Talk Elections

This has nothing to do with Md, but I opposed extreme gerrymandering consistently such as NC, OH and PA.. and crafted alternates that would be fairer.. example:

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Less ugly? Yes. Fairer. Not by a long shot.

Fairer because Wake and Mecklenberg each have their own CD, and the dems would have a slight edge in the Wake seat

I'll give you that, perhaps, but:

1. Buncombe County is needlessly split for partisan gain, and
2. Greensboro is attached to Durham and Chapel Hill via a snake through Burlington, for partisan gain.

I'm also not fond of pairing inner-city Raleigh with rural blacks, but I guess that's unavoidable as long as the VRA forces racial gerrymandering.

So I guess it is in a sense, "fairer," but that's not saying much.

And does it force it if the district is below 50% BVAP? The district in the map looks like it might be to me below 50%.

Hmm... it looks like you may be right. After mapping it out myself, I'm under 50% BVAP with the district about 25K short, and no more black precincts in Raleigh. But it's not too far off, and can be brought above that threshold with a few minor alterations.

I'm no expert on how it is determined where VRA districts are legally required, but I'd say that as long as racial gerrymandering is enforced, one probably should be required in northeastern North Carolina. The black population there is fairly evenly spread out within the district, and there are no significant intervening areas of non-black population. Contrast this with the current NC-12, where I don't think a VRA district should be required, as it pairs blacks in Charlotte with blacks in Greensboro/Winston-Salem by stringing them together via a bunch a white areas.

Fixed. :P

Some county in Western North Carolina had to be split to acheive OMOV. Buncombe simply does not have a right to an exemption. Splitting Buncombe is inherently no more, or no less, "unfair" than splitting any other county in Western North Carolina to acheive OMOV.

Asheville is the largest city in Western North Carolina. It belongs in a district in Western North Carolina, not in a district anchored by Gastonia and Hickory. And the fact that it was sunk into a district containing some of the most Republican counties in the state absolutely reeks of partisan intent.

It is not unusual to see anti-gerrymandering rules that require larger counties to be split before smaller counties when a choice is available. In that case Buncombe would be the county to split in western NC. It's the division between 4 and 13 that would bother me more since it needlessly splits two counties in a way that suggests partisan gerrymandering.

Wouldn't your NC-01 be illegal since it pulls out of several Section 5 counties along the east coast?

McIntyre could still hang on pretty easily but Kissell would probably in worse shape than he's in now.

What are the numbers for your CD2 and CD6?

I understand that the intent behind such rules is to ensure that smaller counties are not disenfranchised by being split, and I can respect that intent. I, however, am of the view that maintaining the integrity of communities of interest should be the primary goal of redistricting. Communities of interest tend to be built around urban areas. It bothers me when these urban cores are split.

Take Idaho as an example. IIRC, Idaho's redistricting rules require that large counties be split first, then if cities need to get split, larger cities are split first. This basically means that Boise gets screwed. To me it would make much more sense to have a district anchored in Boise and its suburbs and a district comprised of the rest of the state.

EDIT: Any chance that the North Carolina stuff could be moved to another thread? We seem to be hijacking a discussion about Maryland.

In the NC map I drew, the 1st district is 48.5% VAP black if I remember correctly-- more than enough to elect a black representative

While I agree that the district you drew would probably elect a black representative, the VRA may require that the VAP black percentage be above 50%. But I'm not an expert on this, and it's a fairly easy fix anyway.

Every county might very well have its own special pleading. The more rural counties in Western North Carolina would probably prefer a district not anchored in an urban county. Not all such pleadings can be honored.  Posting the special pleading that futher your position and ignoring those special pleadings that don't further your position belies a certain partisan intent, eh?

I really don't think that that claim holds water in this case. I'm almost certain that Asheville has anchored the Western North Carolina district since the founding of the state. And I'm sure that folks in places like Hendersonville and Waynesville share a closer connection to Asheville than folks in Gastonia.

Also, I'm not ignoring the special pleadings of other counties. Just as I think Asheville is a better fit in the Western district, I think that counties like Burke and Caldwell would fit better with Catawba. They do, after all, share a metropolitan area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton,_NC_MSA).

Well, it would still retrogress out of 6 VRA-covered counties. Thats why the the Assembly had to redraw their original CD1 (http://ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2011/Congress/Rucho-Lewis_Congress_1/Maps/DistSimple/distSimple_1.pdf) so that it complied with Section 5. (http://ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2011/Congress/Rucho-Lewis_Congress_3/Maps/DistSimple/distSimple_1.pdf)

This is the cleanest legal iteration of CD1 that I've come up with.

50.5% Black VAP, 67.0% Obama

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Agreed, Vazdul. As someonw who's lived in NC for 8 years, I can tell you that Bob is wrong. Culturally, Asheville has much more in common with the rural mountain counties than it does with suburban/exurban Charlotte.

A statement that is utterly irrelevant to whether, or not, the folks in the rural counties would prefer an all rural district [something you would consider a "community of interest," whatever that means.] Just because they were stuck with Asheville in the past doesn't mean they have to like it.


