early look at gerrymanders in 2020

[Nyvin]

Rhode Island losing it's second district is pretty much a guarantee, so that state is a moot point.

Kentucky does have a "keep counties whole when possible" clause in their constitution so I'm not sure KY-3 can be cracked.   Unless they amend the constitution before then obviously.   They have something similar in Nebraska,  but that one is less certain.

In Ohio the GOP *could* crack OH-13 for a 12-3 map, but that is risky for them,  especially if northeast Ohio swings back to the dems in the future.

[Nyvin]

The only state were we can really predict the 2020 maps in Virginia - and that is after the November elections. Then, we will see who controls the Governor and the General Assembly, and what the trendline in the HoD is and can it flip/remain R in time for 2020.

Not necessarily. This time it is a little bit tricky for Democrats in Virginia. There are a few options here:

1. Democrats have to win Gov race both this year and in 2021, ensuring veto power over maps no matter when Republicans do it. Republicans will surely punt the redraw to 2022 if Gillespie loses this year.

or

2. Democrats win a state Senate majority in 2019 and prevent any defections or retirement enticements from the GOP. This allows a veto of a Congressional gerrymander and legislative maps, although a bipartisan gerrymander is a fair bet for the legislative maps.

3. The rarest option - Democrats somehow win a trifecta by 2021 by holding the gov this year and handing heavy losses to the HoD Republicans, winning the state Senate in 2019 and building on HoD gains, and then in 2021 finally win a bare majority while holding the Govs office. Again, this still seems unlikely, even if they get a new HoD map due to the racial gerrymandering lawsuit currently pending.

Either way, the VA Democrats' redistricting situation will not be solved by the 2017 elections alone.

Could the VA GOP really punt the redraw past 2021?   I thought there were laws requiring maps be submitted before the end of 2021.

If nothing else the chances of the VA GOP having a trifecta again for 2020 is almost nil,  with both this year's gov race and the 2019 Senate races...with Trump in the White House to top it off.

[Nyvin]

OH: likely loses a GOP leaning district because rural districts are less populated.

That is incredibly terrible reasoning. Rural districts are just as populated as urban districts. Since Ohio went for Trump by eight points, it would be easy for the GOP to eliminate Tim Ryan's district if the GOP gerrymander stays. But that gerrymander probably won't stay due to the likely victory of an independent redistricting commission extension initiative in 2018.

RealClear Politics says it would be difficult to eliminate GOP seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan; maybe because rural populations are declining more quickly. Tim Ryan's seat includes urban areas like Akron and Youngstown.

Due to their states swinging hard to Trump, it would be incredibly easy for the GOP machines in MI, OH, and PA to eliminate Dan Kildee's, Tim Ryan's, and Matthew Cartwright's districts in 2021. Sadly, a lot of those Obama-Trump voters aren't flipping back, ever. It would have been impossible for the GOP to have done this in 2011, though, as all of these states went for Obama easily.

Youngstown, Flint, Wilkes-Barre are sadly all fast-declining urban areas. That makes the positions of the Dems there even more precarious (except in Ohio, where it is likely nonpartisan redistricting will pass in 2018).

Trump voter=/=House R voter
It would be outrageously foolhardy to draw gerrymanders on that basis, generally. Also, it just screams 'dummymander' to me - Trump won many economically left-wing people in the Rust Belt and to assume they won't ever be won back on presidential level AND they would be reliable House Republican voters is just deeply unwise.

Tim, since when has a dummymander resulted from assuming the congressional vote will resemble the presidential vote, rather than from ignoring the presidential vote and assuming past congressional vote results will always remain? North Carolina has only three Dem districts, and it went for Trump by only four points. Ohio went for Trump by eight points. Surely Ohio can easily afford to lose OH-13 under a GOP gerrymander without it degenerating into a dummymander, and probably OH-09, as well. The majority of Obama-Trump voters were state legislative R voters if a seat was contested, and almost all Obama-Trump voters in GOP-held districts were House R voters.

