2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[ProgressiveModerate]

Did a blind redistricting of TX with no partisanship data; just tried to make the map VRA compliant and compact. Interestingly enough, Clinton won 20 of the 39 districts. It's clear at this point Ds have the geography advantage when i8t comes to redistricting in TX.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt



Majority Hispanic:

15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 28, 29, 34, 35

Majority Black:

9, 30

Majority Minorirty:

7, 22, 17, 33

Closest R Districts using 2016 numbers:

23: Trump + 13.2
15: Trump + 14.5
27: Trump + 15.5
21: Trump + 15.6
10: Trump + 16.3
22: Trump + 16.9
17: Trump + 19.7
11: Trump + 20.7
6: Trump + 20.8
4: Trump + 22.7
25: Trump + 22.7
39: Trump + 22.8
26: Trump + 23.4
3: Trump + 24.8
31: Trump + 25.2
14: Trump + 27.6
5: Trump + 27.8
2: Trump + 28.0
24: Trump + 28.4
------------------
Everything beyond this point will be safe for the decade

Dallas and Houston zoom-ins:





Overall, I'm happy; I do think I could make RGV a bit better and would like to try to reduce the bacon strips in North Dallas. I think it might honestly be worth it to concieve a 4th seat to Ds in Dallas; it's a  small reward big-risk sort of thing for the GOP

[ProgressiveModerate]

Got an 11D-28R map; the map below uses 2016 numbers.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at a Texas 26R-12D map (shades are according to 2016 Pres):







After playing around, ceding a 4th seat to Dems in Houston and a 3rd seat in Dallas are musts unless you want a dummymander.

One question is how VRA will be applied in RGV after 2020. After the huge shifts we saw, it's not unreasonable to have a functioning Hispanic VRA district that elect Republicans. Furthrmore, will the rules of not overpacking VRA districts apply to this region? If there really was a Hispanic undercount in the 2020 census are R - leaning fajitas possible? I plan to readjust this region of my map once the 2020 data is out, and am not sure if the current iteration would survive VRA lawsuits.

This map assumes that RGV trends we saw in 2020 are indicative of a larger trend as opposed to a weird exception.

I aimed for about Trump + 25 on 2016 in the suburban seats. Most of these districts likely shifted 5-10 points left in 2020, but that's still not enough to be competative, especially since trends tend to lag a cycle or so behind downballot. Even another 5-10 point shift in 2024 wouldn't be enough and 5-10 point shift in 2028 might narrowly flip a few districts if Dems are lucky, but that's a huge IF.

Partisanship numbers. Each district is numbered with it's closest 2016 counterpart. 37 is the one shaped like a backwards question mark that stretches between Corpus Christi and Houston Exurbs. District 38 is the one that takes in suburban Houston, Waller County, and Brazos County.



What do y'all think?

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at a Texas 26R-12D map (shades are according to 2016 Pres):







After playing around, ceding a 4th seat to Dems in Houston and a 3rd seat in Dallas are musts unless you want a dummymander.

One question is how VRA will be applied in RGV after 2020. After the huge shifts we saw, it's not unreasonable to have a functioning Hispanic VRA district that elect Republicans. Furthrmore, will the rules of not overpacking VRA districts apply to this region? If there really was a Hispanic undercount in the 2020 census are R - leaning fajitas possible? I plan to readjust this region of my map once the 2020 data is out, and am not sure if the current iteration would survive VRA lawsuits.

This map assumes that RGV trends we saw in 2020 are indicative of a larger trend as opposed to a weird exception.

I aimed for about Trump + 25 on 2016 in the suburban seats. Most of these districts likely shifted 5-10 points left in 2020, but that's still not enough to be competative, especially since trends tend to lag a cycle or so behind downballot. Even another 5-10 point shift in 2024 wouldn't be enough and 5-10 point shift in 2028 might narrowly flip a few districts if Dems are lucky, but that's a huge IF.

Partisanship numbers. Each district is numbered with it's closest 2016 counterpart. 37 is the one shaped like a backwards question mark that stretches between Corpus Christi and Houston Exurbs. District 38 is the one that takes in suburban Houston, Waller County, and Brazos County.



What do y'all think?

That D pack along the border looks flagrantly illegal to me, but the broader map is not that bad overall.

Yeah that's what I suspect too; it's a Hispanic pack. I'm waiting for 2020 data before I really play around with teh RGV; this is more of a hypothetical placeholder till then.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Nice. I think 2020 data shows that Rs prolly need to cede at least 2 of a 4th Houston seat, a 4th Dallas seat, or a 4th Austin seat. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with RGV as it's very difficult to make  a Dem sink that complies with VRA. I think whatever they do will show how sustained they expect 2020 trends to be.