Again, that is merely a repetition of your special pleading. If the special pleading of the folks from Asheville were the only consideration, then you just might have a case. But, the folks around Asheville have a right to their special pleadings, and, a right to have their special pleading being  debated as seriously as the pleadings from the folks in Asheville. Frankly, I don't think the rural folks around Asheville want Asheville in their district for the entire 360 degree perimeter. For them, the issue is whom is stuck with Buncombe. The legislature found a solution. You might not like that solution, but, for you to claim that there is only one way to look at it--your way--is pure bravo sierra.   

How bout central Wilmington's "special pleading" to be with the rest of New Hanover county? Or Durham's "special pleading" not to get cracked 4 ways. Was it the "solution" for the Assembly to draw the lines there in that manner? If you answer yes, then you're just a Republican troll.

Moving Asheville out of CD11, after it had been in a district with the rural western counties for over 100 years, was a partisan sham and you know it.

Bob, have you ever actually been to Asheville /western NC or spent any decent amount of time there? You sure seem to know an awful lot about the region.

You are revising history here. The stated motivation for the revision is that the legislature thought that the Black Congressman in the first district had expressed his preference to gain  additional urban Black residents in Wake county rather than in Durham  county. When that Congressman publicly stated the opposite, he was accommodated in the second map.

As laid out here in this diary, there was still a good chance that the original CD01 would have been thrown out on Section 5 grounds anyway.  (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/02/990788/-The-illegality-of-the-proposed-North-Carolina-map)

They could have drawn the district into Wake county while still avoiding retrogression in the eastern counties, ya know.

You can't accuse me of rewriting history any more than I can accuse you of being an amicable poster; Butterfield talked about the retrogression concerns that I mentioned (http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/9819836/) in his statement on the original map, saying:

One of a myriad of special pleadings that wasn't honored. Again, there are a series of special pleading that are contradictory to one another. Honoring some special pleading means ignoring others.


Blame Butterfield for that one. You can also say the previous redistricting that paired urban Greensboro with suburban Raleigh. Who chaired the redistricting committee that just happened to draw an open seat for that chairman?


1)  I don't dispute that the legislature chose which county in Western North Carolina to split based on considerations of what was best for the legislators that passed the bill. I never have. What I have objected to is special pleadings to the effect that the county lines of Buncombe were sancrosant. They simply are not. Every decade, redistricting splits counties that were previously intact. In some cases, and, in the vast majority of times in smaller counties, the folks in those counties don't like it. Historical arguments about county splits are piles of sophistry.

The legislature drew two districts in Western North Carolina with just two splits. There was no possible option to do it with one. Unlike South Central North Carolina, the lines in the Western two districts were clean. Arguing against the plan using country integrity arguments requires smuggling in a premise that larger counties have a greater right not to be split than smaller counties. It is that premise  that, rightly or wrongly, I reject.

2) Don't tell me what I know, and don't know. The last paragraph above is what I actually believe.


None of your business. None of your business. Yes, I do.

I remember reading a diary to that effect just after the plan was passed.  Frankly, I wasn't impressed with its legal reasoning. Nor, is it really backed by any case law.

I am fairly confident any such challenge would have gone nowhere, and, I am fairly confident the legislature felt exactly the same way. However, the Congressman's objections allowed them to draw a map that was at least just as good as the first one, while striving to respect the wishes and desire of North Carolina's minority representatives. Some of North Carolina's White Democratic Congressmen didn't receive the same consideration. The revision was good politics, not a legal necessity. The diarist's objections to the Western district has gotten nowhere in court.


You are not disputing that the Republicans stated they thought Butterfield preferred expanding into Wake did you? Nor, are you disputing that they stated their reason for the revision was to accommodate him, are you?

You can speculate about what their real motivations were at length. I am citing their stated motivations. Fact tends to beat speculation every time.

Bye, Bob. I took you off my ignore list for a while and you reminded why I had you on there on the first place; I really can't take you arrogance anymore.

And honoring the special pleadings of Republican Party hacks in smoke-filled back rooms means ignoring the pleadings that actually make geographic and cultural sense.


Butterfield's district does not need Durham. But no argument on the other point.


I'm not arguing so much that Buncombe county should not be the county that is split, rather that cities that form the commercial hub of a region should go in a district based in that region whenever it is feasible.

And now I remember why I have you on ignore...

 
Of course, but thats all fine and good for Bob as long as its the Republicans who are doing it.

'Drawing Asheville with suburban Charlotte? 'Nothing wrong with that!

'Pairing Johnston county with the southern coast? No problem there!

'Snaking CD-04 down from Chapel Hill to Fayetteville? Makes perfect sense!

But when you pair urban Greensboro with central Raleigh or keep Asheville in its century-old community of interest, Bob suddenly has a big problem.


Even with the Durham hand of CD01, there wasn't a need to crack it 4 ways.

This is off topic, but those idiots at WRAL are still using the original map without the changes to NC-01 and surronding seats.

Your wish is my command. :)


I might have agreed with the concerns in the diaries a year ago before DOJ started ruling. But seeing how DOJ protected their review position by taking a less scrutinizing view of section 5 on so many other maps then many observers expected, I think NC could have pulled back from some of the 21 counties and survived. Here's a 50.04% version with only 7 county splits. It does leave out some of the section 5 counties currently in CD 1, but it could survive since it is more compact and splits fewer counties.

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Edited to drop county splits from 8 to 7.

