Talk Elections

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CD-1(Green): PVI R+11.58
CD-2(Dark Purple): PVI R+9.76
CD-3(Red): PVI D+3.03
CD-4(Yellow): PVI R+20.9
CD-5(Light Greenish): PVI R+5.43
CD-6(Gray): PVI R+23.04
CD-7(Light Purple): PVI D+6.75
CD-8(Teal): PVI R+.29
CD-9(Pink): PVI R+14.26
CD-10(Lime Green): PVI R+7.54
CD-11(Light Blue): PVI D+10.56
CD-12(Tan): PVI D+9.48
CD-13(Goldish): PVI D+17.88

What you guys think?

Not a fan of the Charlotte wrap-around district,  also it looks like you lowered the AA percentage in the northeast district quite heavily.

Could you add numbers to the districts? Your description of their colors don't do them justice.

Here's a least change map I made (at least somewhat least change)

https://davesredistricting.org/join/7176a848-2859-4692-acfb-0e10b96ec7af

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Johnston really should not be in a district with Wilmington.

Everything there is Raleigh centric.

Johnston is in a district with Wilmington in the current map.

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And here's mine of course, since I guess this might as well be our NC2020 redistricting thread. I didn't really care who or where incumbents lived when I drew this, and frankly, I still don't.

The general theme of 13-district NC is either the 7th or the 3rd has to bite some sort of bullet: there is too much pop on the coasts for just 1 seat, but there is too little easily reachable thanks to the minority seats. It's even harder when you consider the most GOP counties in the state by percentage are south of Hampton roads and 'want' to be connected to the AA 1st geographically.

No kidding!

Its not like it was the first thing that started my war with the NC GOP, oh wait, it was!

Thankfully, the 13-district problem of eastern north carolinas population is solved when the 14th gets added in 2020. There's enough in the east for a Wilmington GOP seat and a north coast one, with only minor demands from booming Raleigh and her suburbs.

Chatham really belongs in a Research Triangle District and not with Randolph as they are radically different places now.

Holding (NC-2) and Walker (NC-6) are both probably shivering over this redistricting, considering their seats are easily the most vulnerable to flipping to the Democrats as a result.

Holding is holding off (heh) seriously fundraising because he expects to be DOA.


I think we all agree, except that the research triangle in general has to give up pop to other seats because it's so large but not large enough. If it wasn't Chatham, it would be somewhere else. When 2020 comes along and the triangle gets seat 14, it has to be included because the triangle is now demanding Pop from other regions, rather than having to give up pop to others.

Here's another alternative that I put together:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/7c5770ec-23d0-4b88-86b7-9848e2865e16

That actually looks great!   I like it better than my map, lol.     I'd love it if the courts put this map in place.

Your analysis here is right to be sure but I don't think a OBX+random Greenville+Wilmington district is a sustainable bullet biting; better to draw Wilmington in towards Robeson or up towards Goldsboro than draw such a discontinuous thing.

Basically Eastern NC's map depends on what you want to sacrifice, particularly as it pertains to NC-01.
Basically you can:

A. Draw an NC-01 which is not minority-majority or minority-plurality but where black voters would likely elect their candidate of choice. This can be done without having to dip into the Triangle--nice for Community of Interest regions since Durham and NW NC are fairly different. However, because these areas are pretty polarized they could fall to a Republican in a wave--sort of a GA-02 before 2010 situation. Drawing an Eastern NC only 1st district also forces all the districts around it clockwise--basically in this layout a Raleigh exurbs-Fayetteville district is an obvious thing. This map tends to favor Republicans because a Lean D district in the Fayetteville area doesn't happen. It also forces an awkward split of Cumberland from Hoke County generally speaking, as well as a grody three-way cut of Wake. Potentially legally questionable under VRA due to above discussed competitiveness.

I drew a version of A here on DRA (https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9a02d53-5a93-4483-831c-a20418e5f88e). Would love feedback.

There's also an option A1, which includes more westerly areas like Granville and Franklin counties. I chose to exclude them for this exercise because both counties have bits which are very Triangle oriented. Common Cause NC did a mock redistricting commission a few years ago which adopted this approach (https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9a02d53-5a93-4483-831c-a20418e5f88e).

