U.S. House Redistricting 2020: Nevada

[Sol]

The thing is is that rural Nevada is absolutely not the right size for a district. Even if you're generous and include every county in the state except Washoe and Clark, it's still less than half the size of a district, (350,892) --and that's ignoring the fact that several areas, like Pahrump, Lyon County, or Douglas County, are more like the exurban portions of their nearby metro areas than like Elko or Tonopah.

If you're willing to shave off 50,000 people from the rural seat--and most of those numbers can just come from Pahrump, which is a good fit with a Las Vegas district--it can perfectly go with Reno, which is how it goes on discovolante's map. Nearly all of populated parts of rural non-metropolitan Nevada can be kept in one seat easily--and that's the Reno seat.

[lfromnj]

The thing is is that rural Nevada is absolutely not the right size for a district. Even if you're generous and include every county in the state except Washoe and Clark, it's still less than half the size of a district, (350,892) --and that's ignoring the fact that several areas, like Pahrump, Lyon County, or Douglas County, are more like the exurban portions of their nearby metro areas than like Elko or Tonopah.

If you're willing to shave off 50,000 people from the rural seat--and most of those numbers can just come from Pahrump, which is a good fit with a Las Vegas district--it can perfectly go with Reno, which is how it goes on discovolante's map. Nearly all of populated parts of rural non-metropolitan Nevada can be kept in one seat easily--and that's the Reno seat.

Yeah the rural part of the North Clark district is 60k people and 40k are from Pahrump which is really just an exurb of Las Vegas most known for having the closest legal brothels. It's fairly dense as well.
There are rural parts of Clark I guess but the point is the rural part of Nevada in the North Clark seat outside of Clark is probably 20k people?


The only real source of population not connected to Las Vegas or Reno is probably Elko county in the NE.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hmmm. Okay, that's a fair point. I guess I didn't realize just how unpopulated the Southern Rurals were. I know NV is pretty empty but DAMN that's really empty. I think I'd still argue that it's still better to have two districts fully contained in the core LV area, though. That might result in a very Republican-friendly map, but in that case I'd bite the bullet that Republican-friendly is the right way to go.

[Skill and Chance]

Hmmm. Okay, that's a fair point. I guess I didn't realize just how unpopulated the Southern Rurals were. I know NV is pretty empty but DAMN that's really empty. I think I'd still argue that it's still better to have two districts fully contained in the core LV area, though. That might result in a very Republican-friendly map, but in that case I'd bite the bullet that Republican-friendly is the right way to go.

It's uninhabitable desert until you get within miles of I-80, basically.  Once you get to I-80, there are meaningful mining towns, but they still cap out in the 10's of thousands outside of Reno itself.  Even Carson City, the capital, is <60K.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Okay, from a quick look at DRA, the LV area (as in, cities of decent size clustered around Las Vegas, not the entire Clark couty) has enough population for 2.8 districts. The rest of Clark adds another 0.1, and the remaining 0.1 is all those Southern rurals. That's such a terrible configuration honestly. God I hope Nevada picks up another seat next decade so that problem will resolve itself.

That being the case, though, I do have to argue for two seats contained fully within the LV area proper. The 3-way crack Democrats did is still indefensible. Honestly, you could make a case for slight malapportionment, by splitting Clark into 3 districts and leaving the remaining one slightly overpopulated. That wouldn't be acceptable under OMOV, of course, but oh well.

[EastAnglianLefty]

A five district Nevada is quite neat, but it doesn't eliminate the problem, because the rurals are still only about half a district. It's just that with 5 you have a Reno seat and the remaining rurals have to go with somewhere in Clark.

[Skill and Chance]

Okay, from a quick look at DRA, the LV area (as in, cities of decent size clustered around Las Vegas, not the entire Clark couty) has enough population for 2.8 districts. The rest of Clark adds another 0.1, and the remaining 0.1 is all those Southern rurals. That's such a terrible configuration honestly. God I hope Nevada picks up another seat next decade so that problem will resolve itself.