Again, you are showing a willful blindness to any special pleading but your own. Culturally, Asheville isn't like most of the rest of Western North Carolina. Culturally, it more to the left, and populated with a greater number of transplants. You actually go on to claim that it is economic considerations that you believe should drive redistricting algorithms. So, it isn't even a claim consistent with your own stated position.

I understand that you believe that redistricting ought to start in urban areas, and radiate out into rural areas to meet population requirements. I disagree. I find your urbancentric approach discriminatory to folks who`in live in rural areas. I find it just as valid to start building districts in the rural areas, and then reach into the urban areas as necessary for population equality. Such an approach is used in New York where Senate districts divide larger cities, but, avoid splitting smaller cities.

Your entire rhetorical approach is to create a special pleading and then present it as though it is the ace of trump. It simply isn't. Again, some county in Western North Carolina had to be split to achieve OMOV. The legislature chose the most populous county to be split. There is nothing inherently wrong, or sinister in preferring to split the largest county as opposed to some smaller county.

Here, you have exited reality in favor of your own fantasy world. I have commented on the lines in Western North Carolina, which I find well within the legitimate range of redistricting choices. I simply have not commented on any of the other issues, other than Durham, for which you have assigned to me a position.

In the case of Durham, you agreed that it was Butterfield's objections that lead to one split. As I eluded too before, the remedy to Butterfield's objection bisected an existing district that linked Raleigh to Greensboro [don't remember you pillioring that choice!] required a new bridge through Durham county.

Since we're revisiting NC redistricting here, I may post some of the alternative NC maps's I've made (its the state I do the most in DRA), for everyone's enjoyment.

Ya know what, nevermind. If I post my maps, Bob will probably systematically go through them and circuitously argue about every little detail he thinks should be different. Nothing positive will come from that and I have more productive things to do than argue with an arrogant, condescending troll. 

Isn't that why you have him on ignore? I'd like to see your maps.

Even still...

Ok, I might actually post some then :)

Well, this thread started in Maryland, it became NC thread and now I'm taking it to TX.

One situation that I thought was comparable to that of NC-11 is TX-01. The difference here is that, for the sake of partisan advantage, Republicans moved an urban area into a rural district, rather than excising an urban area as they did with NC-11.

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Before the DeLaymander, TX-01 was almost entirely rural; its largest city was Texarkana, with a population of 37,000.
 Like NC-11, which included the same basic set of counties since at least the 1920's, TX-01 was anchored in the state's northeastern corner since the 1880's.

 However, to defeat Max Sandlin, the Republicans moved the cities of Longview and Tyler into the district while splitting the rural counties between CD1 and CD4. Tyler and Longview were noticeably more Republican than the surrounding, less-populated counties along the LA/AR border (LBJ couldn't even win them in 1964).

Now, by Bob's logic, since Asheville is urban, it should be paired with the Charlotte exurbs, rather than the more culturally similar rural western counties. With that in mind, Bob, were the TX Republicans right to break up a geographically and politically coherent district like the original TX-01?

No, that's not my logic. That is your strawman interpretation of my logic. My logic notes that redistricting involving a series of choices that balance a number of competing considerations. Attempts to claim redistricting "should" be done based solely on "cultural" considerations is a form of sophistry in which the various competing considerations are ignored in favor of a simplified standard that just happens to derive the conclusion towards which the sophist was aiming.


Since you are nominally asking me to apply my logic to the situation, I will note that if the redistricting had been down in reverse by the Democrats I would argue that while they made redistricting choices that favored the Democratic party and harmed the Republican party those decisions were well within the acceptable range of redistricting choices that could be made.

What you are really doing is projecting your failings onto me. A couple of posters here took a highly dogmatic stance about their particular special pleadings. I noted the existence of competing special pleadings that were just as valid, but, lead to the opposite conclusions. In response, without any basis in fact, or logic, I was told that I was just a dogmatic my in arguing my special pleading as they were in arguing theirs.  I never argued that Buncombe had to be split, but, merely that it was legitimate to split Buncombe. I never disputed the idea that there are legitimate candidate maps that didn't split Buncombe.

If I hadn't happened to follow politics for most of life, with its familiarities with what places vote what way, and, if I were asked to redistrict Texas, I would try to draw as many completely rural districts as practical, possibly like the example above.

Very good; as long as you're consistent. That interestingly puts you at odds with your party's actions in TX; Republicans diluted the influence of rural voters in those such districts.

Out of curiosity, Miles, is the old TX-01 entirely rural any more? I imagine there might be some DFW sprawl, but I don't know since it's only been about nine years.

Yes, its still pretty rural.

I've drawn it in DRA a few times, and its actually lost population, IIRC.

Correction: It didn't lose population, but it grew at a rate much slower than the state as a whole.

It had right at 650K people in 2000 and in 2010, it was 685k. So it grew at about a 6% rate compared to almost 20% for the state as a whole.

That is a very good point Miles.

The opposite is true on other parts of the state. By drawing 4 bizarre baconstrips from Webb, Hidalgo, and Cameron Counties (total population of roughly 2 congressional districts), some plaintiffs in recent redistricting legalese sought to dilute the influence of rural voters in those such districts.

Yeah, we agree on that. There were also rural districts like the old TX-02 and TX-17 which were  pretty cohesive rural blocks but were cracked multiple ways.

