2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Tennessee

[Schiff for Senate]

I still think they're asking for trouble down the road by doing this. Let's see what happens.

I think by the time trends start catching up and both Nashville districts are bordering on competitivity, the 2030 redistricting will come around and the TNGOP will gerrymander accordingly, probably putting Nashville back into one district to have a 7-2 map instead of risking a 6-3 map. Or they could break Nashville up into several districts so its voting power is very diluted and meaningless. It also depends on how they split it up; many who've posted here have created maps where Nashville is not split into two but rather three or four different districts, thus destroying any chance of any of the Nashville districts to be competitive. And since the VRA isn't being explicitly violated (no race-based gerrymander), I doubt the court would care all that much. They don't do much about race-based gerrymandering as it is, and they care even less about blatant partisan gerrymandering. But despite my not knowing how it's possible, I really hope you are correct inthat the TNGOP faces karma for their actions. One would think they'd be content with a 7-2 map, but no!: they want an 8-1 map. Just wow at how greedy they are.

[Schiff for Senate]

Huh, I had hope that the Nashville seat was going to survive after seeing the GOP spare the Louisville and Kansas City districts. Oh well.

Your mistake was in equating the half-decent GOPs of MO and KY with the utterly polluted, disgusting, disgraceful and shameful TNGOP. Tennessee's Republicans are utterly sick, even more so than Kentucky's and Missouri's are. No comparison. (Interestingly, just 1/5 KY House Republicans - and that person was Hal Rogers of all people - voted to overturn, while 7/7 TN House Republicans did. 5/6 MO Republicans supported overturning, the exception being Ann Wagner, who represents a suburban district that just barely voted for Trump in 2020.)

[Schiff for Senate]

Huh, I had hope that the Nashville seat was going to survive after seeing the GOP spare the Louisville and Kansas City districts. Oh well.

Your mistake was in equating the half-decent GOPs of MO and KY with the utterly polluted, disgusting, disgraceful and shameful TNGOP. Tennessee's Republicans are utterly sick, even more so than Kentucky's and Missouri's are. No comparison. (Interestingly, just 1/5 KY House Republicans - and that person was Hal Rogers of all people - voted to overturn, while 7/7 TN House Republicans did. 5/6 MO Republicans supported overturning, the exception being Ann Wagner, who represents a suburban district that just barely voted for Trump in 2020.)

As an Illinois resident, cry me a river about gerrymanders

Honestly, IL Democrats were justified in their gerrymandering given that thus far Democrats outside of MD have refrained from gerrymandering and almost exclusively, gerrymandering is done to the GOP's benefit. Having said that, I definitely think that the gerrymander in IL was blatant, obvious and ugly. The Democrats have a problem that while the GOP is able to gerrymander states and still have relatively clean-looking districts, Democrats can't go anywhere without coming up with the ugliest districts that make it very obvious a gerrymander has occurred (see: MD, IL).

[Schiff for Senate]

Honestly the TNGOP should make themselves - and the map - look good and just take the Democrats' 7-2 map. Yes, I know they're gunning for 8-1, but this makes them look gracious (like the GOPs in KY and MO) - and considering the current map is also 7-2, they just get a much cleaner map with no change to the overall partisanship. Though of course, they would still have to oppose it because it shakes up incumbents' positions quite a bit.

[Schiff for Senate]

I'm still not entirely convinced that 8-1 will hold for the decade.

Yeah, I feel like it could become a 7-2 mid decade. But who knows, because it's going to definitely be 8-1 after the 2022 elections, and if Cooper's GOP successor is a strong incumbent, he could fight the trends and last through 2030 (when new maps could be made to shore him up).

[Schiff for Senate]

Suprised no one has pointed this out but isn't this map illegal because district 2 is discontinous.

Not really for any partisan reasons, it could easily be made continous with the rest of the map barely being impacted, but just pointing it out.

I thought even the TNGOP wouldn't be so sloppy that they don't even keep the districts contiguous. Still, as you said, it won't do anything because if necessary the TNGOP can just move those nonconnected pieces over to the district they're surrounded by (probably won't change deviation much at all).