B. Draw a plurality black district which dips into the Triangle. This option is the current status quo. This has some obvious pluses; it makes much more pleasing maps in the rest of the state (easier mapping in Eastern North Carolina, as the coast, Wilmington, and Fayetteville/the Sandhills get their own district). Obviously the downside is the awkward hash of dipping into the Triangle. There are two subtypes; B1, which goes into Durham, and B2, which goes into Raleigh. Either way the 1st District is very likely to elect a black candidate of choice as whites in both Durham and Raleigh are D-leaning, and Black voters would dominate in a primary.

B1 has the virtue of being easier as Granville county leads the way into Durham without having to cut through super white precincts. B2 has the virtue of allowing for an all-in-Wake County district and keeping Durham and Chapel Hill together, although it does split Raleigh proper. Working on making nice versions of both.

C. A black-majority district. Would probably require two Triangle prongs and indelicate finagling in ENC besides. Not my favorite and potentially legally questionable.

Yes, although the Western part of the county is a very similar to Randolph.

North Carolina is really rotten with these rurban counties; Chatham is noticeable because of the partisan divide, but it's not nearly as extreme as in Iredell or Franklin.

Here's a mostly clean NC map.
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pretty good gerrymander

You realize the purpose of the court order is to "undo" the current partisan gerrymander...correct?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/295cde18-80fe-418b-aac6-04a776535a4d

Here is the link to the OP map, if anyone wants to look at it in detail.

I agree, That is why I tried to keep the Triad and Triangle in three districts. But I had to put some one the triangle in a third district because the population is to big for just two districts

I think he knows
He drew that ringmander a few days ago. He just trolling us good for fun. Love it :)

I thought your map was fine for Chatham and even for Johnson.  Most of the maps weren't.  Though I'd argue that Chatham is more Research Triangle than Johnson.

Its a much better map though then many of those posted so far in this thread. You can make some small shifts and turn 2 or 3 of those Republican seats into swings and do some shifts in the Triad to create a solid D seat there.


A lot of the so called "fair" maps posted so far in this thread, focus on getting the numbers right and yet preserve some of the most egregious aspects of the current map, like stretching 9th out to the Sandhills, putting Johnston in with Wilmington etc.

Not sure what the problem with the 9th district including the Sandhills is. Stretching from Charlotte to the Sandhills is a problem, but there are zero Charlotte-Sandhills maps posted on this thread so far... except for the one from nerd73 that you just praised (which also keeps the problem in the current map of splitting the Sandhills down the middle). Most of the maps have been pairing the Sandhills with Fayetteville, which is pretty natural, and pulling that district entirely out of the Charlotte metro.

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1191806197294350336

Don't like the Greensboro/Winston-Salem and Fayetteville regions one bit. On the other hand, that 11th seems like it was drawn by a Democrat looking for a potential pickup.

Splitting Hoke/Robeson from Scotland/Richmond/Anson is a problem, too, and the arm up to Watauga is a mess, although it doesn't really matter from a partisan perspective. This doesn't seem like a good map, or, honestly, a nonpartisan one.

Aside from generic partisan excess, the GOP maps (with exceptions like the first map in cases like the 9th) have three major problems, that should be completely avoided
1. Asheville being taken out of the 11th
2. Putting Johnston in with Wilmington
3. Stretching the 9th out to Fayetteville.

I would much rather split the Sandhills then have two districts running parallel to each other between Charlotte and Fayetteville.

Nerds map is better because it doesn't engage in any of this, it also creates a better looking and more competitive 7th in SE NC, where it always was and should have been before the Republicans messed with it to get rid of Mike McIntyre.


Nerd's map needs modifications obviously. 13th should be a Dem seat in the Triad. Two of the following four (NC-02, NC-06, NC-07 and NC-08, should and could be turned into close swing seats. Pushing 13th North to make it Democratic, sheds some of its Southern territory to the 9th, pulling it back Westward and making it more Charlotte centric. You can then shift its Eastern territory to the 8th or 7th and use Fayetteville to turn one of the 7th or 8th into a swing seat. You can do the same with the 2nd or Sixth by shifting some territory in the Triangle area. 

