2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Florida

[Oryxslayer]

So before I post my map, I'm going to run down a long list of prerequisites. Florida, as any resident would tell you, has numerous moving parts politically. This is especially true when it comes to redistricting. Respecting all of these moving parts, but still getting the a good GOP map is the key to redistricting in the Sunshine State.

- First, Florida has their 'fair districts amendment.' This piece constitutional of constitutional law requires first that districts be compact and ideally competitive. Now, this does not prevent Gerrymandering, take a look at the 2010 map for instance. However, the laws purpose was to prevent another case of the 2000 era tentacles. That as of now is impossible. A road connection is necessary.

- The Second part of the redistricting amendment is that minority language or ethnic groups 'cannot be denied' the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. This provision is a loophole the the compact/competitive requirements. This language is more inclusive than federal VRA requirements, and makes minority districts part of law. This provision leads to more minority districts than would usually be required, protecting both plurality seats and coalition style seats. It's wording has been interpreted as two clear plurality/coalition districts are more valuable than one 50%+ seat - if the two can be easily drawn. These tenants did lead to 2010's FL05, so it is a tool for the GOP to abuse.

      - This minority requirements are also important to remember when one considers Miami-Dade and Cuban voters. Miami has a democratic geographic lean after 2016, and Cuban GOP voters now need reinforcements from elsewhere. One simply cannot make a >80% Hispanic district in west M-D even though it would be the best possible district by GOP vote. Fajitas across the swamp, similar to south Texas and the current FL-25, are therefore almost necessary. However, road connections are also mandated by Florida law and there are only two roads heading west - one in M-D and one in Broward.

- Florida's 2010 districts went before the court in 2016. The justices that threw out the 2010 map are no longer on the bench, and those that are sitting will likely uphold whatever the GOP draws. This though means that the GOP can't simply re-draw similar districts to those that were thrown out in 2010, without adequate justification. There were three main changes in 2016: the Black part of St. Pete cannot be ripped from the rest of the city and thrown with other Dems across the bay, FL05 goes East-West rather than North-South to Orlando, and the Frankel/Deutch districts need to be North/South stacked rather than an East/West orientation that cuts the coastal communities to give republicans an opportunity. Now, look for the republicans to try and revive some of these arrangements, but in a manner that is justifiable given the 2020 circumstances when compared to 2010.

- Florida will be gaining two districts in 2020 unless Corona royally screws up the Census. Almost the entire state is growing. The 2016 distribution presented in DRA has one of these districts almost certainly to slide into the I-4 region. The second seat goes in the Miami metro under the DRA model, but it could end up on the west coast depending on the final district breakdown. The first goal of the republicans is to ensure these two seats are Red. Florida's tight partisan breakdown may make it such that adding two red seats to the map could put red precincts in short supply, limiting what can be done to the democratic seats.

- Florida's party coalitions are fragmented, and each fragment is politically powerful. The standard for each district in each region is different, and no fragment can be denied it's representation or the maps will fail in the legislature. On the republican side this is the Dixie North, the suburban I-4, the  retirees along the West Coast and in the villages, and Cubans. The democrats have to juggle AAs, Puerto Ricans along the I-4, urban Miami-Dade Hispanics, South Florida Jews, along with a growing cadre of suburban women and younger educated professionals.

- As usual, Incumbents would like to live in their district. Steube presently lives in Lakewood Ranch far outside of the district, forfeiting his influence over residency requirements.

[Oryxslayer]

snip

Isn't it reasonably expected that the new state supreme court will just approve whatever Florida Republicans draw?  Florida does have constitutional amendments by initiative (that's how the requirements got there in the first place), however, so it would be possible to put an amendment on the ballot setting up a commission and forcing a mid-decade redraw.  That possibility should prevent them from outright flaunting the rules.    

Exactly why we should expect the GOP to work within the boundaries of the current law. They will try and get as much wiggle room within it's boundaries though, that was shown in 2010, especially on the legislative maps.

- The Second part of the redistricting amendment is that minority language or ethnic groups 'cannot be denied' the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. This provision is a loophole the the compact/competitive requirements. This language is more inclusive than federal VRA requirements, and makes minority districts part of law. This provision leads to more minority districts than would usually be required, protecting both plurality seats and coalition style seats. It's wording has been interpreted as two clear plurality/coalition districts are more valuable than one 50%+ seat - if the two can be easily drawn. These tenants did lead to 2010's FL05, so it is a tool for the GOP to abuse.

