Republicans in Southern Legislatures -Are They Maxed-Out?

[Frodo]

And use your own definition of 'maxed out'.  

[Mr.Phips]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

[I’m not Stu]

They won't be maxed out in the GOP-controlled ones if SCOTUS overrules Reynolds v. Sims.

[Nyvin]

They won't be maxed out in the GOP-controlled ones if SCOTUS overrules Reynolds v. Sims.

Why in the world would they do that?   That would cause choas

[I’m not Stu]

They won't be maxed out in the GOP-controlled ones if SCOTUS overrules Reynolds v. Sims.

Why in the world would they do that?   That would cause choas

I know the chaos it would cause. At least 4 justices (Gorsuch, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito) are crazy. They would do it to permanently disenfranchise Democrats.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1218219330984235008

[Idaho Conservative]

They won't be maxed out in the GOP-controlled ones if SCOTUS overrules Reynolds v. Sims.

Why in the world would they do that?   That would cause choas

America was chaotic before?

[OSR stands with Israel]

I would say for some it’s a split , I would say Republicans are maxed out in the Texas senate but certainly not in the Texas house

[Yellowhammer]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

[Dr. MB]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

Democrats get about 40% of the vote in Alabama but only hold 27% of seats in the state house and 23% of the state senate. A fair and geographically compact map would actually increase the number of Democrats because VRA districts increase racial packing. You'd have plenty more competitive districts than now (where it's so gerrymandered that barely any seats have a chance of flipping).

[smoltchanov]

2 sort of states: those, which are moving left (even slightly) - Virginia, Texas, Georgia, or at least stable (North Carolina) with competent Democratic party, and those like Alabama - with exactly 1 white Democratic state Senator and 1 white Democratic state representative (from majority Black districts). Soon - Louisiana and Mississippi may join Alabama, but - not yet.

[lfromnj]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

Democrats get about 40% of the vote in Alabama but only hold 27% of seats in the state house and 23% of the state senate. A fair and geographically compact map would actually increase the number of Democrats because VRA districts increase racial packing. You'd have plenty more competitive districts than now (where it's so gerrymandered that barely any seats have a chance of flipping).

Its more like 37ish?
Plus don't forget disproportionate results in extreme states, I think romney won like 0 or 1 state senate districts in Massachussets despite getting like 37% of the vote. As the vote gets more extreme to one side it disproportionately favors that side due to districting. I would say 25% is about what should be expecting in a 37% state(take the difference from 50 and multiply by 2) and subtract that from 50.

[Storr]

Republicans in NC pre-2018 were definitely maxed out. I doubt either party will a get veto-proof majority in both houses of the legislature for a long time, as almost all Democratic gains were in suburban seats or due to court ordered redistricting (except for two House flips in the mountains, one that will flip back at some point, the other which is always competitive due to including Appalachian State University).

[Lechasseur]

Yeah they probably are for the most part

[Kyng]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

Democrats get about 40% of the vote in Alabama but only hold 27% of seats in the state house and 23% of the state senate. A fair and geographically compact map would actually increase the number of Democrats because VRA districts increase racial packing. You'd have plenty more competitive districts than now (where it's so gerrymandered that barely any seats have a chance of flipping).

Its more like 37ish?
Plus don't forget disproportionate results in extreme states, I think romney won like 0 or 1 state senate districts in Massachussets despite getting like 37% of the vote. As the vote gets more extreme to one side it disproportionately favors that side due to districting. I would say 25% is about what should be expecting in a 37% state(take the difference from 50 and multiply by 2) and subtract that from 50.

Actually, even that's still a little high.

Under a two-party system (with a first-past-the-post voting system), the numbers of districts won by each party tend to obey the "Cube rule". That is, you cube the percentages, and take the ratio of the cubes. This means that:

• If the two-party vote is split 60-40 in favour of the Republicans, then we'd expect the districts to be split in a ration of 60³:40³. This would give the GOP approximately 77% of the districts, and the Democrats approximately 23% of the districts.
• However, if it's more like a 63-37 split in favour of the Republicans... then, we'd expect the districts to be split in a ration of 63³:37³. This would give the GOP approximately 83% of the districts, and the Democrats approximately 17% of the districts

That's not to say that the Democrats getting only 17% of Alabama's districts (with 37% of the two-party vote) would be "fair"; however, that would be the level of underrepresentation that we would expect with no gerrymandering of any kind.