I understand Romney vote is more strongly predictive of 2017 special election results than Trump vote. That's because presidential election results take time to fully percolate down to the local level. The Arkansas Democratic Party had plenty of fun during the 2000s winning Clinton 96/Bush 2000 voters. Then the 2010s came, and Bush 2000 results all of the sudden became far more predictive of congressional and state legislative vote than in 2006. Matt Cartwright, etc. will survive 2018 easily. But in the 2020s, the current PA-17 will very likely end up R on the House and state legislative level.

They can either get rid of OH-13 or OH-9...not both.    Cleaveland and Akron are too large for just 1 dem vote sink.   OH-9 has a large part of it's population in western Cuyahoga.

But yes, OH-13 is the most likely to go, but the good news is both Cincinnati and Columbus are both looking good for the Democrats in the future

[Nyvin]

Easy GOP gains
Shrink NH-1 away from Carroll/Belknap/Strafford and pick up Nashua suburbs and Salem

If Hogan has a say in MD, just do anything less ridiculous than that abortion of a map they have now

Slice up GA-2

Re-draw lines around Orlando, FL

Slice up TN-5

Slice up KY-3

If Rauner wins re election, eliminate the pie slices radiating out of Chicago

Crack MO-5 between 3 districts

Eliminate the Texas fajita strips, all of the Rio Grande delta can be held in 2 districts, add suburban GOP seats

They'll gain Oregon's 6th no matter what

I don't think the NH GOP would be all for making NH-1 more GOP since that in turn would make NH-2 less competitive.   They probably want to keep both at least somewhat obtainable.   They did draw the districts how they are now in 2011.   Plus taking out the "Dem" parts of Strafford is near impossible, unless you completely bacon-strip the hell out of the district.  

TN-5, MO-5 and most likely OR-6 are probably going to the GOP though if they're free to gerrymander the map (OR-6 due to OR-4 and OR-5 moving north and becoming more Dem, thus leaving the southwest as a GOP district).

They will need to be careful about MO-5 though.

[Nyvin]

Thank you. I'm kinda new to this and i really dont understand the state by state laws of how the VRA has to be applied exactly

The Trumpification of the courts is going to have a big impact. Wouldn't be surprising to see Neil Gorsuch toss this silly Voting Rights Act into history's dustbin.

Should be simple. Equal protection under the law means everyone should be treated the same. No special treatment for certain groups. we should have 435 American districts, not a set number of white, black, asian, hispanic seats. Just American

The VRA attempts to get everyone treated equal....without it white legislatures draw minorities out of representation, or uses voter suppression to achieve that.   See Pre-VRA days.

[Nyvin]

We really don't have any idea what the state legislatures will look like either at this point.

[Nyvin]

Also in Illinois, it's much more likely the dems draw IL-6 as a dem seat,  it's pretty easy to do using 2016 numbers.

[Nyvin]

Illinois will have 17 districts in 2022.

[Nyvin]

Even if they do put odd hooks and extensions into Jefferson and move KY-3 eastward...the eastern part of Jefferson is trending D pretty fast (one of the extreme few places in Kentucky doing so...).   

I don't believe the state constitution would allow the county to be divided between 2 or more districts without having a district entirely within it's borders.

[Nyvin]

Some other interesting seats might be KS-3, NE-2, and OK-5.

[Nyvin]

I'd make the argument that if Democrats did gerrymander the CA map in 2010, they would've been better off with a fair one in 2016...fully 7 R-held districts are only marginally Republican (one is fully lean Dem) with only 7 R vote sinks.

Meanwhile the Democrats really only hold 4 marginal seats with all other 35 being pretty safe.

If they originally gerrymandered Ed Royce, Jeff Denham, and Steve Knight as "vote sinks" then those gerrymanders are basically doing nothing but protecting them now.

In other words - If California has a Dem Gerrymander, it turned out to be a dummymander.

[Nyvin]

It's funny how it's only Dem or swing states that are enacting indy/bipartisan commissions for redistricting.   You really don't see any movement at all on this for Republican states.

[Nyvin]

So here's the 5-1 Oregon map I drew on AAD. It's not perfect of course since it uses the last Census numbers but it's a good rough outline:

Trump probably didn't break 40% in any of the districts in the Portland area.

Looks good, but probably wouldn't work with Oregon state law.