Blumenauer Congressional Plan

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

So Rep. Blumenauer released a bill to expand to 585 (no idea why that number) but I thought it'd be fun to make maps for it. Daily Kos did a distribution for the seats here;

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1622643617759100945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

First off I did one for Alabama and 9 Seats actually works quite well for the state, two black seats, a seat for Mobile, and a seat for Hunstville.

Here's what I drew https://davesredistricting.org/join/5dc2ce3c-e0b0-4947-b811-f8e37e5bbc6c

Feel free to add your own maps from whatever states!

[Tintrlvr]

You can fit two districts quite neatly south of the Black Belt on a 9-district map of Alabama, so there's really no need to cross the Black Belt at all, keep it all united in a single district instead.

[Oryxslayer]

Yeah as far as Alabama goes, you can keep two white seats south of Montgomery, allowing you to stretch the Black belt seat all the way across. You can obviously do it neater than this, but the maps in service of this hypothetical I have already drawn were created tried to replicate the political decisions and outcomes of the 2021/2 redistricting process just with these alternative seat totals.

[kwabbit]

I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

[brucejoel99]

So Rep. Blumenauer released a bill to expand to 585 (no idea why that number)

His justification is that 149 seats have shifted between the states since the number of representatives was capped at 435, so add that plus 1 more to keep the House at an odd number.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Here's a pass at an Arkansas map, which again works well in this plan. One for little rock, one for Fayetteville, and three for the rest.



I went with creating a relatively Dem leaning seat in Little Rock, but you can create a much pretty looking swing seat.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

[kwabbit]

I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

What's the fourth Dem district? The SE or the Fox River cities? I made a Lake Winnebago area district and a Green Bay + Lakeshore district and both were about Trump +15.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

What's the fourth Dem district? The SE or the Fox River cities? I made a Lake Winnebago area district and a Green Bay + Lakeshore district and both were about Trump +15.

I had one for Kenosha to Milwaukee county, one from Dane to LaCrosse, and then one that was Green Bay/Appleton/Oshkosh which Biden lost by around 11,000 votes. It’s a reach for democrats, but it probably would’ve flipped in 2018

edit: the map https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7a154fe-6998-4580-a8a3-13545a69ebbe



It does seem both of the southern border swing seats are very stubbornly democratic. The LaCrosse seat has not gone for republicans in the data set, and the Kenosha seat only did in 2016 for Johnson (Clinton won it for president). Interestingly the Minnesota border runner, while usually more republican than the Green Bay seat, voted to the left of the Green Bay seat in the Governor's, Senate's and Attorney General races in 2018.

[kwabbit]

I played around with NJ, NM, and WI so far under this seat number configuration. NJ is about as expected, with a very close Monmouth/Middlesex seat sticking out. 12-4 in 2020, but would be 10-6 in 2022.

NM is really awkward, with the AQ metro being 1.5 districts out of 4. 3-1 in almost every year, with a close race in the successor to the current NM-02 this year perhaps. I'd like to see someone else try NM with 4 districts.

WI was 3-7 with a Trump +6 SE district and a Biden +5 SW district. The GOP geography advantage is very impressive in WI. It endures no matter how many districts essentially.

Wisconsin is painful as Milwuakee and Dane County fit almost perfectly into their own districts, but at the cost of making a more partisan neutral map. So you have to either cut them up or accept that the map is going to be bad for democrats, still I was able to keep the city and the county whole and create a 2-3-5 map, which is still bad, but not terrible. It went 4-6 in 2020

What's the fourth Dem district? The SE or the Fox River cities? I made a Lake Winnebago area district and a Green Bay + Lakeshore district and both were about Trump +15.

