US House Redistricting: Mississippi

[Miles]

With the 2008 data uploaded in DRA, here's a mild Democratic gerrymander:



MS-01: This would be friendlier to Childers. It sheds some GOP-leaning central counties and grabs some heavily-black counties from Thompson and Harper. It moves from 62/37 McCain to a more manageable 55/44 McCain.
There's a good chance Childers could have held this seat last year. If I recall, he lost by about 13 points; this district actually swings 14% towards Obama.

MS-02: Thompson takes a hit to weaken Nunnlee. Its now 56% black, down from 63%. At 61/38 Obama, still Safe D.

MS-03: Other than 4 new counties from MS-01 and taking more chunks from MS-04, pretty much the same. Its McCain % goes up by 4 to pack Republicans. Its now 65/34 McCain up from 61/38.


MS-04: There wasn't much I could to help Taylor in a possible rematch other than giving him familiar territory. Virtually no change; 67/32 McCain.

[Miles]

Here we go:



This court drawn map is a minimal-change plan.

[Miles]

Well, numerically speaking, its pretty minimal-change.



CD1- 62/37 McCain (62/38)
CD2- 64/35 Obama (66/33)
CD3- 61/38 McCain (61/38)
CD4- 68/31 McCain (67/32)

[Miles]

The amount of changes beyond the minimum necessary to equalize the populations of the four districts may indeed be very small. But,  wasn't keeping "communities of interest" suppose to be standard?

Under that standard, why not have the delta district extend down the entire delta?

I've wondered that too. Both Adams and Wilkinon counties are geographically and politically similar to MS-02 as a whole.

[Miles]

This would be the "delta district":



MS-02 ans MS-03 each move about 1 point more towards Obama and McCain, respectively.

I basically traded Adams and Wilkinson for Leake and Attala. I also moved around a few precincts in the Jackson area.

[Miles]

If you look at a Mississippi house districts map, your eyes will bleed.

Yikes.

It is quite a bit to take in.

[Miles]

In case anyone cares, the redistricting map for the Mississippi House has been released, and as expected, it targets white Democrats by increasing black majority districts:

Of course...there's an unholy alliance in the south between black Democrats and Republicans.

[Miles]

In case anyone cares, the redistricting map for the Mississippi House has been released, and as expected, it targets white Democrats by increasing black majority districts:

Of course...there's an unholy alliance in the south between black Democrats and Republicans.

Not as common as it's made out to be, fwiw. More often, the black democrats are uninvolved bystanders who coincidentally benefit from Republican mapmakers because it's convenient to make the legally-required VRA districts to be the Dem-packed districts their gerrymander needs.

The only time actual collusion happened in the Georgia Assembly was in the creation of the maps used 92-94; once they saw the electoral aftermath, the leaders of the black caucus were very apologetic to the rest of the party.

Yeah, the blacks in Georgia were pretty good during this cycle. I think one of the black Democratic leaders in the Assembly threatened to support primary challengers to any Democrats who voted for the GOP maps.