US House Redistricting: North Carolina

[krazen1211]

There are some leftists already talking about primarying McIntyre over his promise to vote for HCR repeal. If you throw him in a 60% Obama district, hopefully he party switches and runs in Kissell's district.

I personally think Johnny has nailed it, though.

[krazen1211]

Where does Shuler live? Is it possible to throw him into a 57% McCain district with an R incumbent?

Since he's in the corner of the state, I think he'll just run i whatever the corner district is.

He's pretty much invincible there in my view. You can put him in an R+10 district, but I think the GOP has to wait him out until he runs for Governor.

[krazen1211]

Johnny's little mappie is so good I think, that I am going to abandon my plan to work on NC next, and just sign off on his map. I think it is a wrap.  He hit all the right bases, each and every one. Well done Johnny! 

So what should I do next I wonder?  Maybe I will do a brief swing by Maryland, to see just how realistic it is for the Dems to ax a Pubbie. I tend to doubt that it is much, but I guess it is time to find out. And then maybe I will look at the liquidate Cooper's Nashville CD game in TN, to see how attractive I think that is. After that SC or IN  I guess, unless Johnny or somebody has drawn maps there that look in finished form to me.

Hmm? It actually seems really easy for the Dems to axe both pubbies.

Frank Kratovil overperforms on the Eastern Shore, so you run MD-1 into PG County.

Roscoe Bartlett is over 80. Run him into Montgomery and he'll probably retire.

[krazen1211]

Thanks for the kind words. Usually I just get my maps picked apart.

I did one for Indiana, but I'm not about to get out the Excel spreadsheet to try and calculate the percentages. I haven't attempted South Carolina yet. Maryland would be a lot safer as a 7-1 map than an 8-0 map; Obama overperformed there in 2008, so diluting the districts (particularly MD-02) could backfire. Though there's nothing approaching a bench there for the Republicans.

That last point is why I figure they go for it.

If either Bartlett or Harris were strong incumbents, you pack that district and be done with it.

[krazen1211]

My NC map. Johnny's is probably better, but I wanted to avoid taking the 12th to Greensboro.

Every district is 56%+. Foxx and McHenry have 59% districts.

[krazen1211]

There are some leftists already talking about primarying McIntyre over his promise to vote for HCR repeal. If you throw him in a 60% Obama district, hopefully he party switches and runs in Kissell's district.

I personally think Johnny has nailed it, though.

Wouldn't this argue for leaving McIntyre's district at roughly even?  If he gets primaried in a 60% Obama district, you get 4 liberals rather than 3, but if he gets primaried in a <50% Obama district (which is less likely) then the GOP has a pretty good shot of picking up the seat.  

Well, then 3 districts (whomever beats Kissell, Ellmers, and Jones) are all weaker.


Honestly, with 240 Republicans, it really doesn't matter whether the Democrats are liberal or 'moderate'.

[krazen1211]

Johnny's little mappie is so good I think, that I am going to abandon my plan to work on NC next, and just sign off on his map. I think it is a wrap.  He hit all the right bases, each and every one. Well done Johnny!  

So what should I do next I wonder?  Maybe I will do a brief swing by Maryland, to see just how realistic it is for the Dems to ax a Pubbie. I tend to doubt that it is much, but I guess it is time to find out. And then maybe I will look at the liquidate Cooper's Nashville CD game in TN, to see how attractive I think that is. After that SC or IN  I guess, unless Johnny or somebody has drawn maps there that look in finished form to me.

Hmm? It actually seems really easy for the Dems to axe both pubbies.

Frank Kratovil overperforms on the Eastern Shore, so you run MD-1 into PG County.

Roscoe Bartlett is over 80. Run him into Montgomery and he'll probably retire.

Well having played with the MD map a bit, I think the best the Dems can expect to do is make one of the 2 Pubbie CD's marginal, and they may not get even that far (I got down to making MD-06 a 50% McCain district, before things started getting messy), and to get to even that point,  MD-08 had to take in Annapolis and part of the Eastern Shore, so things are starting to get really bizarre. Is Van Hollen really going to want that done with his CD, particularly given that he is a partisan high profile Dem assigned to be one of their chief attack dogs, and political strategists, when it won't really in all likelihood knock off another Pubbie anyway?  I suspect not. So I am going to keep MD at no change on my redistricting score card list for the present.  I might change my mind; I doubt it, but I might. I will work on it a bit more, and put up a map at some point.