Such a map would be better than any of the GOP maps and better than the Dem gerrymander that came before it.

Not terrible, but definitely room for improvement.   NC-6 has a lot of county splits.   NC-8 is definitely a swing district with maybe a small D lean.  

I'm pretty sure the second safe D seat in the triangle area is inevitable.  

This is still only a 8R-4D-1s map though,  not ideal.

Looks like the NCGOP is trying to get the committee to use this as the base map for when they start the drawing.   NC Dems seem to want to start from scratch.

NC-11 actually makes sense if you look at a topographic map of the state (mountains)

You can actually draw a whole county version--it's the same as the commissioners but minus McDowell and plus Ashe and Alleghany.

Apparently the commissioners were concerned that that NC-11 would be too long and disjunct for them. Although the whole county NC-11 is my personal preference, I can understand that argument--the High Country is not that connected to Asheville and in some respects looks more towards Winston-Salem.

NCYankee, what do you think of these districts?

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They look nice in isolation but it depends on what you are going for in that area and how it affects the rest of the map.

So I tried my best to get this right.
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Look at the tweet map for the district numbers.

CD-1: D+5
CD-2: R+12
CD-3: R+6
CD-4: R+4
CD-5: D+9
CD-6: D+14
CD-7: R+13
CD-8: Even
CD-9: R+10
CD-10: R+21
CD-11: R+8
CD-12: R+12
CD-13: D+15

It should be noted there is a good chance if a court draws the maps that the numbers get reworked in a East to West pattern like PA was.

So when should we get a new map?

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1192169430702276610

Redistricting Livestream. At this moment, I'm seeing a Johnston to Wilmington seat so...yikes.

Not joking, their current map so far looks a lot like mine (excluding a few areas) -

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NC-9 (teal district) losing Union County is a HUGE win if that makes it through.

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Here's where the map stands right now at the end of the day. Of course  work will still continue but...this map is somehow worse then the previous preliminary one!

- Cracked Sandhills
- Separated Greensboro/Winston-Salem
- Raleigh seat that goes beyond Wake
- Parallel central districts
- First missing Greenville (they want to protect the  incumbent)
- No Boone for the 11th
- Johnson to Wilmington was clearly an option but it was dropped to carve up the sandhill region
- Seats are renumbered going E -> W, but this 4 and 7...

According to Stephan Wolfe, the GOP did something similar to that NC state senator from last time and whispered for half an hour while they carved up that neat sandhill seat you posted Nyvin.

If this style of map ends up as the final product, I suspect we will get the courts or special masters involved. The GOP employed their traditional "support AA caucus, lessen overall dem power" when drawing the state legislative maps. This plus their appeasement of all the urban legislatures with unpacked seats meant they could get away with maps that locked in the barest of majorities. This won't happen for the congressional map. In every possible way, the map posted at the end of today discriminates against AA Dem voters.

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this is another map that better captures the research triangle and keeps most of johnston with raleigh, but also makes the 8th weirdish in shape

I guess it was the map the NC Dems produced,  it was hard to get that from the video.



I don't think the political will is there to unite Forsyth and Guilford, even on the Dem side really.   They probably want to keep the two metros separate.   The two counties really have their own respective political parties and power groups.   I know a similar situation plays out between Manchester and Nashua in New Hampshire.

The main thing is they want to avoid a tug of war during primaries.

This is really not a bad map overall.

The southeast is a disaster zone in that map.  Those two county-chain districts are even worse than what the current map does.   Cabarrus with Johnston?  Brunswick with Union?!? 

It would also be a hard cap of 8R-5D,  with no real swing districts, Hillary won that Guilford district by like 9-10% if I have the math right.

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Screenshot of Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting Video link here (https://www.ncleg.gov/Video/Redistricting2019)


Here is all four maps they drew today.

God, these people are terrible at this.

👏 None 👏 Are 👏 Good 👏 Maps 👏

they seem really bent on stretching that one district 100 miles to the east of charlotte

Thats it, put them all in jail. Let the courts draw the maps!


Of course they are going to keep putting Johnston in with Wilmington, because David Fing Rouzer is a former State Senator, and his base is Johnston.

It is a horrendous map.