      - This minority requirements are also important to remember when one considers Miami-Dade and Cuban voters. Miami has a democratic geographic lean after 2016, and Cuban GOP voters now need reinforcements from elsewhere. One simply cannot make a >80% Hispanic district in west M-D even though it would be the best possible district by GOP vote. Fajitas across the swamp, similar to south Texas and the current FL-25, are therefore almost necessary. However, road connections are also mandated by Florida law and there are only two roads heading west - one in M-D and one in Broward.

Given that Miami-Dade's leftward movement is at least partly down to movement within the Cuban community, does this hold up? It's no longer so clear that the Cuban community votes as anything resembling a bloc, so are they protected in the same manner? Particularly since it's not clear that unpacking a >80% Hispanic district would allow it to elect 2 Republicans, given how difficult it is to connect multiple districts to the coast.

The road connection thing probably does make it particularly important to remove Miramar from FL-20, because if it remains included then it's harder to use I-75 for a Republican district to link the Miami area and the west coast.

Yeah, it's getting more blue so there is some worry long term for the GOP. The thing is, the FL legislature still has a large number of and is controlled by M-D Cuban Republicans. So they will want as many opportunities at elected Cubans as possible, though that probably involves surrendering at least Shalala's current seat to the dems. AKA long term dummymander potential for short term gains.

[Oryxslayer]

This map I have had sitting around for about a month. It tries to follow most of the guidelines I outlined above.



FL01: R+20.9, 66/28.5 Trump. Nothing to see here, Gaetz's seat cannot be changed under the Florida redistricting amendment.

FL02: R+20.95 69/27.5 Trump. One of two seats in the shrinking part of Florida. It's surrounded by Red precincts, so I put Ocala city in the seat as a manner of lessening the Red hue.

FL03: R+11.1, 57/38 Trump. No idea who will succeed Yoho right now, so no idea if we need to include one town or another. Gainesville is easy to sink using the blood-red counties of Dixie.

FL04: R+14.25, 58.5/37 Trump. Even though the seat takes in more pale-blue precincts, it is still a long ways off from becoming competitive or even another SC01. The compactness has an additional benefit...

FL05: D+12.5, 61/35 Clinton. As far as I can tell, FL05 cannot be changed presently. It needs to be E/W in some fashion. I therefore stuck almost all of Leon inside the shrinking district, since Lawson is from Talle and making him an ally helps when you are the GOP. It also helps clean up the borders of FL04, FL06, FL07, and FL08.

FL06: R+11, 59/37 Trump. Reminder that the Governor comes from this part of the state, and has a special interest therefore in increasing it's power. Volusia still controls the seat, but it is now safer for the republicans.



FL07: R+5.4, 51.5/43.5 Trump. An elegant way to gerrymander away Murphy. It's nice and compact, but also less vulnerable to the demographic transformation in Seminole. As an added bonus for DeSantis, the GOP rep will likely come from the Volusia or Brevard part of the seat.

FL08: R+9.7, 57/38.5 Trump. Just general unpacking of Brevard in a way that doesn't weaken the seat but does satisfy compactness regulations.

FL09: D+14, 64/31.5 Clinton. You have to have two Orlando dem seats now, it's required both by the minority provisions in the law and just the shear volume of blue precincts. This South Orland seat is almost majority Hispanic.

FL10: D+11.3, 61/34 Clinton. The second Orlando dem seat is a coalition district controlled by the African American community - their 30% overall dominates the dem primary and dem voters win the general. University of Central Florida is in this seat to boost Hispanics in FL09.

FL11: R+10.95, 61.5/34 Trump. Could be viewed as one of the new seats since it is open, though it is the main successor to the present FL11. A seat moving to the GOP thanks to Trump trends.

FL12: R+12.85, 60.5/36 Trump. The real new seat added to I-4, though Webster is likelier to run for this than FL11. Contains Disney because the GOP would love to rep that moneymaker. The district's GOP primary is dominated by The Villages, a community becoming ever more powerful in FL GOP politics.

FL13: R+7.7, 55/40 Trump. Bilirakis's new residential seat, though he may just run for FL11. This seat is the resolution to the St. Pete problem. Instead of taking the middle of Pasco and the Hillsborough precincts, the district could remain on the coast and head up to Bayonet point and Hudson. it would still be reliably trump and getting trumpier, but the partisanship would weaken.

FL14: R+10.4, 57/39 Trump. Buchanan's successor seat, though the districts got renumbered around here on my personal plan. The lines are safer for the republicans than the present plan since Sarasota gets sunk in the district further to the south.

FL15: D+5.6, 54/41 Clinton. FL16: D+11.9, 60/35 Clinton.

