North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Tekken_Guy]

For the legislative maps I think Republicans are favored to maintain the supermajority in the senate at least, but the house is a toss-up.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Both those congressional maps are disgusting. You can make an equally effective 11-3 map that doesn’t have districts hyper-extending across large swaths of the state. There are just so many unnecessary weird pairings.

[Sol]

Both those congressional maps are disgusting. You can make an equally effective 11-3 map that doesn’t have districts hyper-extending across large swaths of the state. There are just so many unnecessary weird pairings.

They're trying to minimize tail risk, which is why you get stuff like Wake to Carteret or the split of Fayetteville. Very much in the "TXGOP drawing a hideous gerrymander to scoop out Denton" school of map drawing.

[Spectator]

How long til Jeff Jackson and the rest of the drawn out people decide to run for statewide office

[Stuart98]

I thought 4 on the Durham-Black Belt map looked like a dummymander but opened it on DRA and the parts of Wake it has aren't blue enough or trending blue enough. Both maps are probably 11-3 the whole decade.

What do we think, is this hypothetical 50.3% BVAP district sufficiently compact for Gingles to apply? If so, any map that doesn't have a likely/safe D black belt seat seems like it should get struck down.

How long til Jeff Jackson and the rest of the drawn out people decide to run for statewide office

Jackson's already doing that, he's running for Attorney General IIRC.

[Nyvin]

Isn't the way that SD-1 and SD-2 drawn an easy Section 2 VRA violation?   That area would be so easy to consolidate into one black majority district and there's no reason whatsoever to go down the coast like that.   Even the county groupings aren't needed in that manner.

[Roll Roons]

How long til Jeff Jackson and the rest of the drawn out people decide to run for statewide office

Jackson will almost certainly run for AG next year. Idk about the others.

[Tekken_Guy]

How long til Jeff Jackson and the rest of the drawn out people decide to run for statewide office

Jackson will almost certainly run for AG next year. Idk about the others.

Davis has a shot in an 11-3-1, and Nickel could run against Ross or Foushee in a primary.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Yeah, these were about what I expected.

Your move, New York and Wisconsin.

[Roll Roons]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

[Sol]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

[Roll Roons]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

Woof. These maps are disgusting and I don't support gerrymandering regardless of which party does it, but it's very hard for me to feel bad here.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My thoguhts:

Map 1 (the 10-1-3 map) def seems more secure overall with seats seeming to be around 57% Trump on 2020 Pres numbers. On this map, the NC GOP did a good job at making all districts geopolitically diverse, which makes strong swings in either direction harder so this map should be secure for the decade. NC-11 is a liability if you're a believer in Ashville and other liberal pockets continuing to grow their influence. NC-09 could also be a liability, only because it's "only" Trump + 14 and should start to get rapid spillover from Greensboro over the course of the decade, and a bit from Raliegh, but it should be fine. There are a few things that seem inefficient or unnecessary in the gerrymander, which pisses me off a bit.

Map 2 (the 11-3 map) is a bit riskier, with most of the R seats only being around 55-56% Trump. This map truly aims to be a maximal gerrymander with very very aggressive political sorting, and all the Republican districts stretching over very large geopolitically diverse areas. Interesting they kept the 2010s version of NC-09, which was quite effective with Republican gains in the rural parts cancelling out D gains in Charlotte.

Overall disgusting maps though. Not only are they gerrymanders, but they are very precise but there are also ways to make equally effective gerrymander maps that are more compact and whatnot.

[Sorenroy]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

Woof. These maps are disgusting and I don't support gerrymandering regardless of which party does it, but it's very hard for me to feel bad here.

The work that Cooper did in 1997 was a compromise with Republicans giving the governor veto power. Vetos on maps weren't taken away, they were never granted to the governor to begin with.

Either way, to say you don't feel bad because an action was taken 26 years ago is silly. There are people who were born and have lived there whole lives in North Carolina since that bill was passed. They had no say in Cooper's actions at the time, even indirectly through voting.