I had one for Kenosha to Milwaukee county, one from Dane to LaCrosse, and then one that was Green Bay/Appleton/Oshkosh which Biden lost by around 11,000 votes. It’s a reach for democrats, but it probably would’ve flipped in 2018

edit: the map https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7a154fe-6998-4580-a8a3-13545a69ebbe



It does seem both of the southern border swing seats are very stubbornly democratic. The LaCrosse seat has not gone for republicans in the data set, and the Kenosha seat only did in 2016 for Johnson (Clinton won it for president). Interestingly the Minnesota border runner, while usually more republican than the Green Bay seat, voted to the left of the Green Bay seat in the Governor's, Senate's and Attorney General races in 2018.

Interesting. I gave Walworth to the SE district. With that included, the Western inner suburbs fit perfectly with Waukesha. Your set up is more optimal from a partisan standpoint though.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/50f2d236-1cf1-4aa0-94f3-bbb4f7ab9cfa

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't like this. It benefits the Republicans here!




District 1: This is now more of a southeast Minnesota district as there's not enough room anymore for the western end. Since that's the most Republican area this is now more D, and the DFL probably would've won that August special election here but Trump still won it by 52-46, I'll call it Likely R. Although worth noting Tina Smith did carry it by a hair in 2018 (Walz won it by a fair margin but that's not really fair comparison because it's his old seat and he won even the old district.)

District 2: Basically the new seat for Angie Craig and she seems to have it locked down pretty well, it's also a Biden+9 seat, at this point can't be anything less than Likely D.

District 3: Safe D. This is the current one minus any Republican areas at all. Biden won it by a 2:1 margin.

District 4: At least districts this size fit Ramsey County almost perfectly. Safe D obviously.

District 5: Safe D, duh.

District 6: This one is a bit odd, it actually feels more like a St. Cloud-based seat that stretches through the northern exurbs rather than a northern metro seat that just includes St. Cloud like the current one. Trump+29, definitely Safe R and Emmer still lives here and would run here. EDIT: No wait, he actually lives in the small part of Wright County I drew into the 9th. He probably still runs here though. This is the only district Amy Klobuchar lost in 2018.

District 7: Safe R, also Trump+29. I actually drew Fischbach narrowly in the 6th, but she'd almost certainly run here. EDIT: A bit ironic though she'd be abandoning the seat she lives in to a guy who now doesn't live there.

District 8: This is actually a less R than the current one due to it shedding so many rural counties and the exurbs. Still Trump+9 but it actually narrowly voted for Walz and Tina Smith by a hair in 2018. So I'm saying Likely R although granted Stauber seems like a solid incumbent.

District 9: Safe R despite trending D fast. It's a Trump+7 seat, and kind of a messy leftovers one although it's effectively an outer ring suburbs/exurbs-based seat with some rural areas tacked on. Definitely would be an interesting R primary for this...actually Scott Jensen lives here come to think of it.

District 10: And now you have the closest. Also a leftovers seat (I guess that's what happens when you try to largely preserve the current numbering scheme), unfortunately Washington County is kind of pinned in a location where it's tough to get it in a true community of interest district, your only choices are to set it up with Ramsey County like now or split it in half and put the halves into a north metro and south metro district which is kind of what happened before. Neither is an option now because Ramsey County almost has enough on its own and only took a few precincts and there's not any room for in the new 2nd. So it gets paired with the leftovers of northern Anoka County. And Trump won it by 0.5. Which is probably still somewhere between Lean and Likely R. Walz actually won it in 2018 and it wouldn't surprise me if he did last year too though. But Tina Smith lost it in 2018 despite winning the 1st and 8th. Odd district actually.

So likely a 6/4 map. Although PlanScore says this is a 55% D map and actually thinks the 10th is D-leaning...probably based on those "Composite results" that are skewed by Klobuchar's landslide.

Edit: Walz definitely did win the 10th by a hair, he won Washington County by 14k votes, and the small part in the 4th isn't super-D and actually small so it probably didn't account for even 1k of that. Meanwhile Jensen only won Anoka County by 2k and while the super D panhandle is now in the 5th, Walz won that by 7k. So that equals a Walz victory by about 6k votes. That actually comes out to about a 2 point victory although I bet Walz was just under 50%. Well it's definitely trending D.