Ok, if I were in charge of NC redistricting, this is what I'd draw. After making dozens of precinct-level maps, and spending hours in DRA, this is the best deal that I've come up with for the Democrats.

My goal here was 9-4, optimally consisting of four liberal Democrats, five Blue Dogs and four Republicans.
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CD1:
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OLD PVI: D+10
NEW PVI: D+15
50.3% black VAP. My goal here was to get the Obama % as low as possible while still keeping it >50% black and avoiding retrogression out of any Section 5 counties. It connects into Durham via touch-point with the 13th.

Safe D.

CD2:
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OLD PVI: R+1
NEW PVI: D+1
Follows the same basic formula as the current version. Its centered in Johnston county, but expands its reach further into Raleigh and Fayetteville to pick up more liberal voters. Obama margin here increased 3 points, making this district a point or so bluer than the nation as a whole; this would have been enough for Etheridge to hold on. Ellmers was lucky to get washed in during 2010, but I doubt she'd hold this district going forward, especially in a Presidential year.

Lean D.

CD3:
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OLD PVI: R+15
NEW PVI: R+15
In terms of partisanship, the Third is basically unchanged. No Democrat has a realistic chance of beating Jones anyway. When he retires, this area has trended R so that even an open seat would be tough sledding for a Democrat.

Safe R with Jones, Likely R if open.

CD4
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OLD PVI: D+9
NEW PVI: D+5
The PVI of this district takes a hit because of the loss of most of Durham-proper. To make up for the loss of population there, it reaches down to grab all of Chatham and Lee from the old 2nd. In Wake county, it keeps much of its current holdings.

Safe D.

CD5
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OLD PVI: R+15
NEW PVI: R+7
As a gaffe-prone incumbent who routinely underperforms, my biggest target in this map was Virginia Foxx. McCain's margin here was reduced to 7 points, down from 23 in the previous district. Much of that shift can be attributed to shifting all of Forsyth county into the district. Assuming a uniform swing, Foxx would have held on in 2008 with just 50.5%. If Democrats recruited a Blue Dog who could use Winston-Salem as a base while still performing relatively well in the rural counties, Foxx could very well lose.

Tossup/Slight R.

CD6
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OLD PVI: R+17
NEW PVI: R+16
One of my favorite R's, Congressman Howard Coble, is still super-safe. The district is the same, except it takes two precincts in southeastern Forsyth and adds a chunk of northern Davidson.

Safe R.

CD7
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OLD PVI: R+6
NEW PVI: R+6
Aside from taking in all of Sampson and trading around a few precincts along the northern border, very minimal change; it remains a compact district logically placed in the southeastern edge of the state. In terms of PVI, its slightly friendlier to Obama. Its less than 52% McCain now, but has 51.2% D average in state races, meaning this will be safe for McIntyre and the D's will have a decent shot at holding it when he retires.

Safe D with McIntyre, Tossup if open.

CD8
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OLD PVI: R+1
NEW PVI: EVEN
This becomes more marginally Democratic by swapping out chunks of Stanly and Union counties in exchange for a bigger slice of Charlotte and northern precincts in Robeson county. Other than that, just some minor precinct-trading in Fayetteville. Since Kissell won by a surprisingly comfortable margin in 2010 he'll be safe here and the Democrats would be favored when he retires.

Safe D for Kissell, Lean D if open.

CD9
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OLD PVI: R+9
NEW PVI: R+13
The suburban Charlotte seat becomes even more of a vote-sink, with McCain approaching 60%. I'm pretty sure McCrory would be near 70% here as well. It keeps the same basic Gaston-Mecklenburg-Union formula but takes a chunk of Stanly from the 8th.

Safe R.

CD10
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OLD PVI: R+17
NEW PVI: R+19
Overall, it shifts eastward to accommodate the loss of Burke county to CD11. It takes in Alexander county, the Republican parts of Iredell and eastern Wilkes, all of which have the collective effect of making CD5 more competitive. Just to be partisan, I drew McHenry's home in CD9, though its just one precinct away from being in the 10th.

Safe R.

CD11
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OLD PVI: R+6
NEW PVI: R+6
Remains a mountainous western district anchored in Asheville, as it has been for many decades. It gives all of Rutherford county to the 10th while replacing it with most of Burke county. Obama's performance improves slightly.

Safe for Shuler, Tossup if open.

CD12
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OLD PVI: D+17
NEW PVI: D+17
I'm assuming I can pull CD12 out of Forsyth county altogether, since its not covered under Section 5 jurisdiction. The White-Black VAP percentages go from 46-43 to 44-40.

Safe D.

CD13:
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OLD PVI: D+6
NEW PVI: D+4
Now uses touch-point in two locations, which seems a bit sketchy, but its the most efficient way to make this seat as Democratic as possible. Despite moving a few points to the right, Miller would have still won here in 2010 with 52/53%. Going forward, the trend would also be in his favor.

Likely/Safe D.

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Overall, the Miles Plan splits 32 counties, compared with 40 split counties in the enacted Republican plan. The Miles plan splits 5 counties 3-ways while the Republican splits 7 counties 3 or more ways.