[Tekken_Guy]

Democrats do have an opportunity to break the NC Supermajority in 2024, though it won’t be easy.

In the Senate, Trump won 31 seats, one more than what is needed for a supermajority, and Budd won the same 31. There are two plausible pickup opportunities for Democrats:
- SD-11, held by Lisa Stone Barnes, is a seat based in rural areas north of Raleigh, stretching from Henderson to Rocky Mount. Trump only won it by a point, but that’s an underperformance from 2016 when Clinton narrowly carried it, and Budd won it by 6. Don Davis only lost it by 3, though. With better black turnout, Democrats will have better opportunities to win here, but Barnes starts out as a favorite.
- SD-07, held by Michael Lee, is based in New Hanover county. It is Trump+5, an improvement for Rs from its Biden-won incarnations of the past, but it was Trump+12 in 2016 and is quickly Democratic-trending. Budd only won it by 4 (though Rouzer carried it pretty easily), and there’s a chance Biden carries it next year. Lee is favored but on a good night for Democrats, he could go down.

Republicans, meanwhile have three potential pickup opportunities.
- Republicans’ best pickup opportunity is SD-18, a seat in northern Wake County held by Mary Willis Bode, which Trump won by 2 points and Budd by 1, but left trending from its Trump+6 2016 result. Bode is more vulnerable now than in her Biden-won current seat, but she’s far from an underdog.
- SD-13, in south Wake County, is held by Sydney Batch. Biden only won it by 2 points, but Beasley won it by 4 and Nickel by 6. She starts out as a favorite.
- SD-42 in South Mecklenburg is open because Rachel Hunt is running for Lt. Governor. Biden won it by 6, but Beasley carried it by just 5, and some of the Supreme Court Republicans came close to winning it. Dems are favored here.


Now in the house, Democrats have better odds at breaking the supermajority. Trump won 70 seats on the map, two shy of a supermajority, but Budd won three additional seats to have a one-seat buffer, while not losing any of the Trump seats. The three Biden-Budd seats, all represented by freshman Republicans, are:
- HD-05, stretching from Elizabeth City to Winston, is represented by Bill Ward. Biden won it by 0.2, but Budd by 6. Better black turnout could give Ward a tougher race than he had in 2022.
- HD-24, based in Wilson County, is represented by Ken Fontenot. Biden won it by a point, but Budd carried it by 5. Like Ward, heightened black turnout is the key to taking out Fontenot.
- HD-25, based in Nash County, is represented by Allen Chester. It voted for Biden by 2 and Budd by 5, and Chesser’s fate is, once again, dependent on black turnout.

There are also two Republicans defending Biden-Beasley seats:
- HD-32, represented by Frank Sossamon, takes in parts of Henderson and Granville counties. It voted for Biden by 5 but Budd only lost it by 0.3. Sossamon will have a tougher election than the Biden-Budd trio but he’s not out of the running entirely.
- HD-98, in northern Mecklenburg County, is represented by John Bradford, who is retiring to run for Treasurer. Biden won it by 1 and Beasley by 2. Without Bradford, Democrats may be in better shape to win this seat than they were in the past.

Vulnerable Republicans in Trump-Budd seats include:
- HD-37 in southern Wake County, held by Erin Pare. Trump won it by 7, but Budd by just 4. Pare is running for congress so this open seat will be attractive to Democrats.
- HD-105 in southern Mecklenburg county, held by party-switcher Tricia Cotham. Trump won it by 2 and Budd by 1.4, and it is rapidly left-trending.

Vulnerable Democrats include:
- HD-35 in northern Wake County, held by Terrence Everitt, which is Trump+5 and Budd+3. Biden could win it next year, which could be a boon to Everitt’s chances.
- HD-48 in Hoke and Scotland Counties, held by Garland Pierce. Biden won it by 6, but Beasley by 4, though black turnout will probably be better in 2024.
- HD-54 in Chatham and Randolph counties, held by Minority Leader Robert Reives. Biden only won it by 2, but Beasley by 6. He should be favored.
- HD-73 in Cabarrus County, held by Diamond Staton Williams. Trump won it by 8 and Budd by 11. This is a likely flip, though it is trending Democratic.
- HD-116 in Buncombe County, held by Caleb Rudow. Went from Trump+8 to Budd+3, and Rudow has a decent chance at holding on.