[Frodo]

So apparently people here only consider Republicans in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia as being maxed out -why not the others?  Why not South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Tennessee?

[Mr.Phips]

So apparently people here only consider Republicans in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia as being maxed out -why not the others?  Why not South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Tennessee?

Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri are all within all within a couple of seats of being maxed out.

[Fuzzy Says: "Abolish NPR!"]

2 sort of states: those, which are moving left (even slightly) - Virginia, Texas, Georgia, or at least stable (North Carolina) with competent Democratic party, and those like Alabama - with exactly 1 white Democratic state Senator and 1 white Democratic state representative (from majority Black districts). Soon - Louisiana and Mississippi may join Alabama, but - not yet.

This.

[GMantis]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

I wonder if you really believe that Democrats having only 28 out of 105 seats is somehow skewed in their favor or just trolling. I mean no one could be such a delusional hack to honestly think that the Alabama districts are not gerrymandered enough in Republican favor.

[lfromnj]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

I wonder if you really believe that Democrats having only 28 out of 105 seats is somehow skewed in their favor or just trolling. I mean no one could be such a delusional hack to honestly think that the Alabama districts are not gerrymandered enough in Republican favor.

Democrats in deep south districts like the pack too, See MS where they made a 52% black district a 58% black district.

[smoltchanov]

Alabama for sure.  Democrats don’t represent any white majority seats in either chamber there.

AL HD-85 is only plurality white, but it did vote for Trump. Only Trump-Dem legislative district in the state. It could conceivably flip, the incumbent won by about 7% in 2018.
The Democratic seat count is artificially inflated thanks to racist VRA-prescribed gerrymandering. A fair and geographically compact map would get rid of monstrosities like HD-32, and trim the democrats down back to Earth.

I wonder if you really believe that Democrats having only 28 out of 105 seats is somehow skewed in their favor or just trolling. I mean no one could be such a delusional hack to honestly think that the Alabama districts are not gerrymandered enough in Republican favor.

Well, the Alabama districts are gerrymandered BOTH in Republican AND Black favor (that's why i absolutely oppose BOTH gerrymandering AND VRA). The "suffering side" were white Democrats, usually - moderate or slightly conservative... They, essentially, didn't have suitable districts to run in

[Former President tack50]

Actually Yellowhammer is right in that the VRA actually slightly raises the number of Dems elected (or at best it has no net effect). Here is a very quick state senate map I have drawn without looking at race:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9be7ca5b-dd6b-4762-a8fa-1fa4e8d65a1d



That map, in terms of PVI has 6 Dem districts and 29 Rep districts. In terms of actual votes (2012/2016 composite) it has 7 Dem districts and 28 Rep districts.

Or in terms of Safe/Lean/Tossup; using safe for 55%+; likely for 54-53%; lean for 52-51% and tossup for 50%:

Safe D: 5
Likely D: 1
Lean D: 0
Tossup: 1
Lean R: 1
Likely R: 0
Safe R: 27

The Safe D are in Birmingham (2), Montgomery (1), the Black Belt (1) and Mobile (1). All black majority. The Lean D district is the rural district to the southwest of Tuscaloosa. The Tossup district is the Tuscaloosa district. The Lean R district is the Huntsville district. (all white majority)

Considering the RL numbers are 27-8; this map is actually a bit more unfavourable to the Democrats than the RL map, though not by much.

Also, the 19th district in my map is unintentionally hilarious. It is a White majority district (50.7% white) that actually leans Democratic lol (54-46). If looking at total population it does become plurality black though (49.6% black, 48.6% white, 1% hispanic)

Does someone have any idea how I somehow made such a district? I didn't even try to do it like that! (of course in practice such a district would elect a Black Democrat, or possibly a white Republican in a wave).

[Adam Griffin]

In the aggregate and in any statistically-significant sense, it's a pretty simple question on a case-by-case basis: if there are any white Democrats still holding plurality or majority-white non-urban districts in a given state, then the answer to the OP's question is "no". If not, then the answer is "yes" barring examples such as VA, GA & TX.