism of Williamson County, a suburb of Nashville, in its support for congressional candidates such as Martha Blackburn and Manny Sethi.

Williamson County only voted like 4 points to the right of the state in an abortion referendum in 2014 (it voted 3 points to the right of the state in 2020 presidential numbers), so I don't think you can say that abortion is the only thing keeping it Republican.

It's true that pro-life politics play better in highly evangelical Southern suburbs than they do in Northern suburbs (and that issue isn't responsible for trends in Southern suburbs), but it's vastly inaccurate to say that the Nashville suburbs will go blue as soon as they can do so without risking supporting abortion.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

TN House Redistricting Committee has released their State House proposal:

https://twitter.com/tnhousegop/status/1471967141683503107?s=20

Does anyone have a higher resolution version of this?  I couldn't tell which district I'd be in.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Another attempt at a clean and safe 8-1 TN. Davidson County is going to have to be split at least 3 ways, like in this map, however, you'll prolly want a 4th district to take in part of the general Nashville metro area just to be safe. Considering how fast Nashville is growing and it's blueifying, I think this is a decade rental and next decade they'll have to cede the seat back, especially if TN gains a 10th district. While Memphis would normally be able to be cracked due to depopulation, VRA likely saves it for at least another redistricting cycle or two assuming VRA isn't overturned.

VRA or no VRA, Memphis creates such huge margins for Ds that Rs cannot crack both it and Nashville at the same time, while also giving rural Rs the representation they desire.

Simultaneously baconmandering and pizzamandering Memphis and Nashville, respectively is theoretically possible but looks absolutely terrible and could lead to vulnerable districts in Democratic-leaning years if trends continue.  But, even absent the VRA, it's a lot easier to eliminate Cooper's seat than Cohen's.  That's because of both partisanship of the current seats and location within the state.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The most interesting part of the story is that he said "2 or 3" districts.  Most 8-1 maps I've seen used 4 districts for Nashville.  That almost makes me wonder if they're trying some sort of 7-1-1map, if they are not buying 2016-20 trends continuing,, or if Sexton just mispoke.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

We are getting a senate-created congressional map too.

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1480978161194213380?s=20

That tweet seems to have been deleted

[100% pro-life no matter what]

This article gives a decent idea of what the preferred plan by the senate might look like. The plan is to do a two way split of Davidson which is three districts with Green taking in some of Nashville along with 1/3 of Williamson, Rose taking in some of Nashville and Cooper's seat taking in some of Nashville and the rest of Williamson.

https://onthehill.tnjournal.net/threes-a-crowd-senate-gop-would-have-green-desjarlais-cooper-districts-meet-in-nashville/

Based on those descriptions I think it will look something like this:





Even though TN-7 is only Trump+18 there are no bad trends and it's safe along with all the other ones. Trump actually increased his margin of victory in all the Nashville districts and the PVIs all moved to the right as well

What’s up with the Nashville trends? Urban and rural shifts outweighing the suburban shifts? 59-38 still seems risky in a future wave if it turns into Austin. Then again, not everyone moving to Nashville is left-leaning

Well Nashville + Williamson +rutherford is only 1.6 districts so you got 2.4 worth of rurals or clarkesville

Wilson, Sumner, and, to a growing extent, Maury (especially Northern Maury) should be considered suburban, but they didn't trend very hard in 2020.

Plus, this was about vote margin.  Trump actually basically broke even from 2016-2020 in Williamson County in terms of net vote margin (despite the percentage swing), for instance.

EDIT: Corrected it to say that those counties are suburban.  I'd previously typed rural by mistake.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

It looks to me like the House is scared of trends in Rutherford County and wanted to avoid using that in their split.  Also, I bet Mark Green demanded to still represent Williamson County, which meant they had to get creative.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Taking Memphis into Tipton County? Why the hell would they do that?

Probably some rich donor in Shelby that didn't fancy being drawn in Steve Cohen's district.

Right, and Cohen's district had to expand for population purposes.  Some rich Republicans in Eastern Shelby County probably campaigned against being part of a blue district.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

TN-05 is only Trump +8

https://twitter.com/zach_solomon1/status/1481307885837565955?s=20

Wasserman has it at Trump +9

It looks to me like the House is scared of trends in Rutherford County and wanted to avoid using that in their split.  Also, I bet Mark Green demanded to still represent Williamson County, which meant they had to get creative.

Any info on election results for each district? Probably smart to exclude Rutherford, it seems like the high growth and eventual bluing is happening there and southern Williamson right?

Southern Williamson and Northern Maury are growing very quickly and swung heavily in 2020, but the thinking is likely that raw vote growth can still counteract percentage swing.  Still, I'd have felt better if it was more than Trump +9.  That seems like an unnecessary risk.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I bet we'll get a compact Dem seat in Nashville after 2030.

Particularly if Tennessee gains a 10th district, it might be necessary, but 8-1 is pretty safe to do now.  This isn't a very well drawn 8-1, though, and is needlessly both risky and ugly.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Miles has the new TN-5 as a Bredesen 2018 district

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1481329159024562177?t=0C8BmnDAYhTarxfZk...

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Any chance TN Rs were using 2018 senate numbers as a benchmark for the best possible D performance?

That wouldn't surprise me.

Hmm, just using presidential data, the 5th went from Trump+17.1% in 2016 to Trump+11.3% in 2020, while the 7th went from Trump+17.2% in 2016 to Trump+15.1% in 2020. So while both of the districts may have had similar performances in 2016 and 2018, looks like it's the 5th that has the best chances for Dems in the future- important to look at trends as well as past performances!

That 2016>2020 swing in TN-05 is notable for two reasons. 1) This is the South, which generally means lower elasticity thanks to less swingy demographics, and 2) It's considerably in excess of the average nationwide swing, which is around 2 points iirc.
I would not at all be shocked if TN-05 or even TN-07 was Dem by 2030.

I don't quite see it.  After playing around in DRA, I think the most telling map is the 2016 PRES-2020 SEN swing.  These races had very similar statewide margins, so you could look at it as a trend map.  The mapmakers were very careful to draw the fastest Democratic-trending areas in Middle Tennessee (Eastern Davidson County and Rutherford County) out of either of those districts.  Williamson County looks politically stagnant on that map, and Southern Davidson County actually looks like it's trending rightwards downballot (versus 2016 presidential numbers). 

Compare that to Democratic-trending areas in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Memphis, or right over in Rutherford County, and it's clear that there's something fundamentally different about the wealthier parts of Davidson County in TN-5 and Williamson County.  Now, Northern Maury County actually does show signs of a sustained Democratic trend, but that area is growing so quickly and the margins are still so large that it might still be close to a wash for the GOP.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

When you forget to use contiguity check on DRA before submitting your map:

That exact arrangement is already in force in the 2010s map.  Loudon County, TN technically has some tiny exclaves, which causes the issue.  A statute puts those exclaves in TN-3, regardless of what it looks like:
https://twitter.com/politicswolf/status/1048643757258625024?lang=en