NC redistricting revisited

[Gass3268]

Miles, what do you think a court drawn North Carolina map would look like?

[Miles]

Miles, what do you think a court drawn North Carolina map would look like?

I'll have a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC posted next

[Miles]

Mr. Miles's NC-05 looks like a lean R district. Those rural counties look far less likely to support a D congressman than some of the other rural counties in NC, and in that type of tug of war district the GOP has an edge. It is still a very skillful gerrymander.

Thanks

I do think the GOP would still be favored in CD5, but I made it as Dem-friendly as possible, so that it could possibly fall in another 2006 or 2008.

The rural counties in the 5th, unlike those in the the 7th or 8th, are actually ancestrally Republican; FDR couldn't even win Wilkes or Yadkin, IIRC.

Yeah, I don't think that district would be enough to sink Foxx. Those rural counties are too Republican.

Yes, but if the Democrats were going for 9-4, she'd be the best Republican (other than Ellmers) to target.

Other than Foxx, they could make Jones' ancestrally Democratic district bluer and wait till he retires to launch a serious bid there; though in making Jones's district bluer, they'd probably have to weaken McIntyre.

The 9th would be a bad choice because Republicans there usually run way ahead of McCain's performance. McHenry, though a staunch partisan like Foxx, has a district that is solidly Republican at all levels. Finally, Coble's district is a vote sink for central NC, so Democrats would need to keep it

[Gass3268]

Miles, what do you think a court drawn North Carolina map would look like?

I'll have a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC posted next

Sweetness!

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Mr. Miles's NC-05 looks like a lean R district. Those rural counties look far less likely to support a D congressman than some of the other rural counties in NC, and in that type of tug of war district the GOP has an edge. It is still a very skillful gerrymander.

Thanks

I do think the GOP would still be favored in CD5, but I made it as Dem-friendly as possible, so that it could possibly fall in another 2006 or 2008.

The rural counties in the 5th, unlike those in the the 7th or 8th, are actually ancestrally Republican; FDR couldn't even win Wilkes or Yadkin, IIRC.

Yeah, I don't think that district would be enough to sink Foxx. Those rural counties are too Republican.

Yes, but if the Democrats were going for 9-4, she'd be the best Republican (other than Ellmers) to target.

Other than Foxx, they could make Jones' ancestrally Democratic district bluer and wait till he retires to launch a serious bid there; though in making Jones's district bluer, they'd probably have to weaken McIntyre.

The 9th would be a bad choice because Republicans there usually run way ahead of McCain's performance. McHenry, though a staunch partisan like Foxx, has a district that is solidly Republican at all levels. Finally, Coble's district is a vote sink for central NC, so Democrats would need to keep it

Wouldn't it be possible to confine Watt's district to Mecklenburg County, eliminate Myrick's district altogether, and replace it with a Democratic district based in Greensboro/Winston-Salem?

[Miles]

Mr. Miles's NC-05 looks like a lean R district. Those rural counties look far less likely to support a D congressman than some of the other rural counties in NC, and in that type of tug of war district the GOP has an edge. It is still a very skillful gerrymander.

Thanks

I do think the GOP would still be favored in CD5, but I made it as Dem-friendly as possible, so that it could possibly fall in another 2006 or 2008.

The rural counties in the 5th, unlike those in the the 7th or 8th, are actually ancestrally Republican; FDR couldn't even win Wilkes or Yadkin, IIRC.

Yeah, I don't think that district would be enough to sink Foxx. Those rural counties are too Republican.

Yes, but if the Democrats were going for 9-4, she'd be the best Republican (other than Ellmers) to target.

Other than Foxx, they could make Jones' ancestrally Democratic district bluer and wait till he retires to launch a serious bid there; though in making Jones's district bluer, they'd probably have to weaken McIntyre.

