2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Better for Dems short term, worse for Dems long term. I’ll take it.

the most-of-Collin CD looks like a feasible long-term flip. I'm a bit surprised they left it this vulnerable, tbh.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Here's a better link to the GIS version of the plan where you can really zoom in a lot more and also see roads etc.

https://dvr.capitol.texas.gov/Congress/14/PLANC2101

[DrScholl]

There really is nowhere for them to stretch some of these districts. With the Republican base receding further and further out it is pretty much impossible to gerrymander more aggressively. Rural counties that are strongly Republican are just too far away from the metro areas.

[GALeftist]

Between 25-13 and a map which seems favorable to Cisneros primarying Cuellar I will very much take it. Blue Dogs halved again in 2022 inshallah

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Yes, mine was a much better Pubmander, and legal. It is almost always a mistake to try to get inside the heads of TX Pubs, much less assume that they have some modicum of rationality.

A good share of the ridiculousness is pretty obviously because of incumbent concerns and incumbent self-interest/demands winning out over what would be a more rational but equal/more effective configuration. For example, TX-04 is the way it is because Rockwall County is in the current district and they apparently want that to stay due to incumbency there, but they also want to help take Dem votes from TX-03 to keep TX-03 safely R, hence the ridiculous dual tentacles to Rockwall on the one hand also to Biden-voting Dem-trending parts of Plano/Frisco on the other hand.

Similarly, TX-10 ridiculously goes through a narrow strip to get to combine West Austin and a bunch of rural areas to the east of Austin. The reason for that is to take in Mike McCaul's home in west Austin, while also including the rural areas that he currently represents and which are the parts that make it safely R. Actually, tbh it looks like the new proposed TX-10 is actually more of a rural district than a suburban district at this point (not only having very little of Austin, but also having entirely exited Harris County now). If McCaul were to retire, this district would end up getting represented by a rural R I am pretty sure.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyone else notice that 11 takes in a bunch of Dem-friendly precincts in Bell County? It's fine things like this that show how finely this entire map is balanced in many ways.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yes, mine was a much better Pubmander, and legal. It is almost always a mistake to try to get inside the heads of TX Pubs, much less assume that they have some modicum of rationality.

A good share of the ridiculousness is pretty obviously because of incumbent concerns and incumbent self-interest/demands winning out over what would be a more rational but equal/more effective configuration. For example, TX-04 is the way it is because Rockwall County is in the current district and they apparently want that to stay due to incumbency there, but they also want to help take Dem votes from TX-03 to keep TX-03 safely R, hence the ridiculous dual tentacles to Rockwall on the one hand also to Biden-voting Dem-trending parts of Plano/Frisco on the other hand.

Similarly, TX-10 ridiculously goes through a narrow strip to get to combine West Austin and a bunch of rural areas to the east of Austin. The reason for that is to take in Mike McCaul's home in west Austin, while also including the rural areas that he currently represents and which are the parts that make it safely R. Actually, tbh it looks like the new proposed TX-10 is actually more of a rural district than a suburban district at this point (not only having very little of Austin, but also having entirely exited Harris County now). If McCaul were to retire, this district would end up getting represented by a rural R I am pretty sure.

This map is very much incumbent-driven. It's perhaps the spiritual successor to the 2013-2023 MD map in that regard.
You have a good point on the 10th. Eyeballing it, about 50% or so of the population is in rurals outside of Travis and Williamson? Which is a sizable shift.

[lfromnj]

Funnily enough a current state house district in Collin County/Rockwall kinda takes the shape of Rockwall although I doubt that was really for any partisan purposes.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Well, the Texas Pubs clearly did not take my advice, and yes, they should be sued, and then sued some more (probably for precisely the opposite reasons Gass has in mind but whatever). The below image has to be competitive with MD in insane erosity. I get that TX-33 was an attempt to do a crude Hispanic pack, but what is TX-04 all about?  

TX-04 is basically about taking a lot of the more Dem trending areas of the north Dallas area and sinking them into rural areas so that the Dem trending areas votes don't count and they are disenfranchised.