Wouldn't want the folks to forget what the districts looked like as a result of the Frostrosity.  Note the red and yellow districts are the CLEANED UP versions after Bush v Vera

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CD 4 was Sam Rayburn's district (Rayburn was from Bonham in Fannin County.  CD 1 was Wright Patman.   The Democrats refused to redistrict, and forced Joe Pool to run at large because he kept losing Dallas County, which was the most overpopulated district in the country at the time of Wesberry v Sanders.  As the result of Bush v Martin OMOV came to Texas.

The legislature carved up CD-3 based in Tyler-Longview-Marshall because it had nearly elected a Republican in 1962 (he would have been 1 of 2).  That politically motivated split of the East Texas Field between two Red River districts lasted until the Delay reforms of 2003, reaching its nadir in 1991 when Hunt, Smith, Gregg, and Nacogdoches counties were hacked apart by the Frostrosity.

'Reforms' is an interesting term for a shift from one blatantly hyperpartisan gerrymander to another.

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?

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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.

Even the DFW districts don't look too bad in that map, although there may be something off about them demographically that I'm not aware of.

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.

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

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

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

Sweetness!

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.

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


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:

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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.

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.

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

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CD1:
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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:
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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 (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=148163.msg3292041#msg3292041) 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:
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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:
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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:
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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 (http://ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2003/Congress/97_House-Senate_Plan_A/Maps/DistSimple/distsimple5.pdf) 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:
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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:
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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:
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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:
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OLD PVI: R+9
NEW PVI: R+13
Like the 5th, my CD9 harkens back to the 1990's. (http://ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2003/Congress/97_House-Senate_Plan_A/Maps/DistSimple/distsimple9.pdf) 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:
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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:
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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:
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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:
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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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.

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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:

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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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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The updated numbers:
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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.

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.

Here's "Plan A"

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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.

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.  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/51954263@N03/6713948935/0) 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.

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.

It is truly a shame that it is rather difficult to draw an effective clean GOP map. I suppose something could be done from that to mesh 4 and 13 into 1 Dem superfortress while at the same time cracking Greensboro in a manner that is not as ugly as the official map.


Probably it has to do with the size of the various cities, and the spread nature of the black population. Eventually I suspect that will change and CD-1 will become a far more urban district.

NC seems to be naturally favorable to the Ds, like Florida and Illinois are for the Rs.

I'll work on a clean GOP map next...I may need your input ;)

Here's my map that embeds the CD 1 I created above using neutral redistricting principles. I sought minimal county splits while maintaining some degree of compactness. The only splits are for CD 1 to comply with section 2 (50.04% BVAP), for the two large counties, and for two other counties to get all CDs within 1500 of the ideal size. Microchops of counties smaller than a precinct would be used to get exact population equality. Population deviation and 2008 results are in parentheses. I look forward to comments.

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CD 1 (-799, 70.3% Obama) Section 2 compliant, it is about 1/3 from Raleigh-Durham.

CD 2 (+286, 54.0% Obama) Very compact, competitive CD centered on Fayetteville with only one split. Laurinburg in Scotland is in this CD allowing Ft Bragg to act as a natural border.

CD 3 (-962, 51.5% McCain) Competitive CD and more compact than most for this region. Whole counties only with half the population in the Greenville-Goldsboro area and the rest along the northern sounds.

CD 4 (+42, 51.6% McCain) Competitive CD with county splits to accommodate CD 1. Wake is divided so that it separates Raleigh in this CD from Cary in CD 13. Wake is the only county with a 3-way split.

CD 5 (+1029, 55.5% McCain) Compact CD centered on Winston-Salem. Only Wilkes is split with only about 7K shifted to CD 9.

CD 6 (-319, 54.1% Obama) Very compact, competitive CD centered on Greensboro with no county splits. The population of Triad and its suburbs is going to be in 2 CDs. This is the cleanest split I could construct.

CD 7 (-187, 56.2% McCain) Dedicated district for the southern coastal region with no county splits and almost no population deviation. :)

CD 8 (+948, 58.9% McCain) I 73 and US 74 provide the natural corridors linking this district. There are two partial counties to equalize population with CD 2 and 12.

CD 9 (+1225, 62.6% McCain) Reasonably compact CD with only one county split to equalize population with CD 5. Roughly equal population is in western Charlotte metro and in the Blue Ridge foothills.

CD 10 (-1440, 61.9% McCain) Very compact CD with whole counties only. The CD is entirely in the central Piedmont.

CD 11 (+224, 52.0% McCain) Potentially competitive CD with whole counties only. Anchored by Asheville it connects all the counties west of the Blue Ridge.

CD 12 (+580, 67.1% Obama) Entirely within Mecklenburg county it is 34.2% BVAP.

CD 13 (-631, 58.7% Obama) Reasonably compact CD with county splits due to CD 1 and the division of Wake. Cary is entirely in this CD.

Well, that is mainly due to the fact that while a 50/50 district in Virginia is at the minimum lean GOP, that is not so in North Carolina.

This is where I get stuck. Out east you have 1 black and 1 white district.

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The Triad districts work nicely enough. The problem is there is no place to go with the 8th and 7th. The 7th ends up being an extremely inefficient Dem vote sink and you are forced to yield a 4th district. Fundamentally there seems to be no way to crack Fayetteville, and if you turn it into a 60% vote sink, you run into problems with cracking Greensboro.