You know why they want to keep stretching out the districts right?


The more media markets, the more money it takes to compete in them, the more power the state GOP's big money donors have.


It also bakes in a GOP incumbent advantage beyond what the nominal top lines would suggest.


Edit: Also, Dowless could never have stolen a compact 9th, because that county wouldn't have been in it. The more counties, the more opportunities for these crooks to steal elections in some obscure county.

I mean there are things I don't like a lot about this map, but this is a better map than what we currently have. Plus, all of this will change before 2022.

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NC senate Dems map. They keep the Stupid 7th, the 6th and the 4th could probably do with an internal reshuffle, Greensboro/W-S of course, and I personally would have cut Wayne to boost NC01's AAVAP.

Me and NC Dems are on the same page,  looks very similar to mine again.

The only thing I really dislike here is keeping Forsyth and Guilford in separate districts, which, why? I don't love Johnston with Wilmington, or Watauga with Asheville, but those are not the end of the world.

They are thinking ahead for next year when we gain a seat.

Going by the Republican Map and the Democrat Map,  it's pretty clear we'll end up with something in the 8R-5D or 7R-5D-1s range.   

Sandhills area (Current NC-8 and NC-9 area) is the issue of contention mostly, along with maybe small issues with NC-1 going into the triangle.

It seems like everyone wants to keep Greensboro and Winston-Salem separate for whatever reason, so why not do the concise 3 county Guilford-Alamance-Rockingham district?

That would be great on it's own, but then what do you do with Caswell and Person?

I agree I really like that district though.  Alamance fits with Guilford way better than Randolph does.

The interest in the parties (both Republican and Democrat) isn't there to combine Forsyth and Guilford.   They don't want the Metros to compete against each other for the district.

Person and Caswell could go with Orange and Durham counties.

Well, the parties may not have the will, but the courts and their masters might, and I have to say that if what we currently got is similar to what ends up passing, they will be 100% making some edits. Whats going on in the east of the state in every map is just inviting them to say 'nope, you tired and failed.'

It seems like Democrats want to make sure that the Raleigh district wouldn't be competitive also?

How does that make a difference? You still won't be able to draw a Democratic or even particularly competitive seat including Forsyth County without Guilford County, as Forsyth is smaller, less Democratic and, other than Guilford, surrounded by ultra-Republican counties.

Yeah I think Forsyth/Guildford should be kept seperate as each of them are large enough for their own COI but when faced against each other Guilford would usually win.

Because if you pack all the dems in one district you get a super dem district and a super Rep district. But if you split it, you will get a Moderate dem district and a Winnable other district.

So in after the 2020 census when NC adds a district you can make this map.

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The Purple district is even and all the others are Dem districts. But if you packed the dems in like you said to, you wouldn't be able to make this map.

that district makes me uncomfortable

why is that?

First time I've seen it on the live feed,  apparently it is being considered!

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Well it's not impossible to draw a Triad district which would be a fair fight between both cities:

This map cuts out High Point (https://davesredistricting.org/join/ee66bdfe-77e7-4755-b5cb-d9ea4e201ae4)

This map cuts out the suburbs instead (better CoI fit) (https://davesredistricting.org/join/19ac1b54-d856-4d42-b2b8-99dd4965204c)

I suspect the reason why it never showed up on the previous maps was less because of metro pop density and instead because Ted Budd lives right on the border. Guess whoever is at the desk is throwing him away.

Still has the ugly Union-Sandhills thing though. Personally I'd much rather have a proper Sandhills district that a Winston-Salem and Greensboro district--the former is an obvious thing while the latter is more of a judgement call.

Not a great map for Virginia Foxx either; she gets double-bunked with Patrick McHenry when he's represented more of that area.

Plus Foxx kind of has an anti-personal vote.

This is a map on there too, rofl

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Maybe someone there is reading this forum...

Dear God....
I hate "stringy" districts, even if the district strings whole counties together. It's no old 1990s/2000s 12th District, but please....just no.

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Guys....I'm sure no one would be upset at splitting Mecklenburg and Wake Counties, right? Whatever the folks are smoking at computer 1, I need some.
But, at least they eliminated the two Charlotte suburbs to Sandhills "fajita" strips.

