2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Southern Reactionary Dem]

Not saying it'd work, but why don't Dems argue for the creation of another outright majority Hispanic majority district in DFW? It can be done relatively compactly as shown above, without making TX-30 at risk of failing as a black plurality seat. Something like this would make it difficult for the GOP to crack that much of Northern Dallas County, and as a side benefit actually unpacks TX-30 and TX-33 from a partisan standpoint.

How about this?


25th = 45% Hispanic, 27% white, 23% black (plurality Hispanic)
30th = 46% black, 30% Hispanic, 18% white (plurality black)
32nd = 50% Hispanic, 28% white, 18% black (majority Hispanic)
33rd = 54% Hispanic, 26% white, 14% black (majority Hispanic)
3rd = 42% white, 32% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 12% black (could become Asian-plurality soon)
5th = 51% white, 20% Hispanic, 16% black, 12% Asian (the only white-majority blue district)

Partisan data is 2020 presidential

I think this map would be good enough to get past an R controlled court on the off chance they ruled in favor of Dems.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d7120d10-eadc-41b8-a28d-f21e9d96146b

It takes TX-32,  Allred's plurality white Dem district, and reconfigures it to make it majority hispanic.

TX 30 becomes even stronger plurality black, and TX-33 shifts to cover more Democratic turf in Tarrant County and is plurality Hispanic.

TX-24 is still largely centered on conservative northeast Tarrant County but it gives up some of north-central Tarrant in exchange for even more Republican parts of Denton County to counter areas around Carrollton Van Duyne takes in.

TX-04 will now get the park cities in Dallas, with an arm coming from Rockwall through Richardson.

TX-05 will take in Mesquite and have some leftover area in northeastern Dallas.

Some other seats are shifted around and TX-13 comes further into Denton and into the fringes of Collin while TX-01 comes in for reinforcements and carves out McKinney from the rest of Collin to shore up TX-03 margins.

TX-25 takes more former TX-13 areas out west to compensate for the Tarrant County areas lost to TX-33 and TX-06.

TX-06 still has a big chunk of south-central Tarrant County and moves down through Ellis County and eastward.

I also reconfigured Houston a bit, but the number of D and R districts doesn't change.

Every other change was meant to be as minimal as possible without precinct splits (given the other significant changes on the map).

This map nets an extra plurality Hispanic district over the current one while reinforcing plurality black districts. An additional safe Republican district (TX-36) is just barely plurality white. It may be possible to shift some precincts here or there to put Hispanics into the plurality. Rs don't have to give up a district and Trump won every R seat outside of south Texas with at least 56% of the vote.

Given we're likely to see at least some amount of non-Trump reversion (down-ballot Rs have consistently outrun him in TX), a lot of these might end up 60-39R. They may get pretty close by the end of the decade if there's a Republican president, particularly a very unpopular one like Trump. As long as there's a Democratic president or a Republican who is reasonably popular in TX, these should stay in R hands.

I'm sure someone with more time on their hands and a bit of willingness to split a precinct here or there could fine-tune this, but it's a rough estimate of what Rs may try to do in the event of a Dem favorable ruling.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/954cda1e-2251-4b9b-a2a0-2b0f92e27bac
Y'all, thoughts on this map I drew a few hours ago?

[Sol]

I made a fair map of Texas.

link





It's possible to up the HVAP of TX-12 if you're willing to get a little ugly. Ironically, doing this benefits Republicans so they might actually push for a map which makes TX-12 majority Latino by total population.



Sorry about Kaufman with Southern Dallas, it's what makes everything else work.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Overall good job, though a few concerns.

Firstly, RGV and especially that 6th are quite extreme in trying to "stretch out" Hispanic influence and combine communities that don't have much in common. I'm not crazy when it comes to the fajitas to begin with, but at the very least I think they shouyld be more contained.

2nd I would rotate your 31 and 32 within Houston to be an East-West divide rather than North-South. 31 could become the more urban seat and 32 suburban. It seems like your goal was to make 32 Hispanic, but IMO I think 30 should just be a black seat similar to the current 9th and 34th becomes a Northern Houston Hispanic seat rather than making your 30th highly competitive racially.

