Biggest own goals in redistricting

[Tekken_Guy]

What are the biggest own goals in redistricting?

[Ragnaroni]

What are the biggest own goals in redistricting?

New York Democrats going too far and getting a court to redraw districts and proceeding to lose said districts. Comedy and karma gold!

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yeah we are gonna win all these districts back when Kirsten Gillibrand wins 57/41 in 2024

[TwinGeeks99]

New Jersey Democrats sacrificing Malinowski in order to shore up Gottheimer and Sherrill after Phil Murphy barely squeaked by, only for both of them to overperform expectations and Malinowski only losing by 2.8% in the end.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Arkansas Democrats, 2010

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Pennsylvania Republicans may have doomed Mike Fitzpatrick's brother in 2006 by using his seat to vote sink some pretty D areas instead of putting them in the once infamous PA-13 because they were targeting that seat...only to not win it once that decade.

They also f[inks]ed one of their incumbents by double bunking him with conservadem Tim Holden. The new seat was pretty Republican but they didn't take into account Holden's strong base and personal vote in Schuylkill County and that their incumbent hadn't ran a serious campaign for like 20 years and had the charisma of a cardboard box. Holden won in an upset and held the seat all decade. They decided not to repeat their mistake and gave him a vote sink in 2012 only for him to then be primaried from the left by Matt Cartwright.

[BenjiG98]

What are the biggest own goals in redistricting?

New York Democrats going too far and getting a court to redraw districts and proceeding to lose said districts. Comedy and karma gold!

They probably would not have faired much better under the original map because of how poorly Dems turned out in New York.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Pennsylvania Republicans may have doomed Mike Fitzpatrick's brother in 2006 by using his seat to vote sink some pretty D areas instead of putting them in the once infamous PA-13 because they were targeting that seat...only to not win it once that decade.

They also f[inks]ed one of their incumbents by double bunking him with conservadem Tim Holden. The new seat was pretty Republican but they didn't take into account Holden's strong base and personal vote in Schuylkill County and that their incumbent hadn't ran a serious campaign for like 20 years and had the charisma of a cardboard box. Holden won in an upset and held the seat all decade. They decided not to repeat their mistake and gave him a vote sink in 2012 only for him to then be primaried from the left by Matt Cartwright.

Rs only lost PA-13 by 3 points in 2002.
Say they win it. How long do they hold it?

[Progressive Pessimist]

New Jersey Democrats sacrificing Malinowski in order to shore up Gottheimer and Sherrill after Phil Murphy barely squeaked by, only for both of them to overperform expectations and Malinowski only losing by 2.8% in the end.

Maybe, but it's nowhere near as bad as the 2010 Republican redistricting plan backfiring as hard as it did in 2018 specifically.

[ProgressiveModerate]

2020 cycle the obvious answer is prolly NY given Ds were just too greedy though in hindsight a large part of the reason the maps were struck down were on a technical issue so that might've been inevitable.

I'd say Kansas is another big one at all levels.

The Congressional map is quite messy because they tried to make David's district more competitive only for her to win a landslide re-election and is likely to hold on for the decade at this point if she wants it. Rmbr they brought in a member on his death bed to override Kelly's veto, even though they could've passed a cleaner 3-1 incumbent protection map that would've yielded the same results.

At the state legislative level, they were too greedy in left shifting Johnson County. In 2022, they already lost like 2 Trump seats they gerrymandered to try and win, and long term, the bacon-stripping might actually benefit Ds by extending the influence of these suburbs shfiting left. Their supermajority is in huge danger long term.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Pennsylvania Republicans may have doomed Mike Fitzpatrick's brother in 2006 by using his seat to vote sink some pretty D areas instead of putting them in the once infamous PA-13 because they were targeting that seat...only to not win it once that decade.

They also f[inks]ed one of their incumbents by double bunking him with conservadem Tim Holden. The new seat was pretty Republican but they didn't take into account Holden's strong base and personal vote in Schuylkill County and that their incumbent hadn't ran a serious campaign for like 20 years and had the charisma of a cardboard box. Holden won in an upset and held the seat all decade. They decided not to repeat their mistake and gave him a vote sink in 2012 only for him to then be primaried from the left by Matt Cartwright.

Rs only lost PA-13 by 3 points in 2002.
Say they win it. How long do they hold it?