The 9th would be a bad choice because Republicans there usually run way ahead of McCain's performance. McHenry, though a staunch partisan like Foxx, has a district that is solidly Republican at all levels. Finally, Coble's district is a vote sink for central NC, so Democrats would need to keep it

Wouldn't it be possible to confine Watt's district to Mecklenburg County, eliminate Myrick's district altogether, and replace it with a Democratic district based in Greensboro/Winston-Salem?

Thats kinda what I did for my nonpartisan map, which I'll post in a few hours. My court-drawn 12th is based almost entirely in Mecklenburg (with a few precincts from Cabarrus). Incidentally, though, I put W-S and Greensboro in separate districts.

As a resident of the NC-09, I think suburban/exurban Charlotte its own CoI, so I tend to keep southern Mecklenburg together with Gaston and Union.

Remember earlier this redistricting cycle when the TN Republicans feared that cracking Jim Cooper's district would lead to a dummymander? That's kinda how I feel about NC-09...there's a lot of GOP strength locked up in the 9th.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Thats kinda what I did for my nonpartisan map, which I'll post in a few hours. My court-drawn 12th is based almost entirely in Mecklenburg (with a few precincts from Cabarrus). Incidentally, though, I put W-S and Greensboro in separate districts.

As a resident of the NC-09, I think suburban/exurban Charlotte its own CoI, so I tend to keep southern Mecklenburg together with Gaston and Union.

I do, too, but as the previous map was intended as a gerrymander, CoI's get thrown out the window anyway.

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It's easy to deal with Gaston County- just dump it in the 10th. Union County is harder- it has to go to Kissell. In the version I'm working on at the moment, I compensated for this by pulling Kissell's district out of Cabarrus and Stanly as much as possible.

[Miles]

Thats kinda what I did for my nonpartisan map, which I'll post in a few hours. My court-drawn 12th is based almost entirely in Mecklenburg (with a few precincts from Cabarrus). Incidentally, though, I put W-S and Greensboro in separate districts.

As a resident of the NC-09, I think suburban/exurban Charlotte its own CoI, so I tend to keep southern Mecklenburg together with Gaston and Union.

I do, too, but as the previous map was intended as a gerrymander, CoI's get thrown out the window anyway.

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It's easy to deal with Gaston County- just dump it in the 10th. Union County is harder- it has to go to Kissell. In the version I'm working on at the moment, I compensated for this by pulling Kissell's district out of Cabarrus and Stanly as much as possible.

Maybe I'll revisit the Democratic map after I post this next one...would be worth trying.

Ughh...Union is nasty....probably my least favorite county in the state. If you give Union to Kissell, I'd recommend drawing a strip up the east side of Mecklenburg so that he can still pick up Charlotte Democrats. Something like this:



That district is 53.6/45.6 Obama and has a deviation of +44...not bad. I might try to work with that more.

Who would get Stanly and Cabarrus? Coble?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Thats kinda what I did for my nonpartisan map, which I'll post in a few hours. My court-drawn 12th is based almost entirely in Mecklenburg (with a few precincts from Cabarrus). Incidentally, though, I put W-S and Greensboro in separate districts.

As a resident of the NC-09, I think suburban/exurban Charlotte its own CoI, so I tend to keep southern Mecklenburg together with Gaston and Union.

I do, too, but as the previous map was intended as a gerrymander, CoI's get thrown out the window anyway.

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It's easy to deal with Gaston County- just dump it in the 10th. Union County is harder- it has to go to Kissell. In the version I'm working on at the moment, I compensated for this by pulling Kissell's district out of Cabarrus and Stanly as much as possible.

Maybe I'll revisit the Democratic map after I post this next one...would be worth trying.

Ughh...Union is nasty....probably my least favorite county in the state. If you give Union to Kissell, I'd recommend drawing a strip up the east side of Mecklenburg so that he can still pick up Charlotte Democrats. Something like this:



That district is 53.6/45.6 Obama and has a deviation of +44...not bad. I might try to work with that more.

Who would get Stanly and Cabarrus? Coble?