Outside that, I really like the way you handled DFW and rural Texas is really clean.

[Sol]

2nd I would rotate your 31 and 32 within Houston to be an East-West divide rather than North-South. 31 could become the more urban seat and 32 suburban. It seems like your goal was to make 32 Hispanic, but IMO I think 30 should just be a black seat similar to the current 9th and 34th becomes a Northern Houston Hispanic seat rather than making your 30th highly competitive racially.

Like this?

[ProgressiveModerate]

2nd I would rotate your 31 and 32 within Houston to be an East-West divide rather than North-South. 31 could become the more urban seat and 32 suburban. It seems like your goal was to make 32 Hispanic, but IMO I think 30 should just be a black seat similar to the current 9th and 34th becomes a Northern Houston Hispanic seat rather than making your 30th highly competitive racially.

Like this?

Ye pretty much.

[Sol]

Ye pretty much.

Ah gotcha. I'm not sure if I like this better than the other one or not--it's a bit cleaner looking but I think I prefer Alief with Fort Bend County suburbs, and creating two coalition districts with a large white population in 31 and 32 might could run the risk of white candidates winning polarized primaries thanks to differential turnout, especially in TX-32.

I may also be biased though since the first map looks more like the current map.

Would be interested in what other folks think!

[Sol]

Firstly, RGV and especially that 6th are quite extreme in trying to "stretch out" Hispanic influence and combine communities that don't have much in common. I'm not crazy when it comes to the fajitas to begin with, but at the very least I think they shouyld be more contained.

Does this look better?

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/030da3ff-9dee-46e5-b77a-89e094a87811

A reminder of how much more aggressive yet cleaner the 2010 gerrymander could've been if not for patriarchal concerns. TX 2020 is def the best example of gerrymandering purely for the biggest partisan benefit no matter what incumbents say. Amazing how just a decade ago Dallas could've had a single pack and Houston 2. Also the South Texas margins were insane.

Austin should've gotten it's own sink last decade if the GOP were smart but the gerrymander narrowly survived the decade.

The current GOP gerrymander is pretty aggressive but also plays it safe. I'm curious to see how well it holds up this decade, especially if we see a continuation of what happened last decade in the suburbs. An underrated possiblity imo is that TX-23 could have a better chance of shifting D than we expect. Basically half of it is based in suburban Bexar and it only narrowly shifted between 2016 and 2020 despite the insane Hispanic swings. Still it'd take quite a bit to break any part of the gerrymander and even if parts of it fail it still benefits the GOP.

The GOP's biggest potential regret may end up being not giving Dallas a 4th sink. Also if the map is fully or partially overturned on the grounds it disenfranchises minorities they might've prefered to be a bit less sneaky with Hispanic communities.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/030da3ff-9dee-46e5-b77a-89e094a87811

A reminder of how much more aggressive yet cleaner the 2010 gerrymander could've been if not for patriarchal concerns. TX 2020 is def the best example of gerrymandering purely for the biggest partisan benefit no matter what incumbents say. Amazing how just a decade ago Dallas could've had a single pack and Houston 2. Also the South Texas margins were insane.

Austin should've gotten it's own sink last decade if the GOP were smart but the gerrymander narrowly survived the decade.

The current GOP gerrymander is pretty aggressive but also plays it safe. I'm curious to see how well it holds up this decade, especially if we see a continuation of what happened last decade in the suburbs. An underrated possiblity imo is that TX-23 could have a better chance of shifting D than we expect. Basically half of it is based in suburban Bexar and it only narrowly shifted between 2016 and 2020 despite the insane Hispanic swings. Still it'd take quite a bit to break any part of the gerrymander and even if parts of it fail it still benefits the GOP.

The GOP's biggest potential regret may end up being not giving Dallas a 4th sink. Also if the map is fully or partially overturned on the grounds it disenfranchises minorities they might've prefered to be a bit less sneaky with Hispanic communities.