Specifically, it takes a lot of the more Dem parts of Plano (which also tend to have higher Asian populations), so that the less Dem and generally more white parts of Plano can be kept in TX-03 and keep TX-03 safely Republican.

It also looks like it includes a lot of Frisco, which is very diverse, extremely fast growing, and rapidly Dem trending (similar to Fort Bend County in the Houston area, with a large Asian population as well as rapidly growing black (and Hispanic) population). And since it is suburban, it is also relatively high turnout. In other words, it is exactly the sort of area that is increasingly toxic for the GOP.

A sort of somewhat comparable area is the Bear Creek part of West Houston, which flipped Dem earlier than the more white parts of West Houston which turned against Trum, and which look like they are now mostly in the proposed TX-08 so that Wesley Hunt can win the proposed TX-38.

So they all get stuck in TX-04 with a bunch of non-college unvaxxed white rural voters who would sooner commit suicide by COVID (and in fact have been doing so over the past few months) than even consider voting Dem.

That is what TX-04 is all about, thanks for asking! 

[Brittain33]

In Tarrant, it looks like they drew TX-24 for Van Duyne, then they drew TX-32 and TX-33 as Dem sinks around it, but they were left with too much territory south of TX-33 for just TX-6 so that’s why you have those disastrous tentacles and two districts coming in. Just my guess.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/zach_solomon1/status/1442507576512552968
Direct DRA link

[Skill and Chance]

So why did they decide to go MD-02/03/04 on DFW and also be so polite everywhere else?  

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well, the Texas Pubs clearly did not take my advice, and yes, they should be sued, and then sued some more (probably for precisely the opposite reasons Gass has in mind but whatever). The below image has to be competitive with MD in insane erosity. I get that TX-33 was an attempt to do a crude Hispanic pack, but what is TX-04 all about? 

TX-04 is basically about taking a lot of the more Dem trending areas of the north Dallas area and sinking them into rural areas so that the Dem trending areas votes don't count and they are disenfranchised.

Specifically, it takes a lot of the more Dem parts of Plano (which also tend to have higher Asian populations), so that the less Dem and generally more white parts of Plano can be kept in TX-03 and keep TX-03 safely Republican.

It also looks like it includes a lot of Frisco, which is very diverse, extremely fast growing, and rapidly Dem trending (similar to Fort Bend County in the Houston area, with a large Asian population as well as rapidly growing black (and Hispanic) population). And since it is suburban, it is also relatively high turnout. In other words, it is exactly the sort of area that is increasingly toxic for the GOP.

A sort of somewhat comparable area is the Bear Creek part of West Houston, which flipped Dem earlier than the more white parts of West Houston which turned against Trum, and which look like they are now mostly in the proposed TX-08 so that Wesley Hunt can win the proposed TX-38.

So they all get stuck in TX-04 with a bunch of non-college unvaxxed white rural voters who would sooner commit suicide by COVID (and in fact have been doing so over the past few months) than even consider voting Dem.

That is what TX-04 is all about, thanks for asking! 

The 1990s called, they want their gerrymandering ideas back.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So why did they decide to go MD-02/03/04 on DFW and also be so polite everywhere else?   

Metro DFW is shifting Dem faster, so they had to get nastier. Simple.

In Tarrant, it looks like they drew TX-24 for Van Duyne, then they drew TX-32 and TX-33 as Dem sinks around it, but they were left with too much territory south of TX-33 for just TX-6 so that’s why you have those disastrous tentacles and two districts coming in. Just my guess.

I don't disagree.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Exactly my question too. Why not give Hunt to TX-4 and Rockwell to TX-3?

Because Rockwall could theoretically trend/swing Dem. Rockwall is a (far out) Dallas suburb. Rockwall is sort of similar to somewhere like Forsyth County, Georgia, in the sense that it is heavily white and traditionally very Republican, but also very fast growing, which means that it may change and become more like the further-in Dallas suburbs and parts of Collin County that are Dem trending.