So I'm going to discuss these two as a pair because that is how they function and it is a rather ingenious resolution to the St. Pete problem. The problem with St. pete stems from the 2010 map. The court told the GOP that they couldn't yank the AA part of St. Petersburg from the rest of the city unless they could get a majority AA seat in the region - like on the state senate map. This therefore leaves the Republican mappers in a bind since the more rational district St. Pete seat is now a pure south Pinellas seat. This seat would waste red precincts on a Blue-leaning competitive seat based out of an urban center. At the same time, the Hillsborough region around Tampa is getting Bluer in a way that begs to be cracked or packed. This Hillsborough problem gets worse when one considers that FL16 is bound by the minority provisions to be at least a minority coalition seat. The solution to this conundrum in my eyes is to separate Blue St. Pete from the rest of Pinellas which is increasingly becoming red. This seat crosses the many bridges and heads into Hillsborough to grab the white parts of tampa and some of her suburbs. These areas are becoming more blue with time, so best stick them where they belong. FL16 is then freed up to become a coalition district with only 40% of the seat being white, less so in the dem primary.

FL17: R+7.6, 55.5/40.5 Trump. Basically all of Polk, but with an arm to ensure Spano lives in the seat.



FL18: R+6.8, 55/42 Trump. Sinks St. Lucie in essentially the same seat as the present version only with Okeechobee.

FL19: R+8.8, 57/39 Trump. Same thing as the present FL17 only with Sarasota. Steube is far outside the present seat so he forfeits his right to residency.

FL20: R+11.1, 59/38 Trump. Cape Coral has almost enough for a whole seat in Lee county.

FL21: D+17.3, 66/31 Clinton. First Miami Metro seat is the Frankel seat. That said, she probably won't survive a primary challenge in this new minority coalition district, where only 37% of the voters overall are white. The 30% of AAs and 29% of Hispanics are going to dominate the D primary.

FL22: D+1.3, 52/45.5 Clinton. Lopping the top off of Hastings's seat was only partially done to create a new minority seat. The main reason was to create a battleground seat from a region that would usually only produce safe blue seats. Note how these seats both are stacked North/South, but the new FL22 still gets all the red coastline.

FL23: D+25.7, 75/22.5 Clinton. Hastings's new seat is entirely within Broward, but it still has 45% AA pop, so lopping the top off in Palm Beach is fine. He's not in the seat, but that's fine, he's moved before and the GOP doesn't care about dem residencies.

FL24: D+12.3, 62/35 Clinton. Safe D Broward seat for Wasserman-Schultz, though like Hastings she is outside the seat.


Edited to change colors around and improve contrast

FL25: D+34.6, 83.5/14 Clinton. Wilson has her Haitian+AA seat which packs all the blue Hispanics that could endanger the Cuban seats.

FL26: R+7.5, 52/45 Trump, 62/36 Rubio. This is the second new seat, and it's for the Cubans of Hialeah. Diaz-Balart is in the other Cuban seat. This seat has the most Hispanics of the four Miami Hispanic seats at 67%, though all four are above 60%. This one heads north into Broward and then fajitas across the everglades to Collier and other red precincts. This and the other Cuban seat bends the rules of the amendment regarding competitive seats, since the topline appears swingy but there is little chance of someone other than a Republican Cuban winning for a few years.

FL27: D+11.2, 62/34 Clinton, 54/43.5 Murphy. The present FL26 only it is now a dem pack with 63% Hispanic voters. It takes in all the scattered black voters between Homestead and Miami as well, making it safe Dem. A seat like this may not appear with the GOP preferring the two Cuban seats and this one to be more 'competitive' in appearance, but that will depend on how (not)close the FL26 race is in 2020.

FL28: D+14.6, 66.5/30.5 Clinton, 58/40 Murphy. Shalala's Miami seat only it is now more northern focused to take in all the white dems along the coast. 62% Hispanic, Shalala is also drawn outside the seat of course.

FL29: R+7, 52/45 Trump, 61/37 Rubio. Basically the same thing as FL26, only with 65.5% Hispanics. The non-hispanic bits are the keys and of course Naples, which is fajitaed to Miami via the M-D highway. FL26 grabbed the northern Cubans, this one grabs the central ones west of Miami.

TLDR: A reliably 17 Republican, 11 Dem, 1 Tossup-D Seat.

[Oryxslayer]

Does Buchanan live in Sarasota? I'm not sure he'd mind the seat you've drawn him, but that's what Wikipedia puts as his residence.