That district is similar to the one I have. Yes, Coble would probably get Stanly and Cabarrus.

[jimrtex]

jimrtex, thanks for that informative post; I've always found east Texas politics interesting.

At least with respect to the rural distrcits, wasn't a lot of the Frostrosity's ugliness fixed with the 2001 court-drawn map though?



Smith and Gregg were kept whole and put in Hall's district while Sandlin got all of Hunt (except for one or two precincts in the southwest) and all of Nacogdoches-proper.

They eliminated some of the more egregious county splits.

But take a look at 4 and 5.  They had to keep the split of Kaufman because they couldn't figure out how to maintain a district that links Longview to Gainesville and another that links East Dallas to areas to the south.  5 was drawn for John Bryant.

1 and 4 were gerrymandered back in the 1960s.  It is nonsensical to split Smith and Gregg from Harrison, Rusk, and Upshur, unless the population required such a split.

[Miles]

They eliminated some of the more egregious county splits.

But take a look at 4 and 5.  They had to keep the split of Kaufman because they couldn't figure out how to maintain a district that links Longview to Gainesville and another that links East Dallas to areas to the south.  5 was drawn for John Bryant.

1 and 4 were gerrymandered back in the 1960s.  It is nonsensical to split Smith and Gregg from Harrison, Rusk, and Upshur, unless the population required such a split.

Hmmm, ok. I always wondered about that odd tendril of the 5th linking the rural counties to the Dallas area.

[Miles]

My best shot at a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC. I'm open to suggestions





CD1:

OLD PVI: D+10
NEW PVI: D+12.5
This is actually a slightly modified version of the one muon posted earlier in this thread. 50.3% Black VAP.

Safe D.

CD2:

OLD PVI: R+1
NEW PVI: R+9
Under this fair map, CD2 becomes a fairly strong Republican-leaning seat. Its stays centered around Johnston county and takes in most of the non-Raleigh parts of southern Wake county. It keeps Harnett and Lee and adds the Republican parts of Wayne (the black voters there are in Butterfield's first).
While Ellmers would be safe in a general election, her biggest threat would be in the primary. Davis Rouzer's entire State Senate district is located here. Judging by how he impressively upset Ilario Pantano in the R primary for the new CD7, Rouzer could launch a serious primary thread to Ellmers should he take the plunge. In my view, Rouzer would be the stronger candidate anyway.

Likely/Safe R.

CD3:

OLD PVI: R+15
NEW PVI: R+12
Not much to see here; the Third gets a bit cleaner and moves a few points towards the Democrats.

Safe R for Jones, Likely R if open.

CD4:

OLD PVI: D+9
NEW PVI: D+11
With the loss of most of Durham to CD1, the 4th now takes in most of Greensboro. Despite the addition of GOP-leaning Alamance and moderately-red Person, the 4th inches a few points to the left due to the addition of Greensboro.

CD5:

OLD PVI: R+15
NEW PVI: R+8
While it may seem a bit partisan of me to keep Forsyth county here, it allows for the district to br composed entirely of whole counties, which I thought was appropriate for a nonpartisan map. This is actually quite reminiscent of Richard's Burr's district in the late 1990's that was primarily based along the VA border. This is a few points more Republican than the 5th in my D gerrymander, so Foxx should be able to hold on.

Lean/Likely R.

CD6:

OLD PVI: R+17
NEW PVI: R+13
The 6th district becomes more compact and loses the touch-point in Greensboro. I don't think Coble would actually live here, but he's previously represented all the counties here except Chatham. Though it moves over 8 points to the left, Democrats would still have no reason to contest this seat.

Safe R.

CD7:

OLD PVI: R+6
NEW PVI: R+6
This is all pretty familiar territory for McIntyre. Its similar to his current district, but trades out Pender to the 3rd and takes in all of Sampson. Cumberland county is now only cracked 2-ways, with McIntyre taking most of the non-Fayetteville half.

Safe for McIntyre, Tossup if open.