Whereas Hunt county is way too exurby/rural to trend/swing Dem over the next 10 years. The population growth in Hunt County will be basically only exurban white Rs, whereas you may start to get some minority creep and white urbanish Dem creep into Rockwall.

[Torie]

Yes, mine was a much better Pubmander, and legal. It is almost always a mistake to try to get inside the heads of TX Pubs, much less assume that they have some modicum of rationality.

A good share of the ridiculousness is pretty obviously because of incumbent concerns and incumbent self-interest/demands winning out over what would be a more rational but equal/more effective configuration. For example, TX-04 is the way it is because Rockwall County is in the current district and they apparently want that to stay due to incumbency there, but they also want to help take Dem votes from TX-03 to keep TX-03 safely R, hence the ridiculous dual tentacles to Rockwall on the one hand also to Biden-voting Dem-trending parts of Plano/Frisco on the other hand.

Similarly, TX-10 ridiculously goes through a narrow strip to get to combine West Austin and a bunch of rural areas to the east of Austin. The reason for that is to take in Mike McCaul's home in west Austin, while also including the rural areas that he currently represents and which are the parts that make it safely R. Actually, tbh it looks like the new proposed TX-10 is actually more of a rural district than a suburban district at this point (not only having very little of Austin, but also having entirely exited Harris County now). If McCaul were to retire, this district would end up getting represented by a rural R I am pretty sure.

This map is very much incumbent-driven. It's perhaps the spiritual successor to the 2013-2023 MD map in that regard.
You have a good point on the 10th. Eyeballing it, about 50% or so of the population is in rurals outside of Travis and Williamson? Which is a sizable shift.

The current TX-10 takes in a chunk of Travis, and then goes to Houston to take in a chunk of real estate there. It is basically an urban district, comprised of 2 nodes. The way I drew the map, I put McCaul's home in TX-27, shoved the TX-27 incumbent living in Victoria who would be a poor fit for Houston, much less Austin, in TX-34, and and then gave the new TX-27 a bunch of rural territory. My TX-10 was a new CD in Houston that covered much of McCaul's existing TX-10 Houston node. Right next door to his precinct in Travis was the jut in to Travis by TX-25, that does not have an incumbent (the 75 year old incumbent lives outside his district as it is, which lies elsewhere from the new TX-25. So in essence, I gave McCaul a choice of three CD's to run in, TX-10, 25 or 27.

[Thunder98]

I was honesty expecting a worse map than this proposed one, like a 26-12 map.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

This map is very much incumbent-driven. It's perhaps the spiritual successor to the 2013-2023 MD map in that regard.
You have a good point on the 10th. Eyeballing it, about 50% or so of the population is in rurals outside of Travis and Williamson? Which is a sizable shift.

It is more like 2/3 of the district is outside Travis and Williamson. Whereas before the rural areas of TX-10 helped it to stay R, but a big part of the contribution was also made by Harris County. Whereas it is obviously way too risky now to keep a Travis + Harris + some rurals seat now and expect it to stay R, even though the part of Harris that was in his district was R, it was Dem trending like the rest of the TX suburbs, so they not only made the Travis portion a lot smaller, but also entirely dumped the Harris portion.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This map is very much incumbent-driven. It's perhaps the spiritual successor to the 2013-2023 MD map in that regard.
You have a good point on the 10th. Eyeballing it, about 50% or so of the population is in rurals outside of Travis and Williamson? Which is a sizable shift.

It is more like 2/3 of the district is outside Travis and Williamson. Whereas before the rural areas of TX-10 helped it to stay R, but a big part of the contribution was also made by Harris County. Whereas it is obviously way too risky now to keep a Travis + Harris + some rurals seat now and expect it to stay R, even though the part of Harris that was in his district was R, it was Dem trending like the rest of the TX suburbs, so they not only made the Travis portion a lot smaller, but also entirely dumped the Harris portion.

I did the math and I'd guess about 2/3. Holy moly.
This sure is the Micheal McCaul Lifetime Employment Act.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I did the math and I'd guess about 2/3. Holy moly.
This sure is the Micheal McCaul Lifetime Employment Act.