My sources put him in Longboat Key, which is that little orange slip into western Sarasota along the coast. Now, if neither incumbent minds losing their base from the 2016 and emerging vulnerable in the primary, Buchanon and Steube can do something crazy. Steube lives in Lakewood Ranch in Manatee and  it would be no effort to put Buchanon in 18 via the 5K in Longboat. This would untangle the residency issue, but both would have only a tiny bit of their former base so....

If Florida only goes +1, is a 28 CD map easier or harder to soft gerrymander?

generally fewer seats means easier to gerrymander.

This is very true if you are talking about the difference in size between the upper and lower chamber in Texas (just short of 5X), but when it's a difference of +/-1 seat, there will be unique break points about how many seats need to be in a metro area or how many VRA seats are required that can distinctly advantage one side or the other.

In the case of Florida, Republicans have a delicate situation in Miami that resembles what Southern rural Dems were dealing with during 1994-2010.  I think they can make a better arrangement in South Florida the more districts there are to go around?  

I think the GOP leadership might like 28 from a mapping perspective more than 29, but they would obviously like 29 more because it's free real estate. The 28th seat goes in the I4 100%, and it probably leads to a cascade effect giving The Villages their own seat. Under 28 it would be the present 26th and 25th getting fajita stripped in the south, not the 25th and a new seat. This would weaken their partisan lean of course, but there wouldn't be any uncertainty in the south florida lines. Under 29 seats there is more likely to be another pack required down there like I drew, though that depends on 2020 and whether 2016 was truly a one-off.

[Oryxslayer]

I'm just thinking some more about your FL-15/FL-16 arrangement, and whilst it's certainly elegant, I'm wondering if it's necessary to concede two safely Dem seats in the area.

None of the surrounding seats are competitive and several of them are trending Republican, so wouldn't something like my arrangement be more electorally profitable for them, by swapping two safely Dem seats for one safe seat and one potentially competitive one?

If you wanted to be slightly more aggressive and if Bilirakis was willing to give up Palm Harbor, you could draw something like this:



That gives you a district that shouldn't fall foul of the Fair Districts Amendment, but which Clinton only won by one and which looks to be trending rightwards. If you then keep the non-Pinellas portions of my FL-12 identical, that still gives you a district that Trump won by 12, and trends around Tampa make that too close you can bolster the margin by swapping out the Pasco coast for slightly redder precincts further inland.

Yes, the Peninsula is trending R pretty noticeably.  It wouldn't surprise me if Republicans won the existing Crist district in a good year.

Oh absolutely. The question is you wish to waste Red precincts, swing precincts that are getting redder, and in doing so still end up with a district that voted for Clinton. If you cannot cut St. Pete city then it is to heavy of an anchor presently to be overwhelmed by the rest of Pinellas. It will also remain an anchor in the future thnks to it's minorities and urbanization, keeping the seat competitive even if the rest of the peninsula becomes lockstep R. So what the GOP would be signing up for is bi-yearly expenditures on a battleground race that from the get go would favor the democrats.

It's a peculiar situation, which is why I went into detail in the seat-by-seat breakdown. Compare this seat to FL07 or FL22 on the same map. FL07 is a D-tilting tossup seat now, though the surrounding turf gives one plenty of options to push it towards either party. Reinforcing it from the right therefore makes sense. FL22 is in the heart of the Miami metro and almost every possible configuration in the region would make the seat Safe D. So weakening the seat as much as possible than is your best possible option.

The only easy option in the Pinellas seat is to send it north up the peninsula and produce a variety of competitive seats. If the GOP desires such competition and a potential seat in exchange for potentially wasting more resources and energy, then they draw the seat. Take a look at the 2010 map for instance. There are no competitive seats drawn to be won by democrats, which is what this seat would imply. Every competitive seat was on some level drawn to get the best possible GOP numbers from a region, which sometimes meant a D-tilting Tossup such as their old FL22.

The harder options are a second D pack like shown here (it could be more aggressive and safer for the Dems) to dissuade the excesses that could just lead to disappointment. Another option is to seat the city south into Brandenton, but that just leads to ripple effects messing with incumbent residencies in the SW. It also still remains a <1% marginal seat, and is very close (and opens the theory-crafting door on) to the dem theory of a St. Pete+Brandenton+Sarasota safe Blue seat in the GOP SW coast.

[Oryxslayer]

Similarly, I don't believe a GOP-appointed court will have a problem with getting rid of FL-05, provided the map doesn't do something like split the black areas of Jacksonville. It's easy to make all of the north Florida seats safe R, so there's no incentive for the GOP to leave it as is if they don't have to. But regardless, whether it goes away or not doesn't have much of an impact on how the rest of the map is drawn, and ultimately only the court can decide what's permissible.

