2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[Gass3268]

Map 3 picked

https://twitter.com/erindavisnews/status/1709945168693178474?s=46

[Nyvin]

I thought it'd be map 3 from the comments about the hearing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Del Tachi is crying into his pillow now.

[Zedonathin2020]

So…. Anybody wanna come to Barry Moore’s funeral with me?

[Oryxslayer]

So…. Anybody wanna come to Barry Moore’s funeral with me?

His actions presently are clearly angling for the Trump endorsement.  Which is how he survives in a Mobile Metro dominated district.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Mobile senate seats I drew make more sense then they're drawn currently, with the black seat spanning across the river into Baldwin county. And they're all at least likely R. Mobile is a solidly Republican county, there's no reason democrats need to be given a freebie state senate there just because it's feasible.

There isn't anything fair about using racial quotas to maximize democratic officeholders in an overwhelmingly republican state. There's no self-evident universal principle that there needs to be any blue districts drawn, even giving the democrats 3 or 4 is practically charity.

There is no reason to span them across the river, I never suggested that and don't know why the current map does.  

Mobile county voted 43% Biden.  That's not solidly Republican and certainly if going by proportionality it deserves one Dem Senate seat that's extremely easy to draw and very compact, and respects city limits.

Literally the only possible reason you don't want it to happen is to benefit Republicans, that's it.   You aren't making "fair and compact" districts at all.

Benefitting republicans and disadvantaging democrats is what redistricting fairness *means.* The fairest map gives the least representation to the political left, since the political left is unfair.

...and Yellowhammer finally drops the pretense of arguing in good faith and descends into trolling.

[Tekken_Guy]

So…. Anybody wanna come to Barry Moore’s funeral with me?

Moore represents 40% of the congressional district, so he's far from out of the running in the primary. Case in point, WV-02 2022.

[Nyvin]

So…. Anybody wanna come to Barry Moore’s funeral with me?

Moore represents 40% of the congressional district, so he's far from out of the running in the primary. Case in point, WV-02 2022.

Moore is also a Freedom Caucus nut unlike Jerry Carl.

[patzer]

If this map were in effect in 2022, Moore would have probably just risked running in the new 2nd district- it only barely voted D in the Senate race in 2022 and voted R in the gubernatorial race, so despite being Biden+13 could absolutely be competitive in a midterm.

However, next year the downballot effect of the presidential race probably makes it Safe D.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Finally have a resolution which is nice. Anyone got a shapefile to the official map?

Lowkey though, it's somewhat disappointing this is the best a paid special master was able to come up with. There are so many examples of maps on here with an equally functional AL-02 that's just much more compact by having it take in Lowndes, Wilcox, and even Dallas counties in exchange for smoothing things up around Mobile and what not. Also, the Jefferson County wrap-around is just awkward; why not just take in the 20k people in the northern part of the County; most of those precincts are seeing some black spillover anyways and it's not like 7 is at any risk of not being functional.

[Oryxslayer]

Finally have a resolution which is nice. Anyone got a shapefile to the official map?

Lowkey though, it's somewhat disappointing this is the best a paid special master was able to come up with. There are so many examples of maps on here with an equally functional AL-02 that's just much more compact by having it take in Lowndes, Wilcox, and even Dallas counties in exchange for smoothing things up around Mobile and what not. Also, the Jefferson County wrap-around is just awkward; why not just take in the 20k people in the northern part of the County; most of those precincts are seeing some black spillover anyways and it's not like 7 is at any risk of not being functional.

Just explaining the seeming actions here:

The Mobile cut was really the only thing that changed between the maps, and the court went with this version,  wrap around as you called it. I believe that this cut works cause of relative compactness.  The alternative of a roughly north south cut seemingly adds in too many white suburbs.  The alternative of hugging the eastern county border meanwhile forces AL-01 do do a "hook" coming in from the south then collecting the suburbs northwest of Mobile.

Weirdly enough, when I was playing around with remedial alternatives last month, I deemed this version of the cut to be most viable from the perspective of court goals, independent of any official maps. That seems to have come to pass.

The rest of the state meanwhile seems to have followed a court guideline to minimize disruption to the existing districts. It's disappointing,  but makes sense given the nature of the panel of judges. I believe districts 3-7 all have ~80% retention from the 2022 map, for example.  

Compared to what was drawn, district 2 could be more compact,  as this thread  has proven.  2 would take from 7, 7 from 4 and 6, 4 and 6 from 3, and 3 from 2 in the areas east of Montgomery.  But the court wanted the remedial district 2 to be mostly built from 1 and 2, so 7 couldn't give 2 the larger number of rural counties many would have liked.

It's one version of the common court policy of achieving the remedy without taking action that could be interpreted as going beyond the scope of the case.

[patzer]

The main issue with this new AL-2 is that it's quite obviously not reliably black-performing in midterms- it only voted D in the 2022 Senate election by less than 1%, that's not safe.