Basically only MD-08  has a significant excess of useable Dems to attack one of the Pubbie CD's, and that means attacking MD-06, and not MD-01, given where MD-08 is. The two black CD's cannot have their black percentages diluted down much, and in addition, in MD-05 the blacks will not want their 35% percentage diluted down much as well (and Hoyer needs most of  them anyway to keep his CD in the safe zone). The blacks have a veto power on redistricting in MD, basically.

Hoyer's MD-05 is only about a a Dem +8.5% PVI or so CD (so not much to give there, maybe a little, but not much, and again the blacks there are not going to want much of a dilution, since they may see that CD in their future (this is a high black increase zone), and MD-2 and MD-03 are only about Dem PVI +5.5 and 5.0, respectively (and therefore have nothing to give really).

Oh yes, for Bush 2004, MD-06 has a GOP PVI of +13%, and MD-01 is +11% GOP PVI.  So both have a lot of Pubbies to drain off and pack and move. MD-08 had a Dem PVI of 17.5%. So using just MD-08 alone, to get MD-06 down to an even PVI, means basically that MD-08 has to move 13 of its 17.5 Dem PVI points over to MD-06 to get MD-06 down to even, leaving MD-08 at just Dem +4.5 PVI. Van Hollen is just not going to allowing his Dem PVI to get down that low (and that reminds me, that I need to check where Van Hollen lives). Now to get MD-06  down to a GOP PVI of say +4% GOP PVI, I did not use MD-08 alone, but it was mostly MD-08, and as I say, at that point, the map started to get really ugly. That is when I decided to take a break.

This is my first really quick attempt at it. I'll post about it more in the Maryland thread.




Kratovil's 1st is 52% Obama.
2nd and 3rd are 59% Obama.
The more important 5th and 8th are 63% Obama.
Roscoe Bartlett's 6th is 55% Obama, and he doesn't live here anyway. At least I don't think he does. It's not too hard to work his house into Van Hollen's district.


Black districts are 51% black.

[krazen1211]

Oh dear. My rule of thumb is that you have to get up to 53% black to be confident that you are up to 50% black VAP. 51% won't cut it. Thanks for the comparison Muon2.

The current NC-01 is only 50.7% black, so I don't think maintaining 51% will engender a successful challenge.

It's easy to bump up NC-01. Just dump it into both Raleigh and Durham.

[krazen1211]

A slightly different NC take with some new census figures. 9-4, drawn with the 2010 population totals.




NC-01 is 50.2% black. I really don't like these kinds of districts.

The purple CD-8 is sort of incoherent, but its mostly a 'leftovers' district.

CD-13 is obliterated and relocated; it's meant to be a Research Triangle vote sink in the fastest growing areas of the state that conveniently includes McIntyre's home.

CD-2 salvages the Republican areas of Wake County; I think it's safe to include them here for the next 10 years.

[krazen1211]

The district has to stay at least plurality black I would imagine. Besides that, it's convenient vote sink for various Democratic votes, so that's another reason it won't be tinkered with.

Actually, its the closest black-majority (or previously black-majority) district in the Country.  The dems did a good job in 2001 of creating this district.

Though in all honesty, getting it up past 50% won't be hard.  Durham and Raleigh both have plenty of Black voters the GOP would love to shove in that district, as it will shore up NC-2, and allow NC-4 to take more of the Liberal white parts of Raleigh from NC-13.

The 1st district as it exists should be mostly dissolved. A few counties can remain, but you don't need all those random tendrils all across eastern NC.

[krazen1211]

No source, but:

McHenry claims to be going for 9-4.

Butterfield into Raleigh, Pack Watt, stretch Price into the Triad, and something in Fayetteville.

Perhaps like this.

[krazen1211]

Politico writeup.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54244.html


“Republicans should pick up three seats under any fair and legal map,” McHenry said. “That is huge. No other states in the nation would gain as many Republican seats. This would be in a state that Barack Obama won in 2008 and where we have had a Democratic governor since 1992 — the longest such period in the nation. A 9-4 delegation is pretty good and would attempt to avoid the risk of a bad year for Republicans. Clearly, Reps. Kissell and Miller are serving their final term.”