That was kind of a fluke, the incumbent had some issues that dragged him down back when those type of suburbanites were willing to split ticket to a very high degree, the main issue is that he was a strong supporter of Section 8 housing which was a controversial wedge issue in the district because a lot of Gore-voting suburban areas didn't like it being built near them, surprise.

The GOP plan there was some real Galaxy Brain-stuff, basically PA lost two seats, one of the seats eliminated and incumbents double bunked was described above, this was the other, they took a mostly Northeast Philly-based seat and combined it with a seat in suburban Montgomery County. The idea was that since most registered Democrats were in the Philly part (remember this is back when those suburban voters were mostly registered Republicans), that Representative would win the primary, but because all the swing voters and split ticketers were in MontCo they would be able to beat him with a "moderate" Republican from the area. The problem is that the Philly incumbent just retired rather than do a primary battle, and they still pushed for the seat due to the aforementioned wedge issue. And to help they sliced off a rather Democratic portion of MontCo and attached it to the Bucks County-based district because that was obviously not going to flip with the GOP's downballot strength there right? And yet it actually made the difference in 2006.

But as for how long would they have held it Kerry won it by like 12 points so it would've been a one-term rental by far. Funny thing is this was actually the most discussed district in 2004 on this forum thanks to Keystone Phil and Flyers both living there and bickering about it back and forth constantly...the fact that it wasn't even close in 2004 makes that kind of a shaggy dog story.

[Ragnaroni]

What are the biggest own goals in redistricting?

New York Democrats going too far and getting a court to redraw districts and proceeding to lose said districts. Comedy and karma gold!

They probably would not have faired much better under the original map because of how poorly Dems turned out in New York.

Gerrymandering does help a lot.

[GALeftist]

Not sure if this counts but if the national environment has been a tiny bit better for Democrats a number of Republican decisions could have been the difference – they could have nuked KY-03, MO-05, IN-01, one of the NH seats, maybe even GA-07 and/or FL-23. Might have run into issues with the courts in KY and MO but still.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not sure if this counts but if the national environment has been a tiny bit better for Democrats a number of Republican decisions could have been the difference – they could have nuked KY-03, MO-05, IN-01, one of the NH seats, maybe even GA-07 and/or FL-23. Might have run into issues with the courts in KY and MO but still.

Kentucky has some pretty strict laws on redistricting that would make getting rid of KY-03 basically impossible, and some internal political realities that would make changing the law almost as impossible.

[patzer]

Not sure if this counts but if the national environment has been a tiny bit better for Democrats a number of Republican decisions could have been the difference – they could have nuked KY-03, MO-05, IN-01, one of the NH seats, maybe even GA-07 and/or FL-23. Might have run into issues with the courts in KY and MO but still.

If the GA Republicans were to have tried to eliminate another Dem seat, surely it would have been GA-2. Given it's relatively easy to do that whereas trying to draw out GA-7 just makes the map extremely vulnerable even if it does hold in 2022

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Isn't 1992 Georgia considered the ultimate dummymander, with Democrats trying to eliminate their only Republican, Newt Gingrich, and ending up with an 8-3 R delegation after the 1994 election?

[Mr.Phips]

Isn't 1992 Georgia considered the ultimate dummymander, with Democrats trying to eliminate their only Republican, Newt Gingrich, and ending up with an 8-3 R delegation after the 1994 election?

The 1992 Georgia map was just plain idiocy on the part of Democrats.  They created three seats that were WAY more black than they needed to be (like 65% black instead of 52%) and left the other eight districts no better than 64% Bush in 1988.  All of the other eight districts went for Bush in 1992 easily even as he was losing the state. I have no idea what Dems were thinking here. 

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Not sure if this counts but if the national environment has been a tiny bit better for Democrats a number of Republican decisions could have been the difference – they could have nuked KY-03, MO-05, IN-01, one of the NH seats, maybe even GA-07 and/or FL-23. Might have run into issues with the courts in KY and MO but still.

FL-23 is one of those districts that Republicans would have drawn differently if they could have seen what Florida would do in 2022 ahead of time.  Instead of having a handful of Lean/Likely D districts in North Broward and Palm Beach, they would have made at least one of them Republican-leaning.

As it is, I believe FL-23 is a DeSantis district, so it probably will be a GOP target in 2024.