[ProgressiveModerate]

so a GOP gerrymander basically just nets them the two new seats?  That's not going to cut it if Dems do end up gerrymandering NY.

It also shores up a lot of seats though which means they won't have to spend as much money in TX protecting vulnerable seats. But ye, currently the GOP is pretty maxed out in the current TX House config, especially since a lot of the Dem areas have grown significantly in population since 2010.

[ProgressiveModerate]

so a GOP gerrymander basically just nets them the two new seats?  That's not going to cut it if Dems do end up gerrymandering NY.

It also shores up a lot of seats though which means they won't have to spend as much money in TX protecting vulnerable seats. But ye, currently the GOP is pretty maxed out in the current TX House config, especially since a lot of the Dem areas have grown significantly in population since 2010.

This is why I don't think gerrymandering is going to hurt Dems as much as people here keep saying... I guess Florida is a wild card but it seems like Dems can do real damage in New York that more than makes up for Texas.  Then you have a number of states that were Republican gerrymanders 10 years ago which will now have commissions.  Plus the fact you noted that Dem areas have tended to grow in population (not just in TX but everywhere else). 

I mean here’s your list of most likely partisan changes. Positive means Dem:

AZ: -0 or 1
CA: -0.5 to 2.5
CO: + 0.5
FL: -4.5 to -6.5
GA: -2
IL: +1.5 to 2.5
IA: +0 or 1
KS: -0 or 1
LA: +0 or 1
MD: +1
MI: -0.5 to +1.5
MO: -1
MT: -0.5
NJ: -2 to + 1
NM: +0 or 1
NY: +2.5 to +4.5
NC: -1.5 to -2.5
OH: -0.5 to +1.5
OR: -0.5 or +0.5
PA: -0.5 or +0.5
TN: -1
TX: -0 to 2
UT: +0 or 1
VA: -0 or 1
WA: -0 or 1
WV: + 0.5
WI: +0 or 1

Someone can do the math on this but it pretty much cancels out

[ProgressiveModerate]

Apparently Loving County came in at far below its estimate and a drop from 2010? Could there have been fraud involved in the inflated estimates?

The county population is so small that just a few people here and a few people not there really can sway the numbers heavily. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My attempt at a TX R gerry on 2020 numbers:







https://davesredistricting.org/join/2db18cce-c8c3-429e-b464-5982772ccff9

Despite San Antonio's underperformance, drawing to Hispanic VRA districts within Bexar is pretty easy and will likely be required.

Austin's underperformance means working with 1 sink becomes a bit easier. However, having 1 Austin sink means Houston needs 4 D seats to be effective and sustainable gerrymander. If you take out a 4th seat from Houston then Austin needs 4 seats to free up some room for "Pizzaing" of western Houston.

Creating 2 Hispanic seats in Houston got a lot easier now that the new data is out.

I'm actually happy with how central Texas turned out in my map; it's pretty clean but also effective.

Teh 2 biggest questions for the GOP IMO are what to do with RGV and Dallas.

In RGV, it's a guessing game of trends throughout the decade. It's really hard to create true Dem sinks in South TX as so many precincts went to Biden by 60-40ish margins. In my map, 15 might draw a challenge of being a Hispanic pack, however, the GOP could argue in order to avoid a pack is actually pretty difficult at this point, and 15 better represents COIs. 28 tries to combine the rest of Hidalgo, alongside Laredo and Corpus Christi; this is because I think it's unlikely the GOP is going to start outright winning these urban counties anytime soon whereas many of the rural Hispanic counties that went for Biden in 2020 could be more feasible flips since they're more culturally atune to R politics, and had bigger swings rightwards in 2020.

Another problem for the GOP in RGV is the ambiguity of what future trends will be after 2020. If they're really confident and think there gains will continue, they could try Trump + 8/10 districts but risk a huge backfire if 2020 turns out to be an exception. On the flipside, if RGV continues to go hard right, being too conservative with the gerrymander could mean Dems win 1 or 2 more seats than they "should" by the end of the decade (think OH-13 vibes or the current RGV map and how all 3 districts intended to be Dem sinks only narrowly went to Biden).

There's quite a lot of ambiguity around the VRA rules in a RGV-esk situation so I expect the GOP to try to push the boundaries a bit to see what they can get away with.

Another question is Dallas. You can get away with only seats but the map looks horrendous. The big issue for the GOP is north Dallas which has had a consistant hard D trend and is basically a sprawling suburb of 50-50 precincts meaning it's hard to make districts that lean heavily either way. Adding a 4th D sink actually doesn't help shore up the map as much as one'd expect for that reason; it's actually difficult to make a true D pack. It'll be interesting to see what the GOP does.