[krazen1211]

I agree with the count but not the allocation. The Roanoke Rapids area isn't even close to big enough to sustain a seat, and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill is too big, but either way you get 2 seats there.

My map opens up the idea for a WS/Greensboro seat next decade. In 2020 there will be enough Democrats in Charlotte to fill a seat, so even if McHenry can get that Mucho guy to preserve the I-85 (which satisfies his goal of splitting Mecklenberg 2 ways rather than 3, anyway), this is probably its last dance.

[krazen1211]

Is it really worth snaking Watt's district up to the Triad if it's only going to take in Winston-Salem? Some of those voting districts you're sending it through have a lot of GOP votes in them.  

Also, I don't know how blue your McIntyre district is, but I think it's worth making sure that he is safe from being primaried (or that, if he is, the Republicans have a shot at the seat).  He's been a pretty good Dem to have around, in terms of voting record.  

ETA: And surely Foxx's district can be unpacked a little more... the way you have it, it seems almost stronger GOP than it is now.  

Under any 9-4 configuration the 4th district ends up being about 58-60% Obama, once you do an uberpack of the first 3 to 70%+. This held to be true regardless of whether district 4 was placed in WS/Greensboro/High Point, or sitting solely in Bladen/Robeson/Hoke/Cumberland area, or the Wake County to Robeson configuration I plopped down there.

The reason I drew that peach 13th is that Wake is growing faster than the other areas. Any incoming liberal growth is likely to plop down there rather than a GOP district. McIntyre has a safe enough base in Robeson/Cumberland that I think he'll be OK; he can't win the grey 7th.

The I-85 is worth it because its sucking up black 95% precincts at its destination. Watt's 12th sucks up all of Kissell and Mynick's current Dem precincts but still has room to spare. So you might as well keep the Democrats' configuration.

Didn't see much I could do with Foxx's district there, so I just kind of left it in that corner.

[krazen1211]

Safe enough to protect him from a primary challenge from Brad Miller? That district gives him by far the best shot at staying in Congress.

Should be. All of Brad Miller's current areas are in the red (Price) and blue (Butterfield) districts. He doesn't have any territory in that peach district, and the peach portion of Wake County there is only 50-55% Obama territory anyway.

That peach district is of course fairly incoherent, and I'm sure there would be some regional strife between the Robeson County areas and the Wake County area. But I think the former has more people and more Democrats.

[krazen1211]

What is all of this "fairness" chat about in the context of one party having control of drawing the lines? When that happens you gerrymander in this day and age (unless you are Mitch Daniels in Indiana who likes to play Mr. Nice Guy).

Based off McHenry's hackish as all hell comments.  Basically according to McHenry, if its an extreme GOP Gerrymander its a "fair" map, and if its anything other than a heavy GOP gerrymander, its not fair.

That's actually based off a century of Democratic history. Fair map was what they said was a fair map.

[krazen1211]

North Carolina house/senate maps partially released.

http://www.ncleg.net/gis/randr07/District_Plans/PlanPage_DB_2011.asp?Plan=Lewis_VRA_House_Districts&Body=House

http://www.ncleg.net/gis/randr07/District_Plans/PlanPage_DB_2011.asp?Plan=Rucho_Senate_VRA_Districts&Body=Senate


Odd how they chose to only release the VRA districts. Oh well, those are just about all of the Dem districts outside of a handful of white liberals in the triangle.

[krazen1211]

Wouldn't there also be a white dem sink in Ashville?

Could be. Not surprisingly, the Democrats are taking a different position in NC that they took in Nevada, Texas, or South Carolina.

http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/06/19/1102694?sac=Home

[krazen1211]

Going for 10-3.


http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/news/article/republicans-try-to-even-the-score-with-new-north-carolina-lines

In re-drawing the lines, GOP state legislators made some rock solid Republican congressional districts less secure, though all ten of the districts that Republicans expect to win sooner or later gave Republican presidential nominee John McCain at least 55 percent of the vote in 2008.