I think you will also be stuck making a BVAP majority district in the east without either Raleigh or Durham.

krazen, my Triad districts will probably look like yours; there's adequate GOP territory around W-S/Greensboro to drown out the Democratic votes there.

I think I'll end up sinking McIntyre...there's a lot of Democratic strength permeating out from the Lumberton area.

I will use a county bridge snake courtesy of Muon2. This will properly vote sink the 7th district while not causing excessive problems with the 6th, with the cost of making the 8th district a very poorly drawn district (but a GOP hold).

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Mathematically there are enough blacks left to make 1 district, although truthfully given that North Carolina Democrats have shown themselves to be happy with mid 40s vap perhaps that would be sufficient to avoid county butchery. Section 5 is perhaps not long for this world anyway.

Section 5 may not be long for the world, but section 2 still applies. The blacks don't complain about a 45% BVAP in a Dem map, but they sue if it is in a map to favor the GOP.

That's true. And in the end easily corrected-just not with country integrity goals. Tentacles and snakes seem to require other tentacles and snakes and then you get tri-split counties all over the place. If one is going to siphon Durham with the 1st district, one might as well run the 4th to Greensboro; of course, High Point ends up being on the western edge of Guilford rather than east. Real pain in the neck.

Mecklenberg and Wake Counties are just all wrong. Lousy population figures and lousy layout. In Georgia one can plop a nice 80% circle or two in Dekalb County and a 60% white district in South Georgia can carry the day. Perhaps in a decade that can be done in Mecklenberg/East North Carolina.

Making a "clean" Republican gerrymander is an interesting challenge, and one that I may take up when I'm done with "Plan B."

I can't say I'm particularly happy with it:

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Things to work on for next draft:

-That CD9 stretching from Gastonia to High Point bugs me the most.
-CD2 turned out to be even more of a GOP pack than it was on my nonpartisan map.
-CD6 could fall in a neutral year; in a D wave year 5 and 13 could also be possible pickups.

Here's my clean North Carolina:

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The maximum deviation is +1,618 for District 5; 5 and 6 are over 1K while 10 and 12 are under (normally I use 1K as my maximum deviation).  Splitting a county between 5 and 10 would fix that, but I wanted to show how close you could get with whole counties.

1: 66.3% Obama, 50.3% BVAP.  Durham is a lot more accessible to the rural black counties than the black areas of Raleigh, and besides I want to preserve the all-Wake district (and keep in the Section 5 counties, though it's possible I withdrew from one or two).  I think it's one of the best-looking iterations of this district out there, despite the eight county splits.  I did tinker with the boundaries to make the counties work out for 2, 3, 4, 7.

2: 38.9% Obama.  Still Johnston and Harnett-based, one split with 8 and two with 1.

3: 41.1% Obama.  Mostly just cleaner lines; three splits all with 1.

4: 57.4% Obama.  Two splits with 1, and all of Wake that's not in 13.  Bridging through northern Wake to Franklin saves at least one split elsewhere.

5: 37.1% Obama.  The district lines don't quite match the borders of Winston-Salem, but the intent is that areas within the city limits are in 6.  The only split is with 6, which is nice.

6: 60.1% Obama.  The Triad district.  Only splits Forsyth with 5.

7: 46.1% Obama. One split with district 1.  I tried to make something work like Muon's Lumberton-Fayetteville district and the southern coast instead, but 2 and 3 just ended up getting too squeezed.

8: 50.6% Obama.  One split with district 2.  

9: 39.8% Obama.  Splits Mecklenburg with 12 and Lincoln with 10.  Looks a bit ugly, but "Charlotte burbs" is one of those things which not only has lots of precedent, but is a coherent CoI.  So I'm keeping it.

10: 35.1% Obama.  Only splits Lincoln.  I don't think you can make this district any more compact.

11: 45.5% Obama.  You've seen this one before.

12: 66.0% Obama, 48.9% W/33.7%BVAP.  Any fair map has to have something like this district.

13: 58.8% Obama.  And Wake gets its own district too.

13 county splits, adding one between 5 and 10 would almost halve the max deviation from 1.6K to +844.

I would outlaw multi-spanning where two or more counties are split between a pair of districts.

That's essentially part of the MI rules, though the VRA creates an exception for minority populations that span county lines. In NC I used multi-spanning for CD 1 as the only method to comply with section 2. I avoided it everywhere else.

traininthedistance, I really like your map. Seems to make sense to me...your 2nd reminds me of Vazdul's, but a bit more compact.

'Take two at a (reasonably) clean Republican map:

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-From my last map, 5, 6 and 13 are now off the table for the Demcocrats.

-I punted on the Triad and drew a D vote sink there.

-For Fayetteville, I tried cracking it between 2 and 3. The 2nd would favor the GOP (they'd be best off here with Rouzer instead of Ellmers though); Jones would still hold down the 3rd easily, but it has less than 52% R average, so a Blue Dog could win there after he retires.

-The 9th uses Mecklenburg to connect Gaston to everything else. While this is ugly, it enables the 10th to use all whole counties (other than the Asheville crack) and is good from a CoI perspective.

-The 7th is similar to the version that McIntyre got under the original plan. (http://ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2011/Congress/Rucho-Lewis_Congress_1/Maps/DistSimple/distSimple_7.pdf) Though he could lose in a wave year, I think he could still hold it otherwise.