I don’t understand why they are doing like 30 maps.. hha

What do you guys think about this map?

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d1ce6b90-6e65-4b09-a69e-7567801509f1

It's a 5D-7R-1T map that doesn't look too ugly.

My map LOL
super ugly
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FYI not a gerrymander for any party. Its a gerrymander for competitive districts. I don't think it will h ap
4 Safe D, 4 Safe R, 5 Tossups

Safe Ds are red Charlotte, NE black 42% district, Northern Wake+part of Raleigh and Greensboro.
Safe R is the western Asheville District., Pink district and Western Charlotteburbs
Tossups
Yellow Charlotte. Trump +0.7. Takes in a larger part of Mecklenburg because the red district takes in less of Charlotte because it takes Cabarrus county. and stops just before Robeson and doesn't take any part of Cumberland county. Dan Mcready would have ran here and would easily won here either year maybe even by double digits.


Wilmington-Fayetville, takes all of Fayetville and Robeson and moves east to Wilmington. As all of New Hanover can't be in it I take the blue parts of Wilmington which keeps it competetive at Clinton +0.2

I took the idea of using Winston Salem and dragging it around to Durham. Clinton +0.7. Tossup once again.
Part of Raleigh and south east = another tossup at Trump +0.4
The most contraversial part is taking exurbs/rurals in central NC which are super red and mixing it with lean blue Chatham and the deep blue Chapel Hill/Durham to make a pure tossup district :P at +1.

I guess in general COI are somewhat preserved but it isn't really the best when considering COI especially in the triad region.

Okay, I think I somehow found the perfect map for NC. There is still going to be problems, but I think this is the least worst. The bullet that NC-03 bites in this scenario is far less deadly than anything currently being drawn for the west by those in Raleigh, and it improves on my map upthread. It also takes  into consideration the wishes of various NC residents I have seen here and on twitter.

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7-6 R/D, but the Sandhills seat is less than safe and the Ashville seat is weird.

Perks of the map:
- There's a Sandhills Seat.
- Johnston county is in the 'catch all' 3rd rather than in a seat with a base.
- Chatham cut into the parts more  congruent with each neighbor.
- Greensboro/W-S/High Point seat
- Ashville + Boone
- Iredell cut N/S, separating the suburbs to be paired with the  other Charlotte suburban 10th.
- Raleigh is wholly in the 4th,it only loses the northern suburbs, wake forest, and western AA communities outside the city.

Now the 7th/3rd border may not be your cup of tea, I get that Duplin sticks out. So here's a alternative version that adds a cut.

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https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1192232580008964096

Also it seems like the GOP is accepting an 8-5 map at the least?

Unless they are gonna try to save another seat to a 9-4.

They would have to be stupid to try a 10-3

CD-3 in that map would be a toss-up so it would be 7-5-1

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This is a good map I just made.

1,3,6,12 and 13 are safe D; 2,4,5,7,8,10 and 11 are safe R; 9 is Toss-up

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i think this is probably the best map you can get with respect to communities of interest and compactness




edit: i like this one more 'cause it keeps pittsboro with chapel hill

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Any map that puts two incumbents into the same districts will not happen. That is one of the rules they have.

Well, Holding and Ellmers were redistricted into one district and he defeated her in a primary (this is my district, NC-02).

The only other notable example I can think of is when state Republicans districted Kucinich and Kaptur into one district and Kaptur won.

It happens.

https://twitter.com/democracync/status/1191846143119917059?s=20

this list the rules and one of them are they are trying to not pair people.

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This is more than likely what we will end up with.

I was unaware of this. My bad.

Based on what?

Oh this is just a rough estimate

If theres going to be a reason the court intervenes then, this will end up being it. Too many incumbents lives near each other, facilitated by bad maps of course, and there is a giant dead zone  incumbent-wise in the sandhills and Wilmington. It's a natural occurrence during redistricting that incumbents get paired up and drawn away, which is why there are always an unusual number of retirements around redistricting. PA got lucky 2 years age and a third of their delegation had already announced retirement because of the  incoming wave, so this gave everyone some empty districts and leeway room to maneuver with.