One of the absolutes here in redistricting is the case of minority seats. The redistricting amendment is incredibly lax in most places, but it does say "Districts may not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process; or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice."

This essentially means that you cannot cut a minority seat once it is drawn. One can jostle the percentages of course, with the incentive to push minority percentages higher until the point when it's better to cut districts in twain for multiple plurality seats. FL05 itself has been an AA seat for decades - it just went to Orlando. And of course it can't return to Orlando in 2020 because that a: was illegal and returning the district would just invite true redistricting reform, b: would cut FL10 which is also now protect by the constitution. So, FL05 can't be cut, only reshuffled.

This provision of course doesn't favor any side in particular. While it benefits the dems in the north, it hurts them in along the I4 - most notably in the case of SD19. And then there are there is Miami-Dade and her peculiar Hispanics of course.

[Oryxslayer]

Similarly, I don't believe a GOP-appointed court will have a problem with getting rid of FL-05, provided the map doesn't do something like split the black areas of Jacksonville. It's easy to make all of the north Florida seats safe R, so there's no incentive for the GOP to leave it as is if they don't have to. But regardless, whether it goes away or not doesn't have much of an impact on how the rest of the map is drawn, and ultimately only the court can decide what's permissible.

One of the absolutes here in redistricting is the case of minority seats. The redistricting amendment is incredibly lax in most places, but it does say "Districts may not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process; or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice."

This essentially means that you cannot cut a minority seat once it is drawn. One can jostle the percentages of course, with the incentive to push minority percentages higher until the point when it's better to cut districts in twain for multiple plurality seats. FL05 itself has been an AA seat for decades - it just went to Orlando. And of course it can't return to Orlando in 2020 because that a: was illegal and returning the district would just invite true redistricting reform, b: would cut FL10 which is also now protect by the constitution. It can't be cut, only reshuffled.

This provision of course doesn't favor any side in particular. While it benefits the dems in the north, it hurts them in along the I4 - most notably in the case of SD19. And then there are there is Miami-Dade and her peculiar Hispanics of course.

Interesting. So per the redistricting amendment, would a "minority" district be defined by a majority non-white population, and are there further stipulations on how a minority district could be changed other than simply maintaining its minority-majority status? That would essentially mean that districts 5, 9, 10, 14, 20, and 23-27 are protected.

Also, is there any clarity given by Florida law regarding how Hispanic a district can be before it's considered packing? I assume if there can't be a Miami-Dade 90% Hispanic GOP seat, any GOP seat in the area not taking Monroe County has to cross the Everglades. Between those Miami constraints and trying to salvage red areas of Palm Beach and Broward, that could get interesting.

This of course is the grey area where we get into VRA arguments and the like. The trend though has been to advance seats along this path: white plurality seats -> coalition seats -> minority plurality seats -> minority majority seats -> splitting said seat into two previous categorized districts. Now, if Florida minority voters were shrinking like in the Midwest, minority seats could be cut under the amendment, but not in a state gaining seats and minority voters.

When concerning M-D things get interesting. M-D is like a South Texas border county in that compact districts would qualify as hispanic packs by VRA standards. Usually in these circumstances the districts should have similar minority percentages, so that the map is not denying Hispanics opportunity in one seat in favor of another. Presently this has lead to each of the three seats being about 70% Hispanic.  In Texas, this leads to the fajitas to diversify the seats. This similarly occurred when I did my 29 map in regards to Naples. I tried to put the Broward conservatives into a miami seat but there are too many people living along the shoreline. Therefore, the north is somewhat off-limits for partisan reasons, so you have to go west if you are stripping.

[Oryxslayer]

This map was 15/13 for Hillary in 2016 - I'd be stunned if this winds up being the final draft.

I mean that is entirely because of Miami-Dade, which is also why the map is 16-12 in 2020. Frankly, both presidential numbers were never accurate for that county, and I always preferred to use some variation of the 2016 senate and 2018 numbers when I messed around with FL in summer 2020. Both of the marginal seats remain marginals (R 16, D 18) under those numbers so I guess that's the constitution at work.

[Oryxslayer]

I would also note something that MCImaps said on twitter: they could be, like Texas, afraid of losing it all in lawsuits so are sacrificing some potential for the good of the present. Especially since their State Senate map locks in a R majority - the present map is potentially losable - through some blatant cracking in downtown Miami, St. Pete, and Gainesville.

[Oryxslayer]

When are they planning to put up the Florida Legislature maps?