Your percents for districts 5 and 6 are reversed I believe

Thanks.

I'll fix that when I post my next version.

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Changes from my last version:

-The McCain % in 2 and 3 is up slightly; Democrats will be hard-pressed to win 2, but they could still potentially pick up 3 when Jones retires. 3 becomes somewhat more compact.

-The 8th is a point or so more R...its now even worse for Kissell than the one in the actual Republican map.

- The 9th becomes more Charlotte-centric and is the only district to border the 12th.

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McCain districts
9 - 62.7
10 - 62.0
3 - 58.9
6 - 57.8
8 - 55.3
7 - 54.3
5 - 54.1
11 - 53.1
2 - 50.6

Obama districts
4 - 73.8 (34.5% VAP black, 50.2% VAP minorities)
1 - 68.1 (50.3% VAP black)
12 - 68.5 (35% VAP black, 53.9% VAP minorities)
13 - 52.4

Not bad.

Very effective milesmander.

What is interesting is that yielding a 4th district doesn't really improve the GOP's changes of winning the remaining 9 in any material fashion compared to the legislative map. It just puts extra Republicans in 8, 9, 5, 10.

Yes, its kinda frustrating. Even with the Triad vote sink, its hard to contain the Democratic votes in the southeastern region. The Republicans would still have, at best, a 50/50 shot at this CD7 in normal circumstances. All the Triad sink did here was shore-up those districts that you mentioned.

I'll have one more variation of this map that will be a bit better for the GOP.

Ok, I'm going to say that this will be the final version of my "clean" Republican map in this series:

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CD1:
51.2% Black VAP...similar to the ones in the previous maps.

CD2:
Still a hodgepodge of Raleigh/Fayetteville exurbs. Centered in Johnston/Harnett, cracks Fayetteville with the 3rd and on the east, takes whatever's left of the counties that CD1 reaches into.

CD3:
Putting half of Fayetteville helps to deprive CDs 2/7/8 of D votes. Safe for Jones but only has a 52% R average. Still could be a tossup when he retires; Perdue probably won handily here.

CD4:
The Chapel Hill/Durham/Wake county vote pack. I would have kept Orange county whole, but that would have meant splitting Durham-proper 3 ways (between 1/4/5)...I think keeping municipalities together is more important than keeping counties whole.

CD5:
Still recalls the 5th of the 1990's, though reaches down to take Iredell and parts of Rowan. Foxx could be vulnerable, as mant VA border counties would be new to her; Senate Majority Leader Phil Berge represents Rockingham and part of Guilford, so he could launch a credible challenge.

CD6:
The Triad vote sink. If I dismantle this, it would be swingy and CD5 and CD13 could buckle in a D wave year. Probably best for the GOP to concede this while keeping 5 and 13.

CD7:
A few minor line tweaks in Robeson county and this is up a bit to 56.0% McCain. McIntyre would still be slightly favored, but when he retires, the presence of Camp LeJuene here would give Ilario Pantano a boost.

CD8:
Stopping just barely short of 58% McCain, this would be a likely GOP pickup. The actual 57% NC-08 is no better than a tossup for Kissell, and this just puts him further in the hole. The 8th is a close second, after CD13, for the swing away from Obama.

CD9:
Similar to the current 9th, just substitutes most of southern Charlotte for Cabarrus county.

CD10:
Still moves northward. All whole counties except for the Asheville crack.

CD11:
If a 58.2% McCain district was enough to make Shuler fold, a 57.7% McCain seat should also prompt a retirement announcement. I always thought dragging the 11th along the SC border was the best for the Rs; that way, the Democrat running to replace Shuler will have to appeal to mountain voters and those in exurban Charlotte.

CD12:
Still the Charlotte sink. 34.3% Black VAP.

CD13:
Becomes more compact than my previous map. I didn't like that hook around Greensboro, so I replaced it with Alamance county. Its down to 53.5% McCain, from 55.3%, but it has a 56.2% R average. It may be competitive by 2016 or later, but if a R wins there in 2012, he'd have ample time to entrench himself even as the district trends D.

No comments? :(


In the meantime I've calculated the PVIs for the districts. For whole county CDs I used the actual 04 and 08 votes. I've approximated the other CDs using 08 and a weighting factor based on the 08 votes in the CDs that I can directly determine. It shifts the PVI between 0.5 to 1.0 in favor of the GOP compared to the 08 numbers alone. Of course there's a history of Dems holding seats a few PVI to the GOP.

CD 1: D+16
CD 2: D+0
CD 3: R+6
CD 4: R+6
CD 5: R+11
CD 6: R+0
CD 7: R+10
CD 8: R+15
CD 9: R+16
CD 10: R+16
CD 11: R+6
CD 12: D+13
CD 13: D+5

muon, even in your neutral map, it would probably be 7 Democrats, possibly 8 without Jones.

I like that you've got 5 whole-county CDs while still keeping CD1 legal.

I look at the numbers and see 3 strong D, 2 lean D, and 5 strong R. The 3 R+6 (3, 4 and 11) are likely R, but are opportunities for the Dems given past voting practices in NC. Technically my CD 2 and 6 could go R, especially if the Dem is too liberal. So 5 of 13 are potentially competitive.

To me that's pretty neutral given the last two elections that put the state at R+3 overall.