Wrt: Chatham County, it's worth noting that Pittsboro is also pretty oriented towards the Triangle. Central Chatham County is very similar to northern Orange County; it's oriented towards Chapel Hill and is a bunch of hippie agricultural communities and new urbanist development. A reasonable cut of Chatham is a little further west.

Again I don't necessarily think a Boone-Asheville district is necessary. People in Northwestern North Carolina get Charlotte and Johnson City TV and drive to Winston-Salem for shopping; Asheville is in the mountains, which is a commonality, but getting to Asheville from Boone is nearly a two hour drive over twisty mountain roads. They do have a fair amount in common and I'm not against a Mountains district which includes the High County and Asheville but there are other communities of interest which I think are more important.

Like the Unifour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory%E2%80%93Lenoir%E2%80%93Morganton_Metropolitan_Statistical_Area), for example.

What is going to be interesting to see is which republican congress members they try to save, and which one they put in a Democratic district. Also, if that congress person ends up jumping into the Governor race or Senate Race.

With the current map that they saved, Walker, Holding and Rouzer are all likely to be voted out, with Rouzer having the best chance at winning re-election. I could see him running again. But with Walker and Holding, I don't think they will. Walker could jump to another race.

Is there any likely map where Holding isn't doomed?

Considering last time the maps were redrawn he just primaried Ellmers (and won...) and took her district,  I think he'll be fine.   My guess is he runs in whatever district ends up with Johnston.


Holding is a Trump Loyalist so he'll most likely win any GOP primary.

Ironically he also lives in Raleigh (in the current 4th district...).

Quick Question:

Which do you think is better for Chatham, the version above or one like this:

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If you haven't picked picked it up yet I tend to draw my district in groupings of counties, and ideally there is only limited cuts between said groups for pop - cuts for COI's are considered to be part of said group. In the map above, 8+10+13 are a group, 11+5+13+7+2 are a group, and 1+3+7+9 are  a group. 4 is nested  in Wake and not part of any group. So to get Chatham's cut pushed west we do a little 'circle motion' in the second grouping.

- Casewell goes into 5
- 5 drops some Guilford suburbs
- 13 picks up some of the northern dropped  suburbs, still retains all of Greensboro/W-S/High Point
- 7 takes the rest of the Guilford Suburbs
- 2 picks up central Chatham. The new cut's lines are decided purely by the pop within precincts, I would stick that bit near Alamance in 2 if I could.

I guess the second, but the optimal cut wrt: CoI would be somewhere in the middle. Siler City is a better fit for your grey, but Pittsboro should go with Chapel Hill.

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North Carolina has 16 regional council of governments. These are voluntary organizations of cities and counties that provide cooperation on issues of regional interest. They reflect meaningful and officially recognized communities of interest. They are the starting point for drawing a congressional district map independent of past gerrymanders.

This table show the populations of the regions relative to the quota for a congressional district.

RCOG	City	Population
Albermarle	Hertford	0.234
Cape Fear	Wilmington	0.573
Centralina	Charlotte	2.684
Eastern Carolina	New Bern	0.863
High Country	Boone	0.286
Isothermal	Rutherfordtown	0.315
Kerr-Tar	Henderson	0.309
Land-of-Sky	Asheville	0.544
Lumber River	Pembroke	0.408
Mid-Carolina	Fayetteville	0.678
Mid-East	Washington	0.390
Piedmont Triad	Greensboro	2.237
Southwestern	Sylva	0.265
Triangle J	Raleigh	2.292
Upper Coastal Plain	Wilson	0.423
Western Piedmont	Hickory	0.498

Three central regions of Centralina (Charlotte), Piedmont Triad (Greensboro-Winston Salem), and Triangle J (Raleigh-Durham) are all entitled to two plus districts each and are fairly extensive, extending beyond what we would consider their metropolitan areas. To the extent possible we will avoid drawing areas outside these major cities, and create separate districts for secondary cities such as Fayetteville, Wilmington, Asheville, Rocky Mount, Greenville, Jacksonville, and Hickory(Unifour)

We can groups the RCOG's into West, Central, and Eastern regions. The central region is the three RCOG's based on Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Durham. The west region is the five RCOG's to the west, and the east region is 8 RCOG's to the west.