That's where the interesting stuff will happen...
Lower profile and easy to get away with things

Senate Map's are up on the same govt site as the congress - the state senate made these lines so they of course will release a map for their own chamber. Same stuff: neat lines, recognizable COIs, and Dems get better numbers in the Seminole and Homestead seats then they do currently. The inverse is though that most of the currently R held seats are reinforced so that the chamber's majority is no longer competitive, like it potentially can be on the current map.

https://twitter.com/MappingFL/status/1458604058936164352?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Despite what was done to Crist's district, it's hard to see Dems not voting for these maps if they come up. It's the best they can realistically expect and has the capability of being 15-13 D in a 2018 type year.

This one seems like a calculated gamble by the FL GOP that Dems will move in the direction of becoming an AOC/identity obsessed party and lose Hispanic and Jewish voters. Note the Tampa area 3 Biden seats could all become R with additional GOP gains with minorities and WWC voters. The new 22nd in eastern Broward/Boca/Delray is a heavily Jewish area and could swing R if Dems continue in the AOC/Corbyn direction. This is a big if and must involve the Rs moving on from Trump (but not so much his policies). Murphy probably has GOP allies in the legislature uninterested in helping Sabatini join Boebert and MTG in Congress. Still, the 21-7 upside for the GOP comes with enormous risk and Dems get the economy strong in 2024, mild reversion with Dade Hispanics, it could easily become a 14-14 map.

I do give the Florida GOP credit if it passes, it is definitely something different than other Republican maps and I don't doubt the political acumen of the strongest state party in the country.

Your thinking too hard. We have the mapper 'on record' basically saying he doesn't want any lawsuits or litigation, which means following the constitutions anti-gerrymandering laws as they were written rather than as one desires AND provide adequate access for minorities. With those considerations, ones can only Gerry so much yet this map attempts such things.

If they opt for the coastal 21/22 rather than the N/S it would simply be because the coast actually has entrenched GOP areas and they are gerrying two safe D seats into a Safe D and a potentially competitive one. The GOP has long held some coastal state house seats in this area. This isn't some new invention - the 2010 map did it. Which is why it may not occur: coastal-inland was thrown out in favor of north-south. Same with Tampa - more a product or nesting and a desire to try to make the seats similar to the successfully gerryed state Senate lines than any pecularities. You can see very similar behavior on the state Senate map, which is more status-quo/incumbent protection with gerrymandering reserved for those areas like Gainesville that are safe from a lawsuit and clearly would remove a competitive seat from the board in favor of the GOP.

IDK what to make of this... R's in OH and NC swinging for the fences, but very reserved maps in Florida, Texas, and probably Georgia.

Which ofc is weird, but reflects the political situation in their states. The GOP fears the states with established or growing Dem parties, especially when said parties are dependent upon minority voters and therefore have most of their seats situationally untouchable by litigation. Retention not expansion is the goal. Meanwhile in the other states on your list the Dems have been out of power for a long time, and recently were (relatively) never close to really seizing it. The mappers are therefore confident, even though institutional strength means the Dems are in a stronger position in both states thanks to their courts than in TX or FL. Same thing will likely happen in KS.

[Oryxslayer]

-SNIP-

That FL-22 in the East-West divide was only Biden+9. I wonder if it will be competitive in 2022?

On the surface, it may look as if that'd be the case, and it possibly will be in the upcoming gubernatorial and senatorial races. It's a majority-White, suburban, affluent coastal district with a notably elderly population (only 14.8% youth, compared to 19.5% statewide and 22.1% nationwide) and a very large Jewish contingent (holding the city of Boca Raton). It swung significantly towards the right between the 2016 and 2020 US Presidential elections, going from Clinton+11.4 to Biden+9.8, and Youngkin and Ciattarelli's messages back earlier this month resonated very hard with this kind of district.

However, this ignores the presence of the current Democratic incumbent, Ted Deutch, a Jewish man from Boca Raton who is very pro-Israel and is very in-tune with his area, significantly outperforming both Clinton (by 2.0%) and Biden (by 2.4%). Perhaps a DSA-type candidate could make things interesting, but as long as Deutch keeps on running, I think the Democrats would keep the seat.

It's not hard to see Rubio or DeSantis win the district next year, especially Rubio. Their coattails could pull a candidate to victory over the finish line. Though it probably flips back D in 2024.

Interesting to know is that Rubio only lost this district by 6.5% in 2016 while Trump 2016 lost it by 11.4% (and DeSantis two years later by 13.3%).

