2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Libertas Vel Mors]

DOJ is suing Texas over its maps alleging that they violate Section 2 of the VRA.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1467927358019710977?s=20

Alabama too, please, while we're at it

Given the composition of the courts, little to nothing is going to change here. The 5th circuit and obviously SCOTUS are a solid R majority.

Same with the 5th, to be fair. Those are just the two states where I think VRA violations would be easiest to argue

No its extremely hard to argue for a Gingles based VRA lawsuit in the RGV of all areas.

Republicans shored up 2/3 Dems in the RGV and kept the other district at basically the same partisanship. There is 0 argument for Gingles RGV. If the districts were fine in 2010 and have gotten even more Hispanic since then, then why did they suddenly become problematic in 2020?

(Hint: It has a lot to do with certain rightward swings in the RGV that are imperiling Dem dominance there  )

[Libertas Vel Mors]

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.

Incumbent protection for TX-30 (EBJ is retiring but has a chosen successor)?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Kinda a random thought, but the more I think about it, the more I think TX-03 could be a potential problem down the road for the GOP than TX-24.

Using Atlanta as kind of an example, TX-03 seems more like a Gwinnett County type-place- rapidly growing, diversifying, and gentrifying so will likely trend hard left by default over the course of the decade.

Meanwhile, TX-24 very much feels like northern Cobb county, an already largely established wealth white suburban community of the metro. If the district flips, while some of it could be attributed to shifting demographics and generation turnover, it’ll ultimately be from peeling off more college educated whites.

We saw in the GA runoffs for instance GA-7 vote decently to the left of GA-6 after GA-6 voted to the left of GA-7 in the 2020 Pres election, where the circumstances caused Biden to do better with college educated voters than a Dem would normally do. GA-7 also grew significantly more than GA-6 this decade population wise. GA-7 and TX-3 seem like the kind of places that are the future of the Democratic Party more than GA-6 or TX-24.

Also iirc TX-3 and GA-7 were both in the top 5 of most left shifting districts from 2016-2020 Pres

Are there any other districts similar to this? Maybe Fort Bend (now just 30% NHW) for a comparison to Gwinett/GA-07?

[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.