CD8:

OLD PVI: R+1
NEW PVI: R+3
From an electoral standpoint, the new 8th is now very similar to the state as whole; Obama won here by .3%. The 8th loses its Charlotte hand and adds red Moore county to the east, though it does also expand to take in virtually all of in Fayetteville; overall, these changes push the district towards the GOP. Still, it has a 50.8% D average in state elections, so I think Kissell should be able to hold on relatively easily. Aesthetically, that split of Harnett county kinda annoys me.

Likely D with Kissell, Tossup/Slight D if open.

CD9:

OLD PVI: R+9
NEW PVI: R+13
Like the 5th, my CD9 harkens back to the 1990's. Southern Mecklenburg is still paired with the Charlotte exurbs and is still one of the districts where Democrats perform the worst. I actually got this to zero deviation, which I thought was neatl!

Safe R.

CD10:

OLD PVI: R+17
NEW PVI: R+16
The 10th reaches further into the Piedmont. With the exception of Lincoln, I used whole counties. McHenry doesn't live here, but the majority of this is composed of his current district anyway.

Safe R.

CD11:

OLD PVI: R+6
NEW PVI: R+7
All whole counties! Very minimal change from the current 11th. The district shifts to the right somewhat as it trades moderately-Republican McDowell county and adds the duo of super-red Avery and Mitchell.

Safe D for Shuler, Tossup/Slight R if open.

CD12:

OLD PVI: D+17
NEW PVI: D+12
The 12th is finally a Charlotte-centric district. Other than a handful of precincts in Cabarrus, its entirely in Mecklenburg county. Since it relinquishes heavily D precincts in Greensboro and W-S and replaces them with only moderately D precincts in Charlotte, its PVI drops down a decent amount. A good candidate here when Watt retires would be Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx.

Safe D.

CD13:

OLD PVI: D+6
NEW PVI: D+3
The 13th is now a Raleigh-oriented district and doesn't use touch-point. It takes in almost all of Raleigh proper, the northern half of Wake county and the non-CD1 parts of a few counties to the north. Miller should be okay here, though he'll probably face more competitive races.

Lean/Likely D.


The Nonpartisan Miles Plan only splits 16 counties. Likewise, outside of CD1 (where I pretty much had to crack counties), I only split 7.

In terms of the delegation, this would be 7D-6R.

[Miles]

Thats kinda what I did for my nonpartisan map, which I'll post in a few hours. My court-drawn 12th is based almost entirely in Mecklenburg (with a few precincts from Cabarrus). Incidentally, though, I put W-S and Greensboro in separate districts.

As a resident of the NC-09, I think suburban/exurban Charlotte its own CoI, so I tend to keep southern Mecklenburg together with Gaston and Union.

I do, too, but as the previous map was intended as a gerrymander, CoI's get thrown out the window anyway.

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It's easy to deal with Gaston County- just dump it in the 10th. Union County is harder- it has to go to Kissell. In the version I'm working on at the moment, I compensated for this by pulling Kissell's district out of Cabarrus and Stanly as much as possible.

That actually worked out quite nicely. This is my version of the D gerrymander where I collapsed Myrick's district:



I'll probably fine-tune this map, but here are some numbers:

CD9: 55-44 Obama
CD10: 60-39 McCain
CD8: 51-48 Obama
CD5: 65-34 McCain
CD12: 60.5-39 Obama
CD6: 64-35 McCain

Everything else is the same.

[muon2]

I've updated my CD 1 posted earlier in the thread. It's based on the premise that compactness and county integrity were sufficiently compelling state interests that one didn't need to keep all those tendrils for section 5.

Earlier I had the CD with 8 county splits, and now it's down to 7. It occurred to me that rather than debate whether Durham or Raleigh should be in CD 1, I put both city centers in. That let me cut out many of the outlying city splits and increase compactness. It also creates a better balance between urban and rural areas with Durham and Wake accounting for about a third of the district. The district is cut very tight at 50.04% BVAP.