Edit again: Oh wait I forgot, this seat also includes about half of the city of Wyoming (In Chisago County)...which is probably about a 1k R victory. That's how much about how Trump won it by. So Walz actually won it by about 5k, and maybe slightly under 2 points. Everything else still applies though. I'm guessing Steve Simon won it by about 3-4 points and Blaha and Ellison lost it by about that margin.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't like this. It benefits the Republicans here!

snip

In most cases the state's geographic bias should not shift by adding more seats - generally you just got to detach yourself from the existing districts geographic cores and create new pairings that allign better with the new population totals. Here's such a case in MN where you now use Washington as the building block and aim to nest 3 core seats in Hennepin. See my comments above about the framework I tried to draw these maps in, so MN comes to 5. Obviously if you want more competitiveness there are things you can do with districts 1, 8, and 10 like include Fargo in 8.  One other thing about MN is that the Washington - Duluth county linkage is only slightly overpopulated, if one was to desire such a gerrymander.





One state where the geographic bias does shift is Michigan. It all comes down to 3 things: Macomb now being large enough that the south of the county needs to be paired with other blue areas OR you nest the seat in the southern towns and it overall leans Dem, Oakland being a deal larger than two seats so you'll likely end up sinking some GOP voters in 2 dem leaning seats based on how the pop works out, and Kalamazoo now having enough demographic weight to not be drowned out by her neighbors so easily.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't like this. It benefits the Republicans here!

snip

In most cases the state's geographic bias should not shift by adding more seats - generally you just got to detach yourself from the existing districts geographic cores and create new pairings that allign better with the new population totals. Here's such a case in MN where you now use Washington as the building block and aim to nest 3 core seats in Hennepin. See my comments above about the framework I tried to draw these maps in, so MN comes to 5. Obviously if you want more competitiveness there are things you can do with districts 1, 8, and 10 like include Fargo in 8.  One other thing about MN is that the Washington - Duluth county linkage is only slightly overpopulated, if one was to desire such a gerrymander.





One state where the geographic bias does shift is Michigan. It all comes down to 3 things: Macomb now being large enough that the south of the county needs to be paired with other blue areas OR you nest the seat in the southern towns and it overall leans Dem, Oakland being a deal larger than two seats so you'll likely end up sinking some GOP voters in 2 dem leaning seats based on how the pop works out, and Kalamazoo now having enough demographic weight to not be drowned out by her neighbors so easily.

Yeah that works better. Although how can Fargo be put in a Minnesota district?

[Oryxslayer]

Reach over to the Fargo area. Technically Moorhead.

You know what I mean

[progressive85]

Great job!  PA next please!

[patzer]

For North Carolina the court-drawn map would probably be along the lines of this.

[Oryxslayer]

Nah, the court would have imposed a 9-9 map, just like how the one presently in place is 7-7. Their Dems after all.



Bonus points for this map are the questionable decisions in regards to COIs and regions I made, since the court's map made so many! Chapel Hill - North Greensboro so as to allow for a minority seat in the rest of the metro, Keeping the Gastonia arm even though Mecklenburg is now close to perfect population, cutting Wake East/West cause Raleigh has to be split anyway so why not create an access seat, and whatever happens to Lejune since Jacksonville is yanked out of Onslow. Kinda like what they did to Fayetteville, W-S, Raleigh and Wayne IRL.

Also, its now an open question of what happens in NC-11. Chuck Edwards won the Primary cause of Henderson and Buncombe overlapped with his Senate seat. Would he even have run if Henderson was split unfavorably? Would he have still won the primary? Could one of the other candidates become the consensus vs Cawthorn and win? Cause if Cawthorn ends up as the hypothetical 2022 GOP candidate, he loses based on the underperformances displayed by other members of his young extremist clique like Boebert.

[lfromnj]

Great job!  PA next please!

How I would do it.

