2020 Nebraska Redistricting

[politicallefty]

While officially nonpartisan, Democrats do hold just enough seats to filibuster anything they disapprove of. There could also be some Republicans that aren't willing to go along with a gerrymander. I just checked DRA and the current population of the districts are:

NE-01: 659,816   
NE-02: 701,005
NE-03: 600,683

I played around with NE-02, which has to lose about 47k in population. Keeping it as a district entirely covering Douglas County and keeping the most Republican precincts in Sarpy County would move the district from Biden+6.6 to Biden+7.6. In 2016, it would've gone from Trump+2.2 to Trump+1.1. It looks fairly absurd too. A cleaner split of the county, with NE-02 still taking in more Republican precincts, would be Biden+7.8 in 2020 and Trump+0.7 in 2016. NE-01 does drop down to Trump+12 for 2020, but that's with a minimal change map. There's plenty of NE-03 to make that titanium R if that isn't enough.

[politicallefty]

It's not terrible, but it just seems stupid not to just have a Douglas-Sarpy district. It also seems like if trends continue NE-01 could be in play under the right circumstances.

[politicallefty]

That's clearly the reason Republicans wanted to add Saunders County. It's a minimal change in the partisan balance and Democrats weren't going to let through anything more than a minimal change. On the first page, I mentioned that I drew a Douglas-Sarpy district with the most Republican precincts of Sarpy. Since the current district is overpopulated, it would have pushed NE-02 a full point better on the margin for Biden, from 6.6% to 7.6%. This proposal seems to effectively be a compromise, though I am surprised to see that Republicans are letting NE-01 drop to Trump+11. That might also be unavoidable if they're keeping the rest of Sarpy and all of Lancaster together and keeping a reasonably coherent district. Splitting Lancaster was probably another dealbreaker for Democrats.

It's also possible that any major changes to NE-02 could have resulted in a ballot initiative, as Nebraska does have initiative and referenda.

[politicallefty]

I think the bigger complaint is that NE-02 adding rural Saunders County was a blatant effort to keep the district from moving to the left. Due to urban/suburban growth around Omaha and rural population loss across most of the state, NE-02 was overpopulated by about 47k. All of Douglas County and the most Republican precincts in Sarpy would have moved the district a full point to the left. I wouldn't call Nebraska a gerrymander, but Republicans did put their thumb on the scale. A fair map would almost certainly have put Douglas County with eastern Sarpy.

[politicallefty]

I wanted to see if I could do a competitive gerrymander and create two Biden districts. It turns out it can be done (which I'm almost certain has been impossible since probably 2008). For obvious reasons, I chose to call it a competitive gerrymander and not a Democratic gerrymander.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/4879655d-9386-42a6-97ab-95f4df4128fd

Just because I could, I left NE-02 as a Douglas-Sarpy district, but this version has all of Sarpy and excludes some very Democratic precincts in Omaha. Interestingly, this NE-01 is probably the better district for Democrats. This NE-02 is heavily suburban and only recently shifted away from Republicans, at least at the presidential level. In the 2018 statewide races, NE-01 leaned Democratic while NE-02 leaned Republican. In parentheses, you can see the 2016 numbers.

NE-01: Biden 49.1-48.6 (Trump 49.4-44.4)
NE-02: Biden 49.1-48.7 (Trump 51.8-42.1)
NE-03: Trump 77.0-21.1 (Trump 76.2-18.7)

Does anyone think Democrats would've relented on splitting Douglas County in return for this map?