That being the case, though, I do have to argue for two seats contained fully within the LV area proper. The 3-way crack Democrats did is still indefensible. Honestly, you could make a case for slight malapportionment, by splitting Clark into 3 districts and leaving the remaining one slightly overpopulated. That wouldn't be acceptable under OMOV, of course, but oh well.

Very unwise.  Dems start down that road and if it gets upheld, you end up with one Atlanta CD, one DFW CD, and one Houston CD at the next census.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Okay, from a quick look at DRA, the LV area (as in, cities of decent size clustered around Las Vegas, not the entire Clark couty) has enough population for 2.8 districts. The rest of Clark adds another 0.1, and the remaining 0.1 is all those Southern rurals. That's such a terrible configuration honestly. God I hope Nevada picks up another seat next decade so that problem will resolve itself.

That being the case, though, I do have to argue for two seats contained fully within the LV area proper. The 3-way crack Democrats did is still indefensible. Honestly, you could make a case for slight malapportionment, by splitting Clark into 3 districts and leaving the remaining one slightly overpopulated. That wouldn't be acceptable under OMOV, of course, but oh well.

Very unwise.  Dems start down that road and if it gets upheld, you end up with one Atlanta CD, one DFW CD, and one Houston CD at the next census.

I mean obviously it wouldn't get upheld, so your point is moot. But even then, that's an incredibly stupid comparison. Rounding Clark up from 2.9 districts to 3 isn't the same thing as arbitrarily bringing Dallas County down from like 3.5 to 1. One follows a clear principle of approximate fairness, the other obviously doesn't.

[bagelman]

DRA link for the new map?

[BoiseBoy]

DRA link for the new map?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c4f319a5-12e9-4753-89b1-6cc94b65f0f8

[Thunder98]

Here's my attempt at a hypothetical 5 district map.

There's 2 dem seats - 1 GOP seat and 2 highly competive seats. So in a GOP favored year, the map could be 3R-2D and 4D-1R in a dem favored year.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/aa8634a2-5f9a-498c-8d0b-0885c0a75ffa

[bagelman]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8e849e75-49d8-4f8a-afaf-81dc13cdf6da

Here's a doubled map of NV. Each district in the new map is split in half.

[Skill and Chance]

Here's my attempt at a hypothetical 5 district map.

There's 2 dem seats - 1 GOP seat and 2 highly competive seats. So in a GOP favored year, the map could be 3R-2D and 4D-1R in a dem favored year.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/aa8634a2-5f9a-498c-8d0b-0885c0a75ffa

Hmmm... Dems would be smart to propose a commission before the end of the decade.  Ensures an all-Reno and at least one all-Vegas seat in the long run.

[Sol]

Here's what I was playing with for Nevada:





link

It's perhaps overly community of interest focused, which is why some of the lines are a little odd--I wanted to put the rurals furthest away from Reno with Las Vegas. Probably will replace it with the whole county version on my next draft. NV-02 is meant to capture the more outlying and exurban portions of the metro area, like Northwest Las Vegas, Summerlin, and Henderson.

NV-03 is plurality Latino by VAP.

Partisan-wise, it's a pretty ironclad 2-2 map.

Las Vegas is kind of a difficult area to redistrict, to be honest. I'm not clear how much municipal and CDP lines matter--I get the sense that in some ways the latter matters as much as the former. Ought to do more research on CoIs and get back to this.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Las Vegas is kind of a difficult area to redistrict, to be honest. I'm not clear how much municipal and CDP lines matter--I get the sense that in some ways the latter matters as much as the former. Ought to do more research on CoIs and get back to this.

In my own maps I've ignored certain municipal boundaries in favor of drawing more for minority representation. I typically detach the whiter northern fringes of North Las Vegas and suburban areas in the west of Las Vegas proper from the urban core shared by those cities and Paradise, while mostly keeping the others whole. I think that the split of Las Vegas in this map is mostly logical, but I'd cede some of North Las Vegas to the outer Clark seat, balanced out by the "urban core" district absorbing more minority-heavy precincts in northern Paradise and then that seat (in red) in turn stretching back north into the western side of Vegas itself.

I'm not an expert on Nevada geography myself, but that's how I'd personally approach a map with this basic configuration.