My map is about 23.90R-14.10D from the current 19.82R-16.18D map, meaning Ds would loose ~2 seats while Rs would gain ~4. This map's competitiveness score would be 8.83, down from the current 31.86 score. This map would have a bias of 7.77 towards R, flipping the current bias of 7.91 towards Dems on it's head. Really goes to show how bad geography is for Rs in TX.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I attempted a TX map on 2020 data and found it harder than expected, I was also basically forced to cede the two new seats to Democrats. Lastly, I ended up with a map where I am 100% certain that several seats will flip before 2030, though I think all of them should survive 2022, maybe TX-23 doesn't

Anyways:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/18b8f365-ba5f-4902-8dc4-cf84c83d7857

Why?

Simplest answer is population growth and Democratic trends, both the DFW metro and Austin are growing in population and trending D and each is currently supporting several swing seats. Adding New Democratic sinks (technically 2 in DFW, since I converted 32 to a D sink) helps to shore up most of the seats, but again trends in the TX metro are very ominous, and every time I've drawn a TX map I end up with several seats vulnerable to trends, because simply the state is trending blue, Democrats have a geography advantage, and Republicans hold way more seats than they should. Eventually, there's a point where overcoming trends and geography becomes too much.

Dealing with North Dallas feels absolutely impossible; you either need an absolutely insane pizza or a very risky map that cedes a 4th seat to Ds.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I attempted a TX map on 2020 data and found it harder than expected, I was also basically forced to cede the two new seats to Democrats. Lastly, I ended up with a map where I am 100% certain that several seats will flip before 2030, though I think all of them should survive 2022, maybe TX-23 doesn't

Anyways:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/18b8f365-ba5f-4902-8dc4-cf84c83d7857

Why?

Simplest answer is population growth and Democratic trends, both the DFW metro and Austin are growing in population and trending D and each is currently supporting several swing seats. Adding New Democratic sinks (technically 2 in DFW, since I converted 32 to a D sink) helps to shore up most of the seats, but again trends in the TX metro are very ominous, and every time I've drawn a TX map I end up with several seats vulnerable to trends, because simply the state is trending blue, Democrats have a geography advantage, and Republicans hold way more seats than they should. Eventually, there's a point where overcoming trends and geography becomes too much.

Dealing with North Dallas feels absolutely impossible; you either need an absolutely insane pizza or a very risky map that cedes a 4th seat to Ds.

True, but I guess this is good news for us, it seems like the Republicans can only do so much, and I have my suspicions that several incumbents will not be happy about being randomly spaghettied into unfamiliar territory. If we could net seats out of the Texas redraw that would be huge, as it means Republicans did not net seats out of the largest state that they control.

Ye I predict TX will be a net wash; a slight GOP gain in the sense they shore up a lot of seats but really don't gain any seats of their own. Ofc shoring up all these swing seats is a huge win for them but it doesn't gain them much.

I think the GOP's single biggest weapon is FL in the sense as that's the state where they have potential to gain the most seats. After that it's really gonna be a game of squeezing one here and there outta places like NC/GA/MO/IN ect. I think people overstate the GOP's redistricting advantage as the national map is already skewed towards them. Also; many of the states where the GOP controls the process doesn't mean much because there isn't much to do (think WV, AR, MS ect).

Don't get me wrong, the national map is still gonna be skewed towards the GOP, but I think on net it won't look all that different than the current picture; just fewer competative seats overall nationally.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I attempted a TX map on 2020 data and found it harder than expected, I was also basically forced to cede the two new seats to Democrats. Lastly, I ended up with a map where I am 100% certain that several seats will flip before 2030, though I think all of them should survive 2022, maybe TX-23 doesn't

Anyways:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/18b8f365-ba5f-4902-8dc4-cf84c83d7857

You obviously didn't try hard enough then. You can easily do 26-12.

I would say a 26-12 is difficult on 2020 numbers, at least one that isn't blatantly illegal and one that would survive at least most of the decade.

A 26-12 requires Austin to only have 1 sink while Houston gets 3, and it's really hard to pull off both since they both rely on rural areas between them to dilute suburbs outside the sinks.

I remember Torie made a relatively "clean"26-12 a while back but even then Houston has 2 marginal seats in the West that could easily fall.

[ProgressiveModerate]

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?