District explanations

PA-01 . Basically just Chester and a few towns in Delaware. Biden +16 and Safe D for Houlahan or any Democrat at this point

PA-02. Most of Delaware besides the aforementioned Chester parts. Originally I kept Delaware whole as it and Chester were basically almost 2 exact seats but I replaced a few of the black towns in Delaware and gave it Lower Merion. Obviously Safe D

PA-03. The remaining black towns in Delaware and all of Philly west of the Schuylkill river. 47% Black VAP. .

PA-04- Middle Philly and 52% Black VAP. Very Safe D. I don't know whether Dwight Evans lives in PA-03 or PA-04

PA-05. Eastern Philly.  Diverse and a bronz oppurtunity seat. Biden +24 despite being almost entirely within Philly and taking a few precincts from Bucks and Safe D but still an interesting trend from Clinton +31.


PA-06. Most of Bucks- should be good for Fitzpatrick at Biden +5.

PA-07-Lower Montgomery other than Lower Merion. Biden +30 and Safe D .

PA-08- Outer Montco and remainder of Bucks along with the majority of Berks. Creates a Trump +0.5 district.

PA-09. Only "unnecessary" county split outside of the Delaware Philly one. Previously I had it as all of Lehigh  but only western Northampton as it excluded Easton. Previously Biden +6 and somewhere within Lean to Likely D. It is now Safe D at Biden +12.

PA-10. Leftovers of the Lehigh Valley + Poconos area and takes a few rurals to preserve PA11.  Safe R at Trump +19 .

PA-11- Basically a perfect Wyoming Valley district. Lackawanna+ Luzerne+ most of Wyoming County. Exactly Trump +6.  More red than Cartwrights current seat but he overperforms more in this area. Rating is a bit debatable but probably around Tilt to Lean D with Cartwright.

PA-12 Lancaster county seat. Nothing much to say. Safe R but not overwhelmingly. Could get interesting later.

PA-13 York +Adams seat.  Historical seat that has usually existed.  Should be dominated by York county. Scott Perry would obviously take this seat.

PA-14- Dauphin +Cumberland and half of Perry.  Pretty similar in partisanship to the current PA-10. Trump +2.5

PA-15 .  Seat based with rest of Berks+ Schuylkill and a few rurals. Safe R

PA-16 Super Safe R rurals + Centre county still creates a Trump +30 seat. Safe R

PA-17- Mastriano's area in South PA. Trump +50 and the most R seat in PA.

PA-18. SW PA . Used to be competitive but is now Safe R.

PA-19. South Hills of Pittsburgh+Northern Washington County parts of which fit in nicely with Mt.Lebanon(Peters area)
Overall Trump +3 down from Trump +7 in 2016.

PA-20. Pittsburgh and a few diverse Eastern suburbs. Very Safe D. Summer Lee can sleep.

PA-21- North Hills of Pittsburgh. Should be Likely R at Trump +10

PA-22- more random central PA rurals. Safe R

PA-23 . Erie County + Ohio border. Safe R but not super Safe at Trump +16.

Overall 9 Biden seats and 14 Trump seats so a moderate R Bias by percentage of Trump seat. However only 1 of the Biden seats is really competitive(Bucks) while 4 Trump seats are .Tipping point is Trump +3 and Fetterman probably won 13/23 seats by my estimate

The Court would try to figure out how to balance this out further. Not sure what seats they would touch. The only Dem counties in a Safe R seat are Centre, Erie, and Monroe of which only Monroe could really be paired with anything swingy by ruining the Scranton seat. The most obvious solution is spread out Pittsburgh more which shouldn't be too hard and 2 Dem seats in Pittsburgh with 23 seats isn't as absurd as with only 17 seats. That gets it to 10 Biden seats . 11 Shouldn't be too hard by playing around with the Berks seat although touching that Harrisburg/Scranton area should be a crime due to how perfect they are. My guess is they still commit 1 of those 2 crimes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4566491a-4146-4e52-951b-d423db18ea16

Map link if anyone wants to see.

[progressive85]

Great job!  PA next please!

How I would do it.