It is probably not a coincidence that McCaul was the lead Congressional Republican coordinating the map between TX Congressional Rs and state legislative Rs that were drawing the maps and the fact that he managed to end up with a much more rural (but rural areas that know him) and safe district which will re-elect him as long as he wants, whereas a lot of the other vulnerable TX suburban Rs still have relatively more suburban districts that should be pretty safe, but where it is at least theoretically possible they may not be by the end of the decade (TX-24, TX-3, TX-22).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I did the math and I'd guess about 2/3. Holy moly.
This sure is the Micheal McCaul Lifetime Employment Act.

It is probably not a coincidence that McCaul was the lead Congressional Republican coordinating the map between TX Congressional Rs and state legislative Rs that were drawing the maps and the fact that he managed to end up with a much more rural (but rural areas that know him) and safe district which will re-elect him as long as he wants, whereas a lot of the other vulnerable TX suburban Rs still have relatively more suburban districts that should be pretty safe, but where it is at least theoretically possible they may not be by the end of the decade (TX-24, TX-3, TX-22).

I was not aware that McCaul was the lead coordinator, but it does make a lot of sense. Merely looking at the map, it's pretty clear that Micheal McCaul looked out for the interests of Micheal McCaul.
Also, I joked earlier about this being 1990s gerrymandering tactics being back, but then, I saw the lines in Denton County...
What goes around does come around.
The precinct in which I lived for 8 years is now in a CD that borders New Mexico.

[Torie]

In Tarrant, it looks like they drew TX-24 for Van Duyne, then they drew TX-32 and TX-33 as Dem sinks around it, but they were left with too much territory south of TX-33 for just TX-6 so that’s why you have those disastrous tentacles and two districts coming in. Just my guess.

About half a district worth of "excess" territory. Classic gerrymander. You combine a lot of marginal territory with solid territory to create a safe CD, rather than smaller bits of very hostile territory. With very hostile territory it gets very inefficient and exhausting (c.f.,  the quin chop of Travis).



The Torie metric of trying to make gerrymanders look as pretty as possible was just not in play here now, was it? 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In Tarrant, it looks like they drew TX-24 for Van Duyne, then they drew TX-32 and TX-33 as Dem sinks around it, but they were left with too much territory south of TX-33 for just TX-6 so that’s why you have those disastrous tentacles and two districts coming in. Just my guess.

About half a district worth of "excess" territory. Classic gerrymander. You combine a lot of marginal territory with solid territory to create a safe CD, rather than smaller bits of very hostile territory. With very hostile territory it gets very inefficient and exhausting (c.f.,  the quin chop of Travis).



The Torie metric of trying to make gerrymanders look as pretty as possible was just not in play here now, was it? 

How did the new 6th, minus Dallas and Tarrant, vote? 72% Trump?

[Torie]

I did the math and I'd guess about 2/3. Holy moly.
This sure is the Micheal McCaul Lifetime Employment Act.

It is probably not a coincidence that McCaul was the lead Congressional Republican coordinating the map between TX Congressional Rs and state legislative Rs that were drawing the maps and the fact that he managed to end up with a much more rural (but rural areas that know him) and safe district which will re-elect him as long as he wants, whereas a lot of the other vulnerable TX suburban Rs still have relatively more suburban districts that should be pretty safe, but where it is at least theoretically possible they may not be by the end of the decade (TX-24, TX-3, TX-22).

I was not aware that McCaul was the lead coordinator, but it does make a lot of sense. Merely looking at the map, it's pretty clear that Micheal McCaul looked out for the interests of Micheal McCaul.
Also, I joked earlier about this being 1990s gerrymandering tactics being back, but then, I saw the lines in Denton County...
What goes around does come around.
The precinct in which I lived for 8 years is now in a CD that borders New Mexico.

All roads lead to Rome, and via the Brazos notch to boot.

[Adam Griffin]

How did the new 6th, minus Dallas and Tarrant, vote? 72% Trump?

71-28