Seats virtually guarenteed to be drawn because of either VRA or just because it's necessary

-An El-Paso based Hispanic seat
-2 San Antonio Hispanic seats (If VRA didn't exist the GOP might try for 1 San Antonio Sink
-3 Houston seats, 2 of which are Hispanic VRA seats
-Austin sink
-2 Metroplex sinks, one of which is Hispanic VRA
-RGV is a bit weird, because technically the GOP could probably draw R-leaning functioning VRA districts, but most likely they need 2 D VRA districts without going into questionable territory with the VRA.

Seats the GOP will probably want to add:

-3rd Metroplex seat; basically necessary at this point unless the GOP feels comfortable with + 8 seats in North Dallas suburbs
-4th seat in west Houston. If it weren't for the VRA, they could probably get away with 3 seats but because of it, it forces the other 3 sinks the the east of where they "should" be to optimise packing

This totals to 13 D seats, which isn't terrible considering in a partisanly fair map you'd expect them to win 15 - 17ish seats. This is largely thanks to Ds strong geography advantage in the state.

After that, the GOP may considering adding a 2nd Austin sink, and a 4th metroplex sink (technically you can draw 2 Hispanic VRA seats in the metroplex but the case for mandating a second one is still pretty weak).

[ProgressiveModerate]

I apologize. I do have character flaws, a lot of them. Be well. Meltdowns are not a good thing. This sh**t is mere noise.

Omg so glad I can finally relate to someone on this. I have meltdowns a lot too and they're no fun; I get you bro. Dw you're a really insightful person in redistricting and your presence on this forum is not only appreciated but kinda necessary lol.

[ProgressiveModerate]

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

My guess is that they try to as much as in reason but ultimately partisan gerrymandering goals will prevail and may cause double or even triple bunking, especially in places where the GOP will have to "pizza" like crazy.

[ProgressiveModerate]

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

My guess is that they try to as much as in reason but ultimately partisan gerrymandering goals will prevail and may cause double or even triple bunking, especially in places where the GOP will have to "pizza" like crazy.

Does this look like a good mock-up? My best effort for a moment at a realistic 2022 map

I'm suprised how clean you were able to make it. I'm still hesistant to believe the GOP will make 3 fajitas that start out as Dem leading, especially if it does turn out 2020 was a bit of an exception. To be fair, it's hard to even draw 1 R leaning hispanic VRA seat in RGV without getting frisky. The Metroplex config is interesting but works quite well, and North Dallas doesn't look that brutal. That 26 and 22 are obv not safe and I think the GOP will probably find a way to shroe them up a bit but this looks pretty realistic overall.

[ProgressiveModerate]

That is horrendous for how little it actually accomplishes

Glad to see they seem to be following VRA and not going too crazy though

[ProgressiveModerate]

Remember , in order for Dems to win the TX den under this map, all they gotta do is flip 4 GOP intended districts. The path of least resistance would probably come from some combination of 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 25. Not a guarantee by any means but certaintly possible if current trends continue and growth patterns continue

[ProgressiveModerate]

From what I’m seeing seems like the GOP is willing to do pretty intense gerrymanders but are still being cautious of the VRA; maybe they want to avoid the risk of the whole map being redrawn?

[ProgressiveModerate]

It appears that it is more likely that Fletcher (and maybe even Allred?) are going to get screwed in redistricting as they really want Wesley Hunt to run for Congress. I wouldn't be surprised to see if the GOP proposes a 27 R - 11 D map in the coming weeks.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/23/texas-congress-redistricting-fletcher/

I really don't see how they can draw out Allred without doing a Nebraska-esk map or literally bacon-stripping the entire penninsula, probably making something illegal.

Fletcher is maybe possible, but it's hard to draw her out without violating VRA.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think it’s interesting how horrendous visually DFW is while Houston is actually pretty clean, though neither are fair. This definitely isn’t the most extreme gerrymander we could’ve gotten, but things can still change and it is still a gerrymander at the end of the day

[ProgressiveModerate]

Could TX-15 be a mistake for the Rs if San Antonio area keeps trending D? The north end of the district could offset the GOP trend in the RGV.

It looks like it really doesn’t take in very much population wise of Bexar, and even the parts it does mostly trended R in 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think it’s interesting how horrendous visually DFW is while Houston is actually pretty clean, though neither are fair. This definitely isn’t the most extreme gerrymander we could’ve gotten, but things can still change and it is still a gerrymander at the end of the day

All I can think of is they took the 2016 to 2020 trend into account when drawing the two metros, and DFW had them a lot more worried in regards to future elections.   Houston was easier to keep together because there isn't as much of a dem trend.

On a side note, what's even the point of that TX-4 southern tendril?   Rockwall voted 68% Trump and only has 104k people.

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

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's my calculations