Northern vs Southern Georgia

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Why? Genuinely curious, not trying to pick a fight. Didn't Shuler still win extremely convincingly in 2010, as did McIntyre? Hudson I could have seen losing because his turf wasn't as ancestrally blue.

Shuler won against a relatively weak candidate by 8 in 2010, but that meant relatively little for other blue dogs who similarily went onto their graves. Take, for instance, Dan Boren, who won by double digits and had his district unchanged, but retired anyway and had his district flip by 20 points. Because the 2010 wave was so huge, some incumbents managed to slip by, but they were screwed either way, which is why 2012/2014 was essentially just an easy mop up attempt for the GOP.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

McIntyre was stronger, but similarily screwed. His 2012 win was extremely impressive, but in all honesty wouldn't have been enough even with his 2008 district -- after all, even pre-gerrymandering, he still represented a McCain district, and by 2014 that was just not a realistic position for any federal level southern Democrat.

[voice_of_resistance]

Right yeah that makes more sense. I didn't know much about Shuler's opponent being weak. NC-07/NC-08 still has a high enough floor for Dems though because of the black/Lumbee populations, more so NC-08. NC-07 is going the way of NC-03 though soon enough.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Right yeah that makes more sense. I didn't know much about Shuler's opponent being weak. NC-07/NC-08 still has a high enough floor for Dems though because of the black/Lumbee populations, more so NC-08. NC-07 is going the way of NC-03 though soon enough.

Yeah, a fair NC-08 could (depending on how it was drawn, as it would need to become more of a sandhills district including Fayettesville vs a simple center NC district like it was in the 2000s) still be competitive, that's one of the few exceptions. A district like below for example would be right trending, but still marginal enough it would probably be Dem until 2022 or so (depending on Biden or Trump being in office oc).



Trump +0.4
McCrory+0.1
Burr+0.7

Still, the close margins are pretty indicative -- many Southern districts truly are pretty inelastic, and something like this NC-08 would be no exception.

[voice_of_resistance]

well the current NC-09 and NC-08 are designed to dilute the Sandhills's voting power. 9 merges Union with Richmond/Anson/Hoke/Scotland/Robeson, and 8 merges Cabarrus/Stanly/Moore/Montgomery with Fayetteville. Logically one would have a Charlotte R suburb/exurb district be NC-09 and then you would have those rural counties plus Fayetteville down to Bladen to make NC-08. Columbus in your map is further away than the rest of the counties in the seat so I'd personally put it with 7.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

well the current NC-09 and NC-08 are designed to dilute the Sandhills's voting power. 9 merges Union with Richmond/Anson/Hoke/Scotland/Robeson, and 8 merges Cabarrus/Stanly/Moore/Montgomery with Fayetteville. Logically one would have a Charlotte R suburb/exurb district be NC-09 and then you would have those rural counties plus Fayetteville down to Bladen to make NC-08. Columbus in your map is further away than the rest of the counties in the seat so I'd personally put it with 7.

Yep, makes sense. Columbus is more NC-07, but for whatever reason I had a brain collapse moment and kind of mentally included it with the Sandhills when making this map. But yeah, a better NC-08 would probably range from Anson to Robeson/Bladen/Cumberland

[Idaho Conservative]

Yeah. The minute the Senate goes blue, they pass HR1, and then we bring back districts like GA-12 to elect more moderate Dems.

Assuming they'd actually follow it.  Foregoing federal election funds could be worth it.