Something like this on other other hand would have voted D by 9% in the 2022 senate election, and for Biden by 22%; sure it's less "neat" but one would have thought that would be worth it for being reliably performing 100% of the time

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

[Skill and Chance]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

[Skill and Chance]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

It feels like something that would slowly turn into a swing seat and eventually flip in a Dem president midterm assuming the seat survives into the 2030's.  Could easily flip back the next cycle, though, not saying it's going to be a likely R seat!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

It feels like something that would slowly turn into a swing seat and eventually flip in a Dem president midterm assuming the seat survives into the 2030's.  Could easily flip back the next cycle, though, not saying it's going to be a likely R seat!

This is just me, but I tend to think it is futile to try to predict how folks will vote past the next redistricting cycle.  I mean, would anyone in 2003 reasonably have predicted the post-2016 party coalitions?  It’s just so far out and so much can happen, that it’s just fun speculation.  I mean, it’s hard enough to predict the next election cycle two years in advance.  I don’t think anyone expected the 2022 results in January of 2022.

[Sestak]

On top of the above, we don’t even know how many seats Alabama will have after 2030. If it’s down to 6 then this seat may well be axed.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

It feels like something that would slowly turn into a swing seat and eventually flip in a Dem president midterm assuming the seat survives into the 2030's.  Could easily flip back the next cycle, though, not saying it's going to be a likely R seat!

This is just me, but I tend to think it is futile to try to predict how folks will vote past the next redistricting cycle.  I mean, would anyone in 2003 reasonably have predicted the post-2016 party coalitions?  It’s just so far out and so much can happen, that it’s just fun speculation.  I mean, it’s hard enough to predict the next election cycle two years in advance.  I don’t think anyone expected the 2022 results in January of 2022.

I never believed a red wave was ever likely. But I would not have guessed some of the notable particulars, such as the Dem collapse in Florida, or the R gains in NY.

[Oryxslayer]

On top of the above, we don’t even know how many seats Alabama will have after 2030. If it’s down to 6 then this seat may well will be axed.

It's an open question if Alabama loses a seat, but if it does this will be the option. AA seats with large rural components (like GA-02) constantly are the most undersized in the nation since their population is moving to the cities. And partisan politicians will always destroy a seat held by the opposition if presented with a choice, no matter how difficult. See Illinois this cycle.

[Skill and Chance]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

It feels like something that would slowly turn into a swing seat and eventually flip in a Dem president midterm assuming the seat survives into the 2030's.  Could easily flip back the next cycle, though, not saying it's going to be a likely R seat!

This is just me, but I tend to think it is futile to try to predict how folks will vote past the next redistricting cycle.  I mean, would anyone in 2003 reasonably have predicted the post-2016 party coalitions?  It’s just so far out and so much can happen, that it’s just fun speculation.  I mean, it’s hard enough to predict the next election cycle two years in advance.  I don’t think anyone expected the 2022 results in January of 2022.

I was actually on record expecting "a mildly Republican year" around that time, which is basically what happened.  They flipped the House, but it was nothing special as midterms go.

[Nyvin]

2 is going to vote republican at some point probably tbh, maybe this decade evsn

Probably, if current trends hold.  It's a more extreme version of the GA-02 situation.  The entire Dem base is the rural black vote.

With all due respect, this is just demonstrably false doomerism.  Montgomery and Mobile proper are both in this district and there is no reason to believe that it is going to magically become a Republican district.  Could it trend a little to the right?  Entirely possible.  Are Republicans likely to flip it?  Seems highly unlikely and even that’s probably being too generous to Republican chances this decade.  

It feels like something that would slowly turn into a swing seat and eventually flip in a Dem president midterm assuming the seat survives into the 2030's.  Could easily flip back the next cycle, though, not saying it's going to be a likely R seat!

These deep south seats almost never swing at all.  The change in voting between 2016 pres and 2020 pres was almost non-existent.   The racial polarization is just way too strong even today.

[Roll Roons]

IIRC, Ivey narrowly won the district and Britt only barely lost it, but a lot of the Democrats who represent rural black districts in the South (Sewell, Thompson, Bishop, even Clyburn) have a proven ability to consistently run ahead of the top of the ticket, so I wouldn't be surprised if the new incumbent will be able to do the same.

[Oryxslayer]

IIRC, Ivey narrowly won the district and Britt only barely lost it, but a lot of the Democrats who represent rural black districts in the South (Sewell, Thompson, Bishop, even Clyburn) have a proven ability to consistently run ahead of the top of the ticket, so I wouldn't be surprised if the new incumbent will be able to do the same.

Similarly, check out the legislative contests in the same state in the same year, in comparative districts. If these districts are actually contested, they almost always see large overperformances for the incumbent. We can say that AL-02 was close under the 2022 statewide elections, where Alabama black turnout was in the toilet and there were no competitive races. But then we look at actual majority-AA legislative districts that the topline GOP candidates actually carried in this same situation (and sometimes quite easily) and they are all Democrat held.

Southern Republican parties don't feel the need or perhaps the desire to appeal to African American voters. So they rarely run candidates even in a election that looked going in to be R-Favored. And when they do the candidate appeals not to the median voter, who is African American, but to the GOP base who lives adjacent to said voters. Which means that even a marginal majority-AA district, like Alabama's HD-68, becomes very hard to flip.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The mid-term redistricting should help the Democrats. With the new district first up in 2024 instead of 2022 they’ll get the presidential turnout boost for whoever wins the primary. The incumbent can then be fully entrenched for the 2026 midterms.