[Bush did 311]

No democratic voter in this state supports gerrymandering. We have been hostages to it our whole lives, one way or another.

I am pretty furious at NC dems for not passing through independent commissions when the writing was clearly on the wall. A ballot initiative in the early 00's would've completely changed the state's trajectory.

[Stuart98]

No democratic voter in this state supports gerrymandering. We have been hostages to it our whole lives, one way or another.

I am pretty furious at NC dems for not passing through independent commissions when the writing was clearly on the wall. A ballot initiative in the early 00's would've completely changed the state's trajectory.

I don't agree that the writing was on the wall. The state went blue presidentially in '08 for the first time since 1976 (with Obama improving on Kerry's performance in 91/100 counties) and Democrats held the state legislature for the entire decade until 2010. Unlike a few other state legislatures at the time (Hello Arkansas!), I don't think they're to blame for not seeing the rural collapse and the resulting ramifications until it hit them in the face.

[ProgressiveModerate]

No democratic voter in this state supports gerrymandering. We have been hostages to it our whole lives, one way or another.

I am pretty furious at NC dems for not passing through independent commissions when the writing was clearly on the wall. A ballot initiative in the early 00's would've completely changed the state's trajectory.

I don't agree that the writing was on the wall. The state went blue presidentially in '08 for the first time since 1976 (with Obama improving on Kerry's performance in 91/100 counties) and Democrats held the state legislature for the entire decade until 2010. Unlike a few other state legislatures at the time (Hello Arkansas!), I don't think they're to blame for not seeing the rural collapse and the resulting ramifications until it hit them in the face.

I think of it as somewhat simillar to Dems being caught offguard by Trump's 2016 win; in hindsight it's easy to look back at the election and say Dems should've invested more in the rust belt and what not, but at the time most folks saw MI and WI as genuine lean/likely Dem states, especially after Obama's solid 2012 performance.

The 2008 elections were very good for NC Dems, both federally and at the state level, and many pundits believed NC-Dems had developed some sort of long term NC majority combining a strong black vote, white working class vote, and growing liberal cities vote. People were then blind-sighted when these working class communities shifted hard right somewhat permanently, and NC never really came back to Dems at any point throughout the 2010s.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I thought 4 on the Durham-Black Belt map looked like a dummymander but opened it on DRA and the parts of Wake it has aren't blue enough or trending blue enough. Both maps are probably 11-3 the whole decade.

What do we think, is this hypothetical 50.3% BVAP district sufficiently compact for Gingles to apply? If so, any map that doesn't have a likely/safe D black belt seat seems like it should get struck down.

How long til Jeff Jackson and the rest of the drawn out people decide to run for statewide office

Jackson's already doing that, he's running for Attorney General IIRC.

Imo, probably for a court. Given that in AL, the only way to achieve a somewhat reasonable 2nd black district was to dip down and grab Mobile and that was considered acceptable, this would probably be so too. A big difference however is your map has a ton of County chops which may be problematic - courts tend to be skeptical of excessive county chopping.

Also even if NC-01 did get struck down, there's a good chance a replacement court map would only fix that part of the gerrymander and you're still stuck with an 10R-4D map.

Honestly, this is why map 1 (the true 11-3 map) might be better for Rs from a legal standpoint; there district 1 is ~40% black and should probably be pretty good about sending a black Dem to congress (or at least have black voters get a majority block in the D primary).

In the other map (10-1-3), none of the safe Dem districts would let blacks have a majority influence in the D primary, and NC-01 which actually would let blacks have their candidate of choice in a D primary is competitive in a GE.