[Mr.Phips]

Not sure if this counts but if the national environment has been a tiny bit better for Democrats a number of Republican decisions could have been the difference – they could have nuked KY-03, MO-05, IN-01, one of the NH seats, maybe even GA-07 and/or FL-23. Might have run into issues with the courts in KY and MO but still.

FL-23 is one of those districts that Republicans would have drawn differently if they could have seen what Florida would do in 2022 ahead of time.  Instead of having a handful of Lean/Likely D districts in North Broward and Palm Beach, they would have made at least one of them Republican-leaning.

As it is, I believe FL-23 is a DeSantis district, so it probably will be a GOP target in 2024.

DeSantis barely won it when he was winning statewide by 20 points and Biden won it by 13.  Unless there is a huge shift right in Palm Beach in 2024, that is basically a safe Dem seat.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Isn't 1992 Georgia considered the ultimate dummymander, with Democrats trying to eliminate their only Republican, Newt Gingrich, and ending up with an 8-3 R delegation after the 1994 election?

The 1992 Georgia map was just plain idiocy on the part of Democrats.  They created three seats that were WAY more black than they needed to be (like 65% black instead of 52%) and left the other eight districts no better than 64% Bush in 1988.  All of the other eight districts went for Bush in 1992 easily even as he was losing the state. I have no idea what Dems were thinking here. 

A lot of that was that the HW administration used the VRA to strike down many dem gerrymanders which ended up netting the GOP a lot of seats in the south.

[TML]

The 2010s map for Arkansas was drawn by Democrats intending to be competitive in three of the four seats, only for them to end up not winning any of these seats from 2012 onwards due to the overall rightward shift of the state. Had the Democrats drawn a district that stretched from Little Rock out east toward the Mississippi Valley, they would likely have held on to that particular seat for the entire decade, even with the statewide shifts.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

The 2010s map for Arkansas was drawn by Democrats intending to be competitive in three of the four seats, only for them to end up not winning any of these seats from 2012 onwards due to the overall rightward shift of the state. Had the Democrats drawn a district that stretched from Little Rock out east toward the Mississippi Valley, they would likely have held on to that particular seat for the entire decade, even with the statewide shifts.

It gets worse. Had they drawn a competent gerrymander, they probably could have averaged 1.8 seats over the course of the decade.

[Mr.Phips]

Isn't 1992 Georgia considered the ultimate dummymander, with Democrats trying to eliminate their only Republican, Newt Gingrich, and ending up with an 8-3 R delegation after the 1994 election?

The 1992 Georgia map was just plain idiocy on the part of Democrats.  They created three seats that were WAY more black than they needed to be (like 65% black instead of 52%) and left the other eight districts no better than 64% Bush in 1988.  All of the other eight districts went for Bush in 1992 easily even as he was losing the state. I have no idea what Dems were thinking here. 

A lot of that was that the HW administration used the VRA to strike down many dem gerrymanders which ended up netting the GOP a lot of seats in the south.

Then why didn’t Dems sue?  Also, again, if they drew the VRA seats at 51%-52% black, this would have been less of a problem.

[TwinGeeks99]

New Jersey Democrats sacrificing Malinowski in order to shore up Gottheimer and Sherrill after Phil Murphy barely squeaked by, only for both of them to overperform expectations and Malinowski only losing by 2.8% in the end.

Maybe, but it's nowhere near as bad as the 2010 Republican redistricting plan backfiring as hard as it did in 2018 specifically.

At least that gerrymander held up for two cycles before starting to show cracks in 2016 before completely breaking in 2018.

[Progressive Pessimist]

New Jersey Democrats sacrificing Malinowski in order to shore up Gottheimer and Sherrill after Phil Murphy barely squeaked by, only for both of them to overperform expectations and Malinowski only losing by 2.8% in the end.

Maybe, but it's nowhere near as bad as the 2010 Republican redistricting plan backfiring as hard as it did in 2018 specifically.

At least that gerrymander held up for two cycles before starting to show cracks in 2016 before completely breaking in 2018.

True, but I would hardly call the new NJ map broken because of 2022. Sure, Malinowski probably could have been saved with little effort not at the expense of Gottheimer, Sherrill, or anyone else but it's still a district that is winnable enough under the right circumstances for a Democrat to win back and is very much trending left.