Personally, I think that Rubio's strength is definitely underrated in suburban White areas of Florida (he even won Hillsborough County in 2016!). I wouldn't go so far as to say their coattails would flip it, though, unless the Republicans have an equally strong challenger to the popular incumbent Deutch.

And this, of course, is all based on the presumption that DeSantis and Rubio would be able to win the district, which would take immensely unlikely double-digit victories statewide. If DeSantis and Rubio are winning this district at all, the Republicans already have 54 senate seats and upwards of 240 House seats.

There are two GOP state reps in the area, Chip LaMarca and Mike Caruso, who won seats by double digits that Biden and Trump virtually tied in.

Reminder that a coastal seat very similar to the one proposed was drawn like this in 2011 then thrown out in 2016. We can judge based on the two years when it was in effect how viable the GOP was in challenging such a seat based on these results. it was actually Frankel who sat in the swing seat, and then they swapped after redistricting swapped their homes. She expanded her margin from 54-46 to 58-42 in 2014, despite the lower turnout producing a GOP environment nationwide.

[Oryxslayer]

The FL State House proposes a 17 Trump - 11 Biden , in a GOP year could become 19R-9D.
 
https://twitter.com/MappingFL/status/1465337130972958727?s=20

The real shocker here is the decision to axe the Palm beach part of FL-20. The arm is no longer needed for minority access - the numbers are now there for Broward alone as is done here - but shear inertia and the benefits to packing disparate minority communities into a single seat should normally outweigh the desire for change.

[Oryxslayer]

I mean these should be the same four maps the senate submitted previously, just re-upped for the new year.

The real confusing bit about the Tampa stuff is that Gus Bilirakis lives in Palm Harbor in North Pinellas, and he's getting placed in the St. Pete seat no matter the map. Rubio only wins the 14th, the middle of the three seats, during his 2016 sweep (by FL standards).

If they didn't care about Gus I figured they would clean up the region from by removing the entirety of St. Pete - not just the AA areas - and maybe a few neighboring towns from Pinellas and connecting it with South Tampa and the West Suburbs via the bridges. this of course would be different from every other district that tries the crossing, in that it uses road, not water, connections and stays in the west of the metro and doesn't snake along the east shore of the bay. Allows them to almost entirely nest the new Pinellas seat in the county which would favor the GOP, and the crossing West Tampa seat would favor the Dems. The added bonus of this would allow the East Tampa seat to be drawn as a CVAP minority coalition seat, to further insulate then from the voting rights suit the legislature desires to avoid. As is the dispersion of the minority population benefits the Dems, but I'm not sure the most diverse 15th could be fully classified as an access seat.

[Oryxslayer]

Unrelated question: how Hispanic are you allowed to make the Hialeah seat without running afoul of the VRA? Trying to draw a fair map of Florida.

As high as you want as long as the other two/three Hispanic seats have comparably similar HVAP/HCVAP. The issue here is not adequate seats - geography forces them to be majority Hispanic - but equal opportunity in every one.

Say you have two neighboring Black belt seats. One is >80% AA and safe, one is 53% and marginal. That would seen as dilution and a point of attack for civil rights groups since you could have two seats over 65% and safe.

[Oryxslayer]

Unrelated question: how Hispanic are you allowed to make the Hialeah seat without running afoul of the VRA? Trying to draw a fair map of Florida.

As high as you want as long as the other two/three Hispanic seats have comparably similar HVAP/HCVAP. The issue here is not adequate seats - geography forces them to be majority Hispanic - but equal opportunity in every one.

Say you have two neighboring Black belt seats. One is >80% AA and safe, one is 53% and marginal. That would seen as dilution and a point of attack for civil rights groups since you could have two seats over 65% and safe.

Isn't there also an upper limit where any percentage can be considered a pack?

I mean sure, say you have three seats >75% Hispanic. That can be classified as a pack if there is the potential for a fourth Hispanic seat to be drawn by taking population from the other three. If however three are only possible, because of geography, voter concentration, population numbers, or other statistics - then you should be more concerned about equity of VAP. If you are drawing 2 Hispanic seats with the third as a White or coalition seat, then that would also make the other two classify as packs since a third is possible but not drawn.

To this end, I'm not sure if you can get a fifth district into M-D to unpack the Hispanic seats which already have a high HVAP. This was almost guaranteed if Florida got a 29th seat, but with 28 you would probably have to do weird stuff with DWS's seat or fajita strip the Naples region even more - possible but not practical. 

[Oryxslayer]

I'm genuinely surprised that none of these maps have Disney World or Mar-A-Lago going into Republican districts. I guess the latter is tougher to do than the former, but still.