District explanations

PA-01 . Basically just Chester and a few towns in Delaware. Biden +16 and Safe D for Houlahan or any Democrat at this point

PA-02. Most of Delaware besides the aforementioned Chester parts. Originally I kept Delaware whole as it and Chester were basically almost 2 exact seats but I replaced a few of the black towns in Delaware and gave it Lower Merion. Obviously Safe D

PA-03. The remaining black towns in Delaware and all of Philly west of the Schuylkill river. 47% Black VAP. .

PA-04- Middle Philly and 52% Black VAP. Very Safe D. I don't know whether Dwight Evans lives in PA-03 or PA-04

PA-05. Eastern Philly.  Diverse and a bronz oppurtunity seat. Biden +24 despite being almost entirely within Philly and taking a few precincts from Bucks and Safe D but still an interesting trend from Clinton +31.


PA-06. Most of Bucks- should be good for Fitzpatrick at Biden +5.

PA-07-Lower Montgomery other than Lower Merion. Biden +30 and Safe D .

PA-08- Outer Montco and remainder of Bucks along with the majority of Berks. Creates a Trump +0.5 district.

PA-09. Only "unnecessary" county split outside of the Delaware Philly one. Previously I had it as all of Lehigh  but only western Northampton as it excluded Easton. Previously Biden +6 and somewhere within Lean to Likely D. It is now Safe D at Biden +12.

PA-10. Leftovers of the Lehigh Valley + Poconos area and takes a few rurals to preserve PA11.  Safe R at Trump +19 .

PA-11- Basically a perfect Wyoming Valley district. Lackawanna+ Luzerne+ most of Wyoming County. Exactly Trump +6.  More red than Cartwrights current seat but he overperforms more in this area. Rating is a bit debatable but probably around Tilt to Lean D with Cartwright.

PA-12 Lancaster county seat. Nothing much to say. Safe R but not overwhelmingly. Could get interesting later.

PA-13 York +Adams seat.  Historical seat that has usually existed.  Should be dominated by York county. Scott Perry would obviously take this seat.

PA-14- Dauphin +Cumberland and half of Perry.  Pretty similar in partisanship to the current PA-10. Trump +2.5

PA-15 .  Seat based with rest of Berks+ Schuylkill and a few rurals. Safe R

PA-16 Super Safe R rurals + Centre county still creates a Trump +30 seat. Safe R

PA-17- Mastriano's area in South PA. Trump +50 and the most R seat in PA.

PA-18. SW PA . Used to be competitive but is now Safe R.

PA-19. South Hills of Pittsburgh+Northern Washington County parts of which fit in nicely with Mt.Lebanon(Peters area)
Overall Trump +3 down from Trump +7 in 2016.

PA-20. Pittsburgh and a few diverse Eastern suburbs. Very Safe D. Summer Lee can sleep.

PA-21- North Hills of Pittsburgh. Should be Likely R at Trump +10

PA-22- more random central PA rurals. Safe R

PA-23 . Erie County + Ohio border. Safe R but not super Safe at Trump +16.

Overall 9 Biden seats and 14 Trump seats so a moderate R Bias by percentage of Trump seat. However only 1 of the Biden seats is really competitive(Bucks) while 4 Trump seats are .Tipping point is Trump +3 and Fetterman probably won 13/23 seats by my estimate

The Court would try to figure out how to balance this out further. Not sure what seats they would touch. The only Dem counties in a Safe R seat are Centre, Erie, and Monroe of which only Monroe could really be paired with anything swingy by ruining the Scranton seat. The most obvious solution is spread out Pittsburgh more which shouldn't be too hard and 2 Dem seats in Pittsburgh with 23 seats isn't as absurd as with only 17 seats. That gets it to 10 Biden seats . 11 Shouldn't be too hard by playing around with the Berks seat although touching that Harrisburg/Scranton area should be a crime due to how perfect they are. My guess is they still commit 1 of those 2 crimes.