Very interesting how well this map held up. Would have still been 24-12 Trump in 2020, and probably 25-11 congressionally.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/030da3ff-9dee-46e5-b77a-89e094a87811

A reminder of how much more aggressive yet cleaner the 2010 gerrymander could've been if not for patriarchal concerns. TX 2020 is def the best example of gerrymandering purely for the biggest partisan benefit no matter what incumbents say. Amazing how just a decade ago Dallas could've had a single pack and Houston 2. Also the South Texas margins were insane.

Austin should've gotten it's own sink last decade if the GOP were smart but the gerrymander narrowly survived the decade.

The current GOP gerrymander is pretty aggressive but also plays it safe. I'm curious to see how well it holds up this decade, especially if we see a continuation of what happened last decade in the suburbs. An underrated possiblity imo is that TX-23 could have a better chance of shifting D than we expect. Basically half of it is based in suburban Bexar and it only narrowly shifted between 2016 and 2020 despite the insane Hispanic swings. Still it'd take quite a bit to break any part of the gerrymander and even if parts of it fail it still benefits the GOP.

The GOP's biggest potential regret may end up being not giving Dallas a 4th sink. Also if the map is fully or partially overturned on the grounds it disenfranchises minorities they might've prefered to be a bit less sneaky with Hispanic communities.

Very interesting how well this map held up. Would have still been 24-12 Trump in 2020, and probably 25-11 congressionally.

Ye for how ugly it was the GOP’s 2010 gerry was pretty lame. Their new gerrymander is pretty maximal as none of the Dem sinks can be eliminated without consequences other than arguably the 4th Houston seat but that’s pushing it

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://data.capitol.texas.gov/dataset/planc2107

The C2107 plan by Logan Williams is actually really good and what a fair map would look like in Texas. It balances following Counties, Cities, COIs, compactness, and VRA quite well.

Only thing I'm not a huge fan of is this Houston config as it slightly dilutes Hispanics while also not really bringing up Black population in TX-18. Also wish there were generally more narrow Trump seats and fewer narrow Biden, but Texas geography makes this a bit weird. Also, this TX-23 may not pass muster, but it does create additional Hispanic opportunities in Dallas and San Antonio.

Really hoping for 2030 redistricting we can get a split government which ultimately leads to the court adopting a neutral map, or better, legal challenges succeed/Dems flip the TX SC before then, though this seems unlikely.

A fair map kinda exposes Rs long term problem; Texas is a pretty urban state as a whole.

[ProgressiveModerate]

3 D pack Houston that isn't too bad. Still don't understand why the GOP seemed so much more aggressive in Dallas than Houston on all levels of redistricting (state legistlative and congressional), especially when Dallas has had slightly more consistent leftward shifts

[Roll Roons]

3 D pack Houston that isn't too bad. Still don't understand why the GOP seemed so much more aggressive in Dallas than Houston on all levels of redistricting (state legistlative and congressional), especially when Dallas has had slightly more consistent leftward shifts

That's exactly why. Because the trends have been so much worse in DFW than they have in Houston, the TXGOP felt like they had to be much more aggressive and draw uglier lines.

[lfromnj]

FYI a portion of Houston's ugliness is actually to work with Jackson Lee/Al Green.

[ProgressiveModerate]

FYI a portion of Houston's ugliness is actually to work with Jackson Lee/Al Green.

Yeah the 4 D packs were originally gonna be much cleaner in earlier plans but that later changed to be quite messy. 7 has to be long though to protect VRA in the other districts.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Cleanest possible Texas gerrymander I could draw; it's based a lot of the GOP drawn maps but tbh, it's hard to get much better from a partisanship standpoint without getting too risky. However, in this map Houston is reduced to just 3 Dem seats and the South Texas fajitas get slightly better for Rs. Also TX-23 is split in half. This map would face a lot of VRA challenges, idk how successful they'd be though.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Cleanest possible Texas gerrymander I could draw; it's based a lot of the GOP drawn maps but tbh, it's hard to get much better from a partisanship standpoint without getting too risky. However, in this map Houston is reduced to just 3 Dem seats and the South Texas fajitas get slightly better for Rs. Also TX-23 is split in half. This map would face a lot of VRA challenges, idk how successful they'd be though.