Both are theoretically easy to do, though only in certain circumstances. Removing Disney and the SW corner of Orange from the Orlando 3-county grouping requires topping off with extraneous population, best found in Polk with the Latino spillover from Osceola. if however the mappers are considering county integrity, then adding two chops for Disney is unwise. It is done on the senate map.

Similarly, it' not hard to add East Palm Beach into FL-18 or it successor. It however is easiest done when you are lopping the top off FL-20, nesting it in Broward, and making one of FL-21/22 into a new coalition seat. The sprawling FL-20 has excess minority population and drops some areas north of West Palm Beach into Fl-18, whereas a new minority seat needs all the diverse Palm beach areas it can get. Lopping the top off also forces a N-S rather than E-W FL-21/22 and attempting a E-W while putting the White Shoreline in FL-18 doesn't look all that nice.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/Fla_Pol/status/1480571371100983301?s=20

These are the maps with N-S alignments for FL-21/22.

[Oryxslayer]

Not sure what the FL Senate GOP's game is here, unless they really think they are going to consistently win and hold a Biden +8 seat that's trending left.

The way how Tampa is cut in the Senate maps suggests that they might not have any idea either - especially since I noted one of the GOP incumbents is placed in the St. Pete seat, and the 3-way split may run afoul of the civil rights suits the GOP wishes to avoid. To that end, something similar to the House's version might become the final version: a St. Pete + west tampa, and a East tampa + Minority heavy East Bay.

Or the senate is preferring these lines to give one of their own opportunity. But we have not heard any hints about that.

[Oryxslayer]

Expect that map to pass the Senate on a semi-bipartisan vote. The House and the Senate still however differ when it comes to the Tampa and maybe also Orlando (there were committee disagreements about it today between the chambers) and these differences need to be resolved.

[Oryxslayer]

DeSantis' office is pushing a 20-8 map.

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1482870530080485390

It's a very impressive gerrymander at the topline that's for sure. It's fairly sloppy at the finer points. And it would be near instantly sued, both under the VRA and the state's amendment. It's basically a reversion to the 2011 plan wherever possible or probable.

That said, one wonders how much capital is actually behind this. This is the first time the governor has put out a plan in decades. Unless something changes, the senate seems all but certain to pass it's own plan - a plan similar but different in crucial areas to the House's map. Therefore, there could be two secondary goals. One, to push the House-Senate negotiations towards those of that favor the GOP. Two, and perhaps the real reason, is to have an "excuse" to present for national and online  Republican partisans to preserve and further his own image when Florida passes a legislature map.

EDIT: like this s**t.

https://twitter.com/NLVWarren/status/1482878196680900619?s=20

There hasn't been much 'standard' legal effort behind this, which suggests the goal is more in the messaging.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter/status/1482881886179504136?s=20

Another example of the sloppiness below the topline. Another example of how this map isn't realistic, and designed to be passed. The goal is messaging and appearances, to what end beyond DeSantis's own ambition remains unknown,

[Oryxslayer]

They aren't going to kill FL-05, a VRA district.

Actually, it's not a VRA district as it's only ~40% black, and it'd be very hard to make majority Black, even though it does functionally elect a black Dem

It doesn't need to be >50% to be performing, only >50% to qualify for section 2. Because it is performing under RPV, attempting to end it would qualify as retrogression.

There is a reason why the senate map, drawn specifically to avoid a court fight, does not even touch the seat. Similarly, the Senate found that the 10th is performing by statistical metrics even though that has less African American percentage.



Don't marry yourself to 50%, the courts have not. More than 50% is needed in some parts of the country, less than 39% in others.

[Oryxslayer]

If De Santis vetoes the legislature's maps, could you see Democrats voting with Republicans to override it? At least assuming it's a reasonably fair map like the current Senate version.

That might be it's true purpose - to serve as a threat to get Dems to go along with less favorable lines then what we see now in the senate.

[Oryxslayer]

IMO, a telling quote about redistricting in Florida from a fairly powerful State Senator:

“There seems to be a viewpoint that because a chamber has a map..that we are at a point in the process where we are wrapping it up and done” Rodrigues said. “I..point out we are at the very beginning of the process"

- FL Sen. Ray Rodrigues said in relation to the Desantis map

Link: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/487285-ron-desantis-map-sets-up-tension-with-legislature-over-redistricting-process/

Well right now in it's most simple form the House hasn't considered the map which passed the Senate committee. The potential for dueling proposals existed earlier, its only gone up - and that would require negotiation.