[lfromnj]

One thing to note about Las Vegas (and perhaps the only good thing it ) is that it is the least segregated metropolitan area in the US and that's despite little gentrification.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's my attempt at a hypothetical 5 district map.

There's 2 dem seats - 1 GOP seat and 2 highly competive seats. So in a GOP favored year, the map could be 3R-2D and 4D-1R in a dem favored year.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/aa8634a2-5f9a-498c-8d0b-0885c0a75ffa

Hmmm... Dems would be smart to propose a commission before the end of the decade.  Ensures an all-Reno and at least one all-Vegas seat in the long run.

What makes you think they'd lose the legislature?

[lfromnj]

Here's my attempt at a hypothetical 5 district map.

There's 2 dem seats - 1 GOP seat and 2 highly competive seats. So in a GOP favored year, the map could be 3R-2D and 4D-1R in a dem favored year.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/aa8634a2-5f9a-498c-8d0b-0885c0a75ffa

Hmmm... Dems would be smart to propose a commission before the end of the decade.  Ensures an all-Reno and at least one all-Vegas seat in the long run.

What makes you think they'd lose the legislature?

Yeah that would take drastic swings to say an R+5 or R+6 state to start losing the legislature.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Here's my attempt at a hypothetical 5 district map.

There's 2 dem seats - 1 GOP seat and 2 highly competive seats. So in a GOP favored year, the map could be 3R-2D and 4D-1R in a dem favored year.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/aa8634a2-5f9a-498c-8d0b-0885c0a75ffa

Alternatively, you could do this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/29b1fa55-23a3-45c5-9022-f2b97eecad27

NV-1 is almost all of Las Vegas and the entirety of Winchester. Biden 52.2%
NV-2 is North Las Vegas, Sunrise Manor, Whitney and eastern bits of Las Vegas. Biden 64.5%
NV-3 is Spring Valley, Enterprise and Paradise. Biden 55.3%
NV-4 is Henderson, Summerlin South and the rurals. Trump 59.9%
NV-5 is the Reno/Carson City district. Trump 49.9%

So I guess you'd call that one safe Democratic seat, one lean Democratic seat, a toss-up, a lean Republican seat and a safe Republican seat.

All three Clark seats are majority-minority and NV-2 is probably performing (44% Hispanic by VAP, 26% white.)

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I’ve messed around with the Nevada map and there is no real way to make three safe seats for democrats, and there’s not real point to drawing a district to Reno as it’d have to be a horrible gerrymander snake to get a district that would be about as safe as you can make one in the LV metro.

You can draw two safe blue seats but at the risk of making one of the LV seats republicans leaning. There’s not great geography for Dems in Nevada. In a hypothetical 5 seat map you can very easily draw three neat and safe enough democratic seats (D+5-10 range), one for the Reno Metro, and one for everything else

[politicallefty]

I agree with those that say Nevada really would have a better map with five districts (much as most believe Idaho would do better with three). Not drawing a gerrymander, I would do something like this based on the current population:



NV-01: North Las Vegas-Sunrise Manor: Biden 64.5-33.2 (44.8% plurality Hispanic VAP)
NV-02: Rurals-Northeast Las Vegas: Trump 59.8-38.0
NV-03: Central Las Vegas-Paradise-Northern Spring Valley: Biden 58.6-39.3 (38.6 plurality White VAP)
NV-04: Henderson-Enterprise-Southern Spring Valley: Biden 49.6-48.5
NV-05: Reno-Carson City: Trump 49.8-47.4

This would be a 2D-1R-2C map, which makes sense for a state like Nevada. A Democratic gerrymander could easily turn it into 3D-1R-1C, but that's it. A Republican gerrymander could probably do 3R-2D.

Even going up to 5 districts, the rurals (i.e. non-Clark, Washoe, Carson City) don't even get to half of a district and the trajectory in a state like Nevada really is one way. If Nevada is on track for a fifth district in 2030, it's likely the NV-02 I drew will have to eat up more of NV-05.