[snipy snap]

How has the Dallas area and Houston area districts shifted over the years?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Cleanest possible Texas gerrymander I could draw; it's based a lot of the GOP drawn maps but tbh, it's hard to get much better from a partisanship standpoint without getting too risky. However, in this map Houston is reduced to just 3 Dem seats and the South Texas fajitas get slightly better for Rs. Also TX-23 is split in half. This map would face a lot of VRA challenges, idk how successful they'd be though.

[snipy snap]

How has the Dallas area and Houston area districts shifted over the years?

Here's a link for you to explore: https://davesredistricting.org/join/73b7f6b7-2147-4686-9273-14da66452362

The Dallas districts, especially the northern ones, have obviously had pretty dreadful shifts for the GOP in the recent elections. This map tries to draw them so that all of them (except 24) take in growing exurban areas to try and counteract the Dem suburban gains. North Dallas can be hard to gerrymander due to how large it is but also how little rural areas there are to work with northwards. 24 is Tarrant County suburbs, which are already well established and not particuarly fast growing, and very white, so should be okay for the GOP and frankly there's not much that can be done to shore it up without creating a bigger mess

Houston is interesting. Suburbs in the Southwest, West, Northwest, and North all have pretty brutal shifts for the GOP largely because they're growing and becoming very diverse. Even though this map unpacks 7 a bit, and actually makes it into a theoretically winnable seat for the GOP (Romney 2012), it's goal is to take in a lot of the fastest growing tossup/D leaning suburbs to ensure that growth doesn't push districts 22 or 8 towards Dems enough to flip. Like 24, there's not a ton that can be done about district 38. District 2 should be relatively safe.

Districts 14 and 29 have been more mixed bags in terms of their shifts; this is because the oil industry has a very heavy influence in both, and rightwards shifts amongst Hispanics (and a shrinking black population in 29) have caused both to stay relatively stagnant despite obvious suburban spillover.

36 has also been relatively stagnant. The district is a bit misleading because about 75% is in Harris County and the district is only 40% white. Essentially, what it does is it combiens some very D yet historically low turnout black and Hispanic Communities in North Houston with extremely R higher turnout exurbs and rurals. The political future of this district depends upon if Dems can increase their own turnout nubmers in Harris County with minorities.

All 3 "fajitas" shifted hard right in 2020, though 28 has shifted a bit left some elections before that due to being heavily based in Bexar County. The political futures of these districts are hard to predict, but I tried to make it so there's not much optimism for Dems in 15.

Austin is prolly where this gerrymander cedes cleanliness for potentially failing down the road. Both districts 10 and 25 are based heavily in Austin suburbs which have been seeing absolute booms in population, plus district 10 takes in College Station. It's not hard to see wither district flipping or coming close to flipping by the end of the decade, but this is the best I coudl do without doing the absolute obliteration the GOP did.

Overall, even if the Austin area is slightly weaker, it makes the fajitas slightly more favourable to the GOP and contains the Dems to just 3 seats in Houston, making the baseline one less D seat and one more R seat.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

That’s weirdly specific? Why do they want to do that? Are they trying to establish a pattern? If they look through mine they’d be baffled at it with all the weird maps

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

That’s weirdly specific? Why do they want to do that? Are they trying to establish a pattern? If they look through mine they’d be baffled at it with all the weird maps

Looking for a pattern is the only explanation that thus far makes sense to me.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

That’s weirdly specific? Why do they want to do that? Are they trying to establish a pattern? If they look through mine they’d be baffled at it with all the weird maps

Looking for a pattern is the only explanation that thus far makes sense to me.

Another underrated possibility is looking at names/labels of previous versions of the maps. Like hypothetically if he has a group of maps in a category labeled "illegal" and they're quite simillar or even the same as the current TX map, that would be gold (probably won't be something that direct though).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here we go again ig

Predictions?

[BenjiG98]

Here we go again ig

Predictions?

Predictions for what?