Outstanding job!  I'm very impressed.  The mapmakers on this forum are terrific

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Pennsylvania having 23 seats makes it need two black philadelphia seast minimum. Really, you can make 3 seats in the Philadephia metro that have majority minority populations. What I'm working on I made three seats that are plurality black by VAP; The first is 46.9/36.8. The second is 45.0/40.5. The third is 38.7/28.2. The first is also 10% asian. Ican't tell lfromnj's map but I think theres only 2 black seats and a plurality white seat

[lfromnj]

Pennsylvania having 23 seats makes it need two black philadelphia seast minimum. Really, you can make 3 seats in the Philadephia metro that have majority minority populations. What I'm working on I made three seats that are plurality black by VAP; The first is 46.9/36.8. The second is 45.0/40.5. The third is 38.7/28.2. The first is also 10% asian. Ican't tell lfromnj's map but I think theres only 2 black seats and a plurality white seat

The East Philly seat is majority minority but its plurality and pretty close to majority white VAP. I could have tried for 2 majority Black seats which is actually what I pushed a little bit but I wanted the map fairly clean so i ended up with a 47% black VAP seat that was 49.9% Black. Not too hard to really push it to majority black by figuring out a way to add in Chester township or trade with the central seat.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Pennsylvania having 23 seats makes it need two black philadelphia seast minimum. Really, you can make 3 seats in the Philadephia metro that have majority minority populations. What I'm working on I made three seats that are plurality black by VAP; The first is 46.9/36.8. The second is 45.0/40.5. The third is 38.7/28.2. The first is also 10% asian. Ican't tell lfromnj's map but I think theres only 2 black seats and a plurality white seat

The East Philly seat is majority minority but its plurality and pretty close to majority white VAP. I could have tried for 2 majority Black seats which is actually what I pushed a little bit but I wanted the map fairly clean so i ended up with a 47% black VAP seat that was 49.9% Black. Not too hard to really push it to majority black by figuring out a way to add in Chester township or trade with the central seat.

This is how I spliced up Phili. I only had t split up Drexel Hills.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/e11bd18b-789e-4d80-a608-eab847d4c875

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

NJ is a b*tch to draw. Gave it a go though, made sense in my head. Tried to make single-county districts for each county over the population limit, and absolutely 0 splitting of towns. Tried to have a proportional number of R seats (very easy to gerrymander for D's)

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

This was what I did for Alabama. Much cleaner however only 1 black majority seat, the other is a near tie in white and black VAP.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cce67a49-8fdd-49d9-814b-7a8e74207080



Though only the black belt and Birmingham districts could conceivably go to Dems, looking at trends the Huntsville, Mobile, and Birmingham suburbs-Tuscaloosa district could become competitive in the right circumstances. All 3 voted for Jones in 2017 which I know is kinda cheating but it does show there's the possibility.  

[patzer]

Nah, the court would have imposed a 9-9 map, just like how the one presently in place is 7-7. Their Dems after all.



Bonus points for this map are the questionable decisions in regards to COIs and regions I made, since the court's map made so many! Chapel Hill - North Greensboro so as to allow for a minority seat in the rest of the metro, Keeping the Gastonia arm even though Mecklenburg is now close to perfect population, cutting Wake East/West cause Raleigh has to be split anyway so why not create an access seat, and whatever happens to Lejune since Jacksonville is yanked out of Onslow. Kinda like what they did to Fayetteville, W-S, Raleigh and Wayne IRL.

Also, its now an open question of what happens in NC-11. Chuck Edwards won the Primary cause of Henderson and Buncombe overlapped with his Senate seat. Would he even have run if Henderson was split unfavorably? Would he have still won the primary? Could one of the other candidates become the consensus vs Cawthorn and win? Cause if Cawthorn ends up as the hypothetical 2022 GOP candidate, he loses based on the underperformances displayed by other members of his young extremist clique like Boebert.

I don't think they'd be so bold as to split Mecklenburg and Wake three ways when it can easily be done with two.

If they were to do a 9-9 map (plausible), I think the ninth Dem seat would be most logical in Forsyth, while keeping Greensboro in the 6th, like this