Btw, most of the area of this NV-01 is empty or mostly empty. It just makes the lines neater and keeps NV-02 from becoming a doughnut district.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I agree with those that say Nevada really would have a better map with five districts (much as most believe Idaho would do better with three). Not drawing a gerrymander, I would do something like this based on the current population:



NV-01: North Las Vegas-Sunrise Manor: Biden 64.5-33.2 (44.8% plurality Hispanic VAP)
NV-02: Rurals-Northeast Las Vegas: Trump 59.8-38.0
NV-03: Central Las Vegas-Paradise-Northern Spring Valley: Biden 58.6-39.3 (38.6 plurality White VAP)
NV-04: Henderson-Enterprise-Southern Spring Valley: Biden 49.6-48.5
NV-05: Reno-Carson City: Trump 49.8-47.4

This would be a 2D-1R-2C map, which makes sense for a state like Nevada. A Democratic gerrymander could easily turn it into 3D-1R-1C, but that's it. A Republican gerrymander could probably do 3R-2D.

Even going up to 5 districts, the rurals (i.e. non-Clark, Washoe, Carson City) don't even get to half of a district and the trajectory in a state like Nevada really is one way. If Nevada is on track for a fifth district in 2030, it's likely the NV-02 I drew will have to eat up more of NV-05.

Btw, most of the area of this NV-01 is empty or mostly empty. It just makes the lines neater and keeps NV-02 from becoming a doughnut district.

I really don’t get the stigma against donut districts. Sometimes they make sense. Colorado had a Denver Donut for a long time

[If my soul was made of stone]

I agree with those that say Nevada really would have a better map with five districts (much as most believe Idaho would do better with three). Not drawing a gerrymander, I would do something like this based on the current population:



NV-01: North Las Vegas-Sunrise Manor: Biden 64.5-33.2 (44.8% plurality Hispanic VAP)
NV-02: Rurals-Northeast Las Vegas: Trump 59.8-38.0
NV-03: Central Las Vegas-Paradise-Northern Spring Valley: Biden 58.6-39.3 (38.6 plurality White VAP)
NV-04: Henderson-Enterprise-Southern Spring Valley: Biden 49.6-48.5
NV-05: Reno-Carson City: Trump 49.8-47.4

This would be a 2D-1R-2C map, which makes sense for a state like Nevada. A Democratic gerrymander could easily turn it into 3D-1R-1C, but that's it. A Republican gerrymander could probably do 3R-2D.

Even going up to 5 districts, the rurals (i.e. non-Clark, Washoe, Carson City) don't even get to half of a district and the trajectory in a state like Nevada really is one way. If Nevada is on track for a fifth district in 2030, it's likely the NV-02 I drew will have to eat up more of NV-05.

Btw, most of the area of this NV-01 is empty or mostly empty. It just makes the lines neater and keeps NV-02 from becoming a doughnut district.

I really don’t get the stigma against donut districts. Sometimes they make sense. Colorado had a Denver Donut for a long time

Nevada itself had a donut for all the time that it had two districts. I try to avoid them myself, but it is precedented.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I really don’t get the stigma against donut districts. Sometimes they make sense. Colorado had a Denver Donut for a long time

Nevada itself had a donut for all the time that it had two districts. I try to avoid them myself, but it is precedented.

If we’re counting just two district times then Arizona ask had one forever. Arguably Nebraska has a donut in that it has a seat that is surrounded by another. It even wraps around it.

[compucomp]

Well, there's one Democrat that is very displeased with NV's redistricting plan, Rep. Dina Titus. I can't even quote this properly because of the profanity filter here. Here's another example of the redistricting conflicts of interests spilling out into the open, and probably why most gerrymanders are not the "maximal" gerrymanders we draw here in DRA.

"I totally got f-ed by the legislature on my district"

Between state legislators and Gov. Steve Sisolak making a mess of redistricting in Nevada, and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema holding up the president’s agenda in Washington, Rep. Dina Titus has just about had it.

In spirited remarks at an AFL-CIO town hall Wednesday, she told union members “I’m going to need your help on something terrible.”

“I totally got f-ed by the Legislature on my district,” she said. “I’m sorry to say it like that, but I don’t know any other way to say it.”

Titus was referring to a shift of Democrats away from the first congressional district, historically an ironclad safe seat for Democrats, in order to strengthen their position in the state’s two swing districts.