Foxx, Coble, McHenry, Jones - 55-56% McCain

Miller - 55.7% McCain

Ellmers - 55.5% McCain

Kissell - 55.3% McCain

Shuler - 58% McCain

McIntyre - 55.3% McCain

Mynick - ?

[krazen1211]

Hot stuff.

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gis/randr07/District_Plans/PlanPage_DB_2011.asp?Plan=Rucho-Lewis_Congress_1&Body=Congress

[krazen1211]

Hagan/Dole  Perdue/McCrory
1 70-29 71-27
2 46-51 45-52
3 47-51 54-44
4 70-27 66-30
5 46-51 44-53
6 48-48 45-52  Dole won by .4
7 50-46 51-45
8 48-48 45-53 Hagan won by .2
9 45-51 31-67
10 47-49 41-56
11 45-51 45-51
12 78-20 73-25
13 47-50 45-41



They definitely did no worse than the existing map.

[krazen1211]

They definitely did no worse than the existing map.

The existing map has a 4th district that reflects a sensible community of interest. It doesn't stretch all the way to Fayetteville for partisan gain.

The existing map only splits Wake County three ways, which is bad enough. The Republican map splits it four ways.

The existing map only splits Forsyth County two ways, and only to accomodate the VRA district. The Republican map splits it three ways.

The existing map leaves the city of Asheville intact. The Republican map splits it for partisan gain.

The existing map leaves Harnett County intact. The Republican map splits it three ways for partisan gain and to prevent an Etheridge comeback.

The existing map splits Rowan and Davidson Counties only two ways. The Republican map splits them three ways.

Furthermore, the Republican map also seems to keep the most egregious splits from the existing map:
          -Three-way split of Cumberland County? Check.
          -Three-way split of Guilford County? Check, although at least they got rid of the touch-point contiguity, I think. The 12th looks pretty damn narrow there.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that the existing map is fair. It is definitely a Democratic gerrymander. But this map takes gerrymandering to a whole new level.

There were other splits that were undone that you forgot to mention.

The existing map splits Mecklenberg, and I think even Charlotte, 3 ways. This map splits them 2 ways.

The existing map dives CD-1 all the way down to Craven County as well as other numerous tentacles. The new map shrinks and eliminates the tentacles.

The existing map splits Raleigh between 3 Congressional districts. Looking at the new map, it appears to split Raleigh only 2 ways.

The existing map splits Rutherford and Gaston County. The new map does not.

[krazen1211]

There were other splits that were undone that you forgot to mention.

The existing map splits Mecklenberg, and I think even Charlotte, 3 ways. This map splits them 2 ways.

NC-08 looks like it still retains some precincts in southeastern Mecklenburg.

Ah I see that based on the pdf. It's kind of covered by the 12 in the map.

Some of the splits should definitely be eliminated.

[krazen1211]

Wow, this is even worse than I thought, both in terms of partisanship and aesthetics. NC-4 could still easily have been a vote sink while staying in the Triangle.

krazen, where are you getting the Dole/Hagan/Perdue/McCrory numbers for the current map--some look surprising.

Those are for the new map, not the current one. Hagan won 5 districts total; she won 7 and 8 while Obama lost both.

[krazen1211]

Mecklenburg has already been addressed.

The new map does indeed shrink NC-01's tentacles, but at the expense of an additional split in Wake County.

I can't really tell about the city of Raleigh just from the map.

The existing map does indeed split Rutherford and Gaston Counties where the new map does not, but now you're splitting hairs. There will (in most states) always be split counties, if only to conform to population equality, which is why I avoided criticizing the counties that are split only two ways in the new map. If the existing splits in Rutherford and Gaston Counties are fair game, then I can bring up the new map's splits in Catawba, Randolph, Lee, Orange, Durham, Franklin, Robeson, Martin, Chowan, Perquimans, and Pasquotank Counties.

For population balance, 1 county must be split between any 2 districts. We know this from the Michigan standards. But that's not what's happening here or with the current map; often times 2 districts share numerous borders in order to engage in partisan gerrymandering.

Sampson County, on the current map, has no compelling reason to be split. Yet it is!

The real question is the total number of splits, which will require additional counting. As it stands I believe 65 counties are unsplit on the new map. I will tell you though that Catawba (this one looked curious, so I looked it up), only seems to have population in 1 district per the pdfs, so the map is misleading.