Area	Population
West	1.909
Central	7.212
East	3.879

Based on these regions, we should be able to draw 2 districts largely to the west of the Charlotte, and Greensboro-Winston-Salem metro areas, and 4 districts to the east.
This map groups RCOG's in areas of roughly equal population.

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The western area is divided in a way that produces the best population balance, but extending along the Appalachian spine is not an unreasonable community of interest.

Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford+Forsyth were split out in separate areas, each with a bit more than the quota. Mecklenburg and Wake will necessarily be divided, and Guilford would be unless we split Forsyth adn Guilford.

Southern suburban counties around Charlotte were split out, which along with Mecklenburg has a population equivalent to two quotas. Stanly was included to hit the quota target. The remainder of the Centralina RCOG was used to form the 13th district.

I could not find a reasonable way to combine Kerr-Tar (north of Raleigh) and Mid-Carolina (Fayetteville) with the other eastern RCOG's so I instead attached them to the Triangle J RCOG, and split that area three ways: Wake (Raleigh); Durham-Orange(Durham-Chapel Hill) and the areas to the north, and areas to the south. Moore and Lee are somewhat remote from Raleigh, while Harnett has spillover from Wake.

The relative population of the areas.

Area	Population
Appalachian	1.095
Western	0.814
Charlotte	1.254
Charlotte Metro	0.745
I-85	0.686
Greensboro-Winston-Salem	1.144
Central	1.093
Raleigh	1.228
Durham-North	0.856
Raleigh Metro	1.194
Northeast	1.048
Eastern	0.863
Southeast	0.981

This iteration refines the districts to get the districts more in population balance, particularly in the east and the west.

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Surry is added to the western area to get the population up to two quotas. The county has the right size, and is remote from Greensboro. Some counties were swapped to better balance the populations of the Appalachian and Western districts.

In the east, Cumberland(Fayetteville) was moved into the southeastern district, in exchange for New Hanover(Wilmington) being moved into the eastern district. Wilmington fits better with a coastal district, and Fayetteville is better in a district with Robeson than a district that pushes into the Raleigh suburbs.

Anson, Richmond, Duplin, Wayne, Greene, Beaufort, and Hyde were moved to balance population.

The I-85 district was expanded to the north to get sufficient population. This produces a compact district, with a mix of suburban Charlotte, suburban Greensboro, and exurban areas, as well as smaller mill towns along the Fall Line.

The central area including the big question mark around Greensboro needs more work.

Updated population:

Area	Population
Appalachian	1.009
Western	1.000
Charlotte	1.254
Charlotte Metro	0.745
I-85	0.979
Greensboro-Winston Salem	1.144
Central	0.762
Raleigh	1.228
Durham-North	0.856
Raleigh Metro	1.006
Northeast	1.004
Eastern	1.007
Southeast	1.005

This is a refinement that produces whole-county districts, except for splits of Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford counties. The splits of Mecklenburg and Wake are necessary. The split of of Guilford permits Winston-Salem and Greensboro to be maintained in a single district.

()

It is expected that the cut of Mecklenburg will permit the western and eastern suburbs of Charlotte to be linked, and the cut of Wake will provide a link between Johnston and Franklin counties. This introduces district numbers which are added in a snake-like fashion from east to west.

Whole-county districts in bold.

District	Population
1-Appalachian	1.009
2-Western	1.000
3-Charlotte	1.254
4-Charlotte Metro	0.745
5-I-85	0.979
6-Greensboro-Winston Salem	1.336
7-Central	0.617
9-Raleigh	1.228
8-Durham-North	1.012
10-Raleigh Metro	0.803
13-Northeast	1.004
12-Eastern	1.007
11-Southeast	1.005

Mecklenburg Split:

4-Charlotte	0.999
3-Charlotte Metro	0.255

Guilford Split:

5-I-85	0.013
6-Greensboro-Winston Salem	0.322
7-Central	0.330

Wake Split:

7-Central	0.045
9-Raleigh	0.993
10-Raleigh Metro	0.190

This is the division of Mecklenburg, and the surrounding area.