[traininthedistance]

My best shot at a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC. I'm open to suggestions

The one thing I don't like about this map is that the Triad is split three ways. I tend to believe that fair maps should try and keep metro areas together as much as possible. In fact, I find metro area integrity to more important than county integrity, to be honest.  Urban and suburban Greensboro-Winston Salem is an area that ought to have its own congressional district, but has been cracked by both parties. 

Myrick's district is ugly, but it's a perfect CoI.

[Miles]

My best shot at a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC. I'm open to suggestions

The one thing I don't like about this map is that the Triad is split three ways. I tend to believe that fair maps should try and keep metro areas together as much as possible. In fact, I find metro area integrity to more important than county integrity, to be honest.  Urban and suburban Greensboro-Winston Salem is an area that ought to have its own congressional district, but has been cracked by both parties.  

Myrick's district is ugly, but it's a perfect CoI.

This was my logic with the Triad:

I gave W-S to the 5th, so that 1) the district could be all whole counties and 2) Forsyth could be to the 5th what Buncombe is to the 11th.

As for Guilford, I thought the split there was pretty clean. Greensboro-proper could still have a Democratic Congressman (Price) while the non-Greensboro precincts (collectively a GOP-leaning area) could keep Coble.

There's a lot of precedent for putting Guilford and Forsyth in separate districts; even in the Republican map, Foxx has most of Forsyth, Coble has most of Guilford and Watt's district takes the liberal voters from those counties. Even if you drew all of Forsyth with Greensboro, you'd still probably have to split Guilford.

This was actually my orginial draft of the nonpartisan map:



The court might want to draw that 4th and 6th if they were aiming to create competitive districts; the 4th would be down to 56.5% Obama and the 6th would be very similar to the state as a whole (49.6% Obama, 49.4% McCain). I don't think grouping urban Greensboro with those three rural central counties would be good from a CoI standpoint though.

I agree about the 9th; most people I've talked with from Shelby (in Cleveland county) pretty much consider themselves part of the Charlotte area. So, it makes sense to put them in CD9.

[Miles]

Here's a nonpartisan map that creates a compact Triad district:



First, some partisan numbers from the affected districts:

CD4: 56/43 Obama
CD5: 62/38 McCain
CD6: 59/40 Obama
CD10: 66/33 McCain

The 6th is now the Triad-based seat. While I necessarily had to split Guilford, Forsyth county, Greensboro and High Point are all here.

The 5th recedes some from the VA border and reaches down to grab some mountain counties from the 10th in order to compensate for the loss of Forsyth.  

The 10th is pushed out to become an entirely Piedmont-oriented seat, and the reddest in the state.

Price should have no problems hanging on in the 4th, though he'd need to have a very strong effort there if another 2010-magnitude wave hits.

Foxx would draw the shortest stick, 54% of my 5th comes from McHenry's current 10th and only 40% is from her current 5th. McHenry would be favored in a primary.

Coble would run in the new 10th; the new 6th would be too liberal and he has decades of strength in Randolph, Davidson and Rowan counties.

[traininthedistance]

Here's a nonpartisan map that creates a compact Triad district:

 

Nice, that's very close to my ideal NC map.  I might swap some land between 2 and 13 to put 13 entirely within Wake (and possibly give that little sliver of Durham County which was in 13 to 4 and shift things around acordingly), but other than that I can't think of anything.

[muon2]

My best shot at a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC. I'm open to suggestions

The one thing I don't like about this map is that the Triad is split three ways. I tend to believe that fair maps should try and keep metro areas together as much as possible. In fact, I find metro area integrity to more important than county integrity, to be honest.  Urban and suburban Greensboro-Winston Salem is an area that ought to have its own congressional district, but has been cracked by both parties. 

Myrick's district is ugly, but it's a perfect CoI.

