2020 New York Redistricting

[cvparty]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/060abf38-58dd-470e-957a-8a2a7c3e6c38
something like this

that seems like a really bad idea

[cvparty]

is there any reason Democrats wouldn't gerrymander next year?  It doesn't make any sense to unilaterally not do so when half of the republican states are doing so.  A big state like this can counteract some of that.

the geography of the state is terrible for gerrymandering. you could easily make the staten island district democratic, but the current lines upstate are basically the best democrats can do without risking a massive dummymander. suffolk co’s districts are also pretty untouchable unless you do some really weird lines

[cvparty]

We'll see what the legislature comes up with, but neither of these maps are that bad for the Republicans. They'd have a decent chance of 17-9 on the Dem map and 16-10 on the GOP map. Katko is probably finally toast in 2024, but I think he'd win by 5+ in 2022. He outperformed Trump by 20, so a Biden +17 isn't that bad for him in an R wave year. 1, 18, and 19 would all be very close. I think that Rs would probably come away with 2 out of the 3. Fairly sure they'd hold the LI seat, and one of the Hudson seats, with a better chance for Jones' seat than Maloney's.

I think that a GOP NYC seat makes it into the final map, either based in South Brooklyn or SI. Then an LI GOP seat, then 3 upstate GOP seats. 21 Biden/5 Trump, essentially map A but with Jones and Maloney being shored up further.

Katko went from 60.6% in 2016 to 52.6% in 2018 to 53.1% in 2020.   The days of him outperforming the top of the ticket by those kind of margins are long gone.  A Biden+17 district isn't going to be winnable.

It'll be winnable in 2022. Katko would've won in this district in 2022. He overperformed Trump by 20 points in 2020, so hypothetically he could've won any district up to Biden +20. That'll go down quite a bit by 2024, which is why he'll lose in 2024, but in a GOP friendly environment, he's no worse than a tossup in 2022.

In 2016, he outperformed Trump by 26. In 2018 it's hard to determine, but if there was a generic R vs. Generic D federal race he likely would've outperformed by around 20. In 2020 he outperformed Trump by 20. In 2022, it might be 17. In 2024, it might be 14. These are still massive outperformances. Polarization is ever increasing but Katko is the best electoral fit for anyone in any district in the country. There's not much of a reason he'd lose all of his crossover appeal, which while declining, was still strong enough for him to win a district that blue in a moderately good year for Democrats.

That's kind of an odd way to measure overperformance, but anyway, Republicans don't currently have any seats that are anymore than Biden+12,  there seems to be a hard cut off around Biden+10 or Biden+11.   You can't just carry the overperformance over directly like that, it doesn't work.

Also ticket splitting has been in decline for a while now and it's an entirely new district with a lot more hard progressive areas.   Your math here just doesn't work for a variety of reasons.

It's a very straightforward way to measure overperformance, in fact the most obvious and straightforward. Katko won by 10 points while Biden won by 10 points. If Biden won by 12 points instead, it's not like that would've evaporated Katko's margin. Instead if the conditions were there to move the electorate 2 points to the left, that would affect a presidential and congressional race in a similar (although not identical) way. Maybe there is an effect where overperformance becomes more difficult the bluer the district. Let's say Biden's margin shifted left 5 points and Katko's shifted 8 points. Katko still wins in a 15+ scenario.

The simple fact is that Katko is able to win a large percentage of Biden/Dem voters, with little reason to think that percentage would change simply because of the partisanship of the district. The two factors that are troubling to Katko are that he is taking in a few hundred thousand new voters and the possibility of Brindisi opposing him. Katko keeps Onandaga County, his home and site of strongest overperformance. He loses Wayne and Cayuga and takes in Tompkins, Madison, and Utica in Oneida. He'll still maintain about 70% of his strength from Onondaga, and I think he'll be able to perform well in Tompkins specifically. It is true that Tompkins is a progressive, very blue county. But it's also one extremely full of educated White voters, the exact type of swingy demographic Katko has been so effective at courting in the past. Katko doesn't need much in Tompkins. If he's able to get 28 or 29%, he's going to win the district.

Brindisi may also pose a risk, but after a few years out of his district, his strength may be diminished. This new district will also only overlap about 20% in population of Brindisi's old district. Katko needs strong performances everywhere, so I view Brindisi getting strong margins in Oneida as Katko's main threat.

Ticket splitting is declining, but the effects of polarization are weaker in midterm years and Katko has maintained crossover appeal quite well obviously. In what is likely to be a a strong Republican year, his district simply isn't blue enough to render the race anything less than a tossup for Katko. It's Biden +17, a generic D vs. generic R would probably be around D +10. Overcoming that is a task Katko can do with ease.

so running in a largely new district only affects Brindisi?

[cvparty]

NY 24th is one of the ugliest districts i have ever seen lol

the sig complements your post so well lmao