[ProgressiveModerate]

For map 2, District 13 really doesn't look like a Trump + 17 district just eyeballing it. I think I forget how red Johnston County is, and that basically all the Wake suburbs it takes in went for Trump in 2020.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/UniteCarolina/status/1714810438024638786

[Vosem]

The Supreme Court has already ruled that there is not a VRA-protected congressional seat in northeastern North Carolina, because a black-majority seat would not be compact enough, back in 2017, and in fact that part of the opinion was literally unanimous. The area has not gotten more black since then; nor has the size of North Carolina congressional districts shrunk.

This is not to say that the state Senate proposals are legal -- I think I actually agree that if the Milligan precedent is applied consistently they are probably not. Right now it isn't being applied very consistently at all, though -- the Michigan state Senate map is much more clearly in violation, for instance. I also question how long Milligan will really remain a thing, both given the specifics of Kavanaugh's concurrence and that there will inevitably be disputes over it creating logical impossibilities in some areas.*

*Milligan says that, where it is possible to draw a "compact"** seat with a majority population for a particular minority racial group, a performing seat which would elect the candidate of their choice must be drawn. (It does not itself need to have a majority for that group). However, in Dallas/Fort Worth, this creates a logical impossibility, because it is pretty easy to draw a compact Hispanic-majority seat but it is very hard -- I think impossible -- to create a performing seat on account of low turnout. That's the only one I'm certain about, but I suspect others exist, too.

**What does this mean? Your guess is good as mine! Mobile-to-the-Black-Belt is compact, but rural northeastern North Carolina with tendrils to black parts of cities is not (neither is Charlotte-to-Greensboro, and neither is Jacksonville-to-Sanford-to-Orlando). Beyond that, in many places we have to guess, although in some it's pretty obvious.

[Gass3268]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

Woof. These maps are disgusting and I don't support gerrymandering regardless of which party does it, but it's very hard for me to feel bad here.

They didn’t take away the veto power, it’s just when they added the power they explicitly made redistricting exempt.

[Sol]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

Woof. These maps are disgusting and I don't support gerrymandering regardless of which party does it, but it's very hard for me to feel bad here.

They didn’t take away the veto power, it’s just when they added the power they explicitly made redistricting exempt.

That doesn't really make it any better; it was still intended as a little trick to weaken the other party, since North Carolina Republicans had managed to win governor's seats plenty of times in the late 20th century, but were seen as having no shot at winning the legislature. It's the same kind of stuff that NCGOP does now.

That doesn't mean that any party should be screwed over in this way, which is why I care a lot about this issue, but you can't deny that certain elements of NC Republican misrule are just photo negative versions of how NC Democrats used to govern.

[Mr.Phips]

Btw, didn't NC Democrats screw themselves sometime in the 90s or 2000s by taking away the governor's power to veto maps?

Not only did they do that, it was arranged by Roy Cooper.

Woof. These maps are disgusting and I don't support gerrymandering regardless of which party does it, but it's very hard for me to feel bad here.

They didn’t take away the veto power, it’s just when they added the power they explicitly made redistricting exempt.

That doesn't really make it any better; it was still intended as a little trick to weaken the other party, since North Carolina Republicans had managed to win governor's seats plenty of times in the late 20th century, but were seen as having no shot at winning the legislature. It's the same kind of stuff that NCGOP does now.

That doesn't mean that any party should be screwed over in this way, which is why I care a lot about this issue, but you can't deny that certain elements of NC Republican misrule are just photo negative versions of how NC Democrats used to govern.

I don't understand how Democrats thought they would have no shot at losing the legislature, given that they lost the state House in 1994 and 1996 and only had a 5 seat majority in the Senate in the mid 1990s.  Also, Dole and Bush almost certainly won a majority of seats in both houses of the legislature.  Even if they screwed this up, they had a chance to rectify it by putting independent redistricting on the ballot in 2010 (they controlled the legislature and could have voted to put it on the ballot via their majorities) when polls ACTUALLY SHOWED THEM LOSING THE MAJORITIES IN BOTH CHAMBERS OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE.