2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[I’m not Stu]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.    

I think making TX-07 Republican violates the VRA. TX-07 should be another Hispanic district.

[I’m not Stu]

Any chance the republicans don't draw an Austin Sink, maybe hoping for a post-trump suburban trend reversion ?

If they want to dummymander, then yes.

The current lines in metro Austin would cost the GOP literally five seats in 2024 if left unchanged.

Suburban reps don't tend to like taking in rural/exurban territory.

Why do they tend to not like taking in rural/exurban territory?

[I’m not Stu]

Will TX-07 be conceded?

[I’m not Stu]

I would like to post one of my maps at RRH. I’m not sure if the TXGOP will draw sinks or dummymander.

[I’m not Stu]

What might a dummymander look like?

[I’m not Stu]

Is it easy to create two fairly compact 50+% Hispanic CVAP districts in Houston?

[I’m not Stu]

Is it easy to create two fairly compact 50+% Hispanic CVAP districts in Houston?

With or without a separate black district?

With one.

[I’m not Stu]

What happens to Allred and Fletcher?

[I’m not Stu]

Will the TXGOP try to protect incumbents or draw an extremely ugly baconmander that draws out incumbent Republicans?

[I’m not Stu]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

You think they would draw out incumbent Republicans, rather than protect as many incumbent Republicans as possible?

[I’m not Stu]

Will the new map project as many incumbent Republicans as possible, or will it be even uglier and unnecessarily draw out incumbents?

[I’m not Stu]

Will the TXGOP try to protect their incumbents; or is incumbent protection not a thing in Texas, where will they draw an extremely ugly map that unnecessarily draws out GOP incumbents?

[I’m not Stu]

Will the TXGOP try to protect their incumbents; or is incumbent protection not a thing in Texas, where will they draw an extremely ugly map that unnecessarily draws out GOP incumbents?

I don’t think anyone here has insight into what Texas will do, but it would be unusual for them not to try to protect all of their incumbents. This is literally the first redistricting cycle where Texas R growth has stalled relative to the state as a whole so it’s a new problem for them.

You don’t think they would do anything like double bunking Crenshaw into a Democratic district with Fletcher to make TX-02 more rural? I can imagine Crenshaw not being happy if that is done.

[I’m not Stu]

So, as expected, they left Fletcher alone.
The demands of incumbents took precedence over the flipping of recently lost seats.

Is the TXGOP trying to prevent a dummymander?