I would be intrigued by the potential competition for CD 11 as the Blue Ridge district is attacked by Blue Dogs. :)

I think the most likely case would be McIntyre running in CD7 and Kissell taking the 2nd; McIntyre may have a close call in a wave year, but Kissell should hold the 2nd pretty easily.

Your 6th looks interesting. I'm guessing Miller would run there, as opposed to taking on Price in the 13th. I'm not sure if Miller could hold an R+0 seat.

:) Shuler should be fine in your 11th.

In terms of "neutral redistricting principles" it seems to make at least as much sense for pairing Wilmington with the coast to the North rather than extending inland towards Fayetteville.

A three-way swap of territories between the 8th, 10th and 12th would result in more compact districts. Just enter Mecklenburg from the North, and give up territories to the East.

Of course Foxx lives in my 11th as well, though she currently lives in NC 10 so living outside her CD is not a problem. I assume that Rogers is politically similar to Shuler since he was his chief of staff.

My main problem with it is your District 1; frankly the tendril connecting the minority neighborhoods of Raleigh to the rest of the district is really really ugly and I'd prefer to just comply with Section 5 instead (my "clean" map is, I think, a good example of how you can do so with a minimum of erosity).  It also makes it hard to fit in an all-Wake district, which is something that should exist for sure.

I'd also prefer an actual Triad district, for reasons I've explained before.  Metro area integrity is more important to me than county integrity.

OTOH, I really like your District 2.  The southern half of the map is good.

Timothy's CD1 hooks into Raleigh but still keeps CD13 entirely in Wake. I'm generally not big on the Wake hand of CD1, but it does work nicely with Timothy's map.

CD 1 poses some interesting questions for a neutral mapper. It has been an black-majority district since 1992, and in 2000 it was 50.7% black. At the start of both those decades the district elected a black representative as one would predict. However, the resignation due to scandal of Ballance in 2004 opened the way for judge Butterfield to take the seat. The 2010 Census showed that the district had fallen to 47.8% BVAP, and it likely was below 50% by 2004. It's not clear to me that in a normal open seat race Butterfield would be the representative.

Now to 2010. To bring the BVAP over 50% required adding an urban black population from Raleigh/Durham. 50% of the VAP is about 275 K. Durham has a BVAP of 54 K and Raleigh about 58 K in their most concentrated precincts. Adding only one or the other makes them a voting appendage unlikely to be able to have a significant voice in the outcome of an election. By adding both populations, the urban black population in that metro area becomes 112 K out of 275 K BVAP and it would be expected to play an important role in a contested primary.

In districts that are not going to be competitive in a general election, and the district will take in at least some of a substantially different region of interest, there is something to commend giving both regions a stake in the primary. I did that on the GOP side in CD 9 and here for the Dems in CD 1.

Butterfield is actually considered black.

Thanks, he could have fooled me. Looking up his bio I see his father came from Bermuda and both parents had white ancestors.

I don't entirely understand it either....

Yeah, apparently the white genes of both parents mixed to create him. Certainly by appearance I wouldn't have known.

Reviving this thead because a 3-judge panel just recently finished reviewing the district maps.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/02/26/2710115/judges-hear-case-for-keeping-nc.html

Bumping from another (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=155525.msg3661797#msg3661797) thread.

This is what a 2000 Democratic-drawn map would look like if Wake County was confined to a single CD.

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CDs 1, 3, 5, 6, 10 and 11 are basically the same, so I won't really talk about those.

CD13-> This is the Wake County district; it contains the entire county except for a few heavily R precincts that were given to CD4. The actual CD13 was 59/40 Obama, this would downgrade slightly to 57.0/42.0. Miller would have probably won with 52 or 53% in 2010.

CD2-> To make up for the heavily D precincts in Wake that were lost, my solution was to give Etheridge a chunk of southern Durham as well as a larger share of Fayetteville. Otherwise, the district is virtually the same. The changes that I made resulted in more Democratic district; CD2 shifts from 52.5/46.7 to almost exactly EVEN at 53.0/46.1. I'm going to say that this would have been enough to prevent it from flipping in 2010.

CD7-> Other than taking in all of Duplin County and changing around a few precincts in Cumberland County, no changes. The district is slightly redder at 52.5/46.6 McCain up from 52.2/47.0.

CD4-> Price has to take in the counties along the VA border that were in the actual CD13. The district was about 62% Obama in 2008, IIRC, but is now down to 59.3/39.7.

CD12-> Watt takes in most of the Greensboro precincts that Miller had. The district is 46.5% white, 43% black; pretty close to the actual one. It also becomes slightly more of a sink, at 71.8% Obama up from 70.3%.

CD8-> Robin Hayes would have been the biggest loser here. Since CD12 moves further up into the Triad, CD8 can pick up more precincts in urban Charlotte. It also loses all of Union County (the most Republican county in NC by registration) and the reddest precincts in Hayes' home county of Stanly are removed. The result? The district moves from 52.4/46.9 Obama to 56.0/43.2. Hayes would have certainly been defeated in 2006 by Kissell, if not earlier.

CD 9-> This becomes even more of sink, as it takes all of Union County and loses more Democratic voters in Charlotte. It was 54.6/44.7 McCain and is now up to 56.9/42.3.