But it's a dangerous ugliness from the perspective of neutral redistricting principles. There was a bit of discussion of this on other threads, and the conclusion, which I now share, is that using a split county to bridge two whole counties in a district opens the door to gerrymandering mischief.

[Miles]

I confined CD13 to Wake and gave that precinct on the edge of Durham to Butterfield.



The updated numbers:

[Miles]

But it's a dangerous ugliness from the perspective of neutral redistricting principles. There was a bit of discussion of this on other threads, and the conclusion, which I now share, is that using a split county to bridge two whole counties in a district opens the door to gerrymandering mischief.

Well, even if CD12 was entirely in Mecklenburg, you'd still have precincts left over that could still use to bridge the eastern and western Charlotte exurbs. It know its not great to look at, but I like that CD9 on CoI grounds.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

From a CoI standpoint, I agree that Greensboro and Winston-Salem should be in the same district. I don't think W-S anchors the rural counties in the northwest in the same way that Asheville anchors the rural counties in the west. I think it makes more sense to have an urban district in the Triad and a completely rural district in the northwest.

I'm working on my version of a nonpartisan map right now.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Here's "Plan A"



I used Huntersville and Cornelius to connect the western Charlotte suburbs to the eastern ones rather than go along the South Carolina border. I think it looks a bit cleaner, and I think they're a better fit (though I'm not really familiar with the precints along the South Carolina border, so I could be wrong here).

I'm not entirely happy with the result. I don't think Lexington and Salisbury belong in NC-5, and I don't like Central North Carolina paired with suburban Raleigh. But I'm not sure what can be done about it.

I still need to do "Plan B," but NC-9 will not exist in that plan in the same form. Gaston County will be put into NC-10.

[Miles]

My comments:

CD1:
Looking good here. Compact and reasonably VRA-compliant. Just from looking at it, I'd say its about 50.5% Black VAP.

CD2:
I agree with your criticism. This is geographically a central NC district, but southern Wake county has to go somewhere too. Maybe give southern Wake to CD4 and take the 2nd into Guilford.

CD3:
I don't really like the idea of putting most of Johnston here. But otherwise, it seems logical.

CD4:
Similar to my CD4.

CD5:
Maybe give Rowan and Davidson to the 10th, like in my map, and make the necessary shifts then.

CD6:
Looks to good to me; Greensboro-proper and High Point are here with all of Forsyth county.

CD7:
The core of this district reminds me of CD3 from the 1980's. The Democrats could be in trouble here when McIntyre retires; though he should be fine, since it adds military-oriented Onslow county and he has a great record on military/veterans issues.

CD8:
Looks like a very Democratic seat; I'm guessing the D average here is 60% or higher. My only compliant is that sliver into Monroe; I think you could give those precincts to the 9th to clean up the border between 8 and 9.

CD9:
I actually like the idea of using Cabarrus to connect Union and Gaston. Good job there.

CD10:
Looks like the current 10th, except cleaner.

CD11:
Same as mine

CD12:
I'm curious to what the Obama % is here. Otherwise, its a very clean, compact district.

CD13:
Very close to mine.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Unfortunately, I accidentally closed the tab before I saved, so I don't have access to the data from the map I drew . Rest assured, however, that NC-1 is over 50% VAP Black. I think the Obama% in NC-12 is well over 60%, as it leaves out some of the most Republican precincts in Mecklenburg County. I copied your NC-11 for the sake of simplicity. I essentially did the same with your NC-1, but I think you may have taken more precincts in Durham than I did because I had to take more rural areas to bring it up to population. I might revisit this map some time in the future to make changes.

I think my biggest weakness in drawing North Carolina maps is that I tend to poorly estimate the population in the central part of the state. I didn't post my Democratic gerrymander because I couldn't confine Coble's Republican vote sink to the central part of the state no matter how hard I tried (trust me, it wasn't pretty). And now in my "impartial" map, I basically forced suburban Raleigh into a central North Carolina district.

In any case, I'll start working on "Plan B" either later tonight or tomorrow.