()

CD-4 is wholly in Mecklenburg and includes the center and north of the county. About 80% of Mecklenburg is in the district. The boundary line generally follows I-485, coming inside to include Mint Hill, Mathews, Pineville, and unincorporated areas, while cutting off the areas of Charlotte that extend out past the loop.

Roughly 1/4 of the district is in each of Gaston, Union, and Mecklenburg counties.

The initial attempt at dividing Guilford did not work well. While including Rockingham and Stokes with Forsyth and Guilford produced a compact whole-county district, it required excising a larger portion of Guilford to reach population equality. An island with Greensboro would have to be connected by an isthmus to either Rockingham or Forsyth, which seems to be contrary of the attempt to have a district centered on Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

This alternative arrangement shifts Rockingham and Stokes to the Durham-Chapel Hill district, and Alamance to the Central district. This results in a much larger share of Guilford remaining in the Greensboro-Winston-Salem district.

()

As a secondary benefit this improves overall equality of the map.

This shows the division of Guilford.

()

Greensboro and (most of) High Point are included in NC-6 with Forsyth and Winston-Salem. The district is split 48-52 between the two counties, with the slight majority in Guilford.

The southern and eastern part of the county outside Greensboro and High Point is in NC-7. This is about 20% of the county. The hook on the west end is unincorporated territory between Greensboro and High Point. The hook on the north is for population reasons. This area fits well with Randolph and Alamance counties. Burlington is on the western edge of Alamance and may be growing towards Greensboro.

A small nibble of High Point is included in NC-4 for overall population equality. High Point does lap into Davidson County at that point. But Guilford was chosen in otder to limit county splits to three counties. An alternative would be to take a nibble out northern Mecklenburg, at a slight decline in overall equality (standard deviation 0.48% to 0.52%). In a rational world, a single 2.1% deviation would be acceptable.

Y’all think we will get a final map this week?

I think I remember reading they're planning for release on Thursday.

I can’t wait to see what my new district could be.

Probably won't end though. Unless they decide to double-bunk someone theres almost no way the SE/Sandhills are not going to get shafted. There's about 1.6 CD's worth of pop there, both Blue and Red, and no incumbents for miles. So, a master will be needed to fix that even if the rest of the map if passable.

()

Here's a version of my "standard" map that focuses on avoiding double-bunking incumbents. All incumbents except one are alone, which of course means the stupid 7th makes it's return. Bishop ends up paired with Hudson, because the SE/Sandhills shouldn't be stripped out just to satisfy the incumbents. This doesn't prevent Walker and Holding being DOA though.

Forgot to mention, this map requires four cut precincts to get everyone to equivalent pop ( my standard is <100 on DRA), but these cuts do not add any new county cuts - they are just a side effect of the large precinct size in a few counties. One is in Wake between 9/2, one in Chatham between 13/4, one in Granville between 1/4, and one in Wayne between 1/7.

From the maps they have all posted, there is a very high chance I will either be in a very democratic district or a swing district.

the bottom map I posted looks like the map the GOP  are going to go with.

Happened to wake up for a moment...anyway before I sleep again....

That map looks a lot like some of the ones here, actually a lot like my recent incumbent one if we ignore the block of 5/8/9/10/13. And people thought the Greensboro/W-S paired wasn't the  most logical. Now concerning the previous block, it's just a obvious bacon-stripping of the suburbs to  deny the sandhills a seat, keep incumbents satisfied, and prevent-double bunking. The stripping though is so obvious that I doubt the process ends here.

The stupid 7th makes it's return, though like I predicted in my incumbent map, such a seat was rather inevitable with the stipulation of no double bunking. Nobody is in the SE to get the Wilmington/Sandhills, so it ends up stripped.

There's also an amendment which avoids cutting Fayetteville. It also makes the fourth much better, a LOT like my versions.
https://twitter.com/RepDavidRLewis/status/1194800184762552321

Oryxslayer and cvparty have produced the best maps I have seen so far in this thread. I cannot open Oregon Blue Dog's on this computer so I cannot say anything about that one.


Also the whole discussion about which Reps live where is emblematic of why the courts needs to draw this. Considering where incumbents lives in redistricting should be illegal. These maps are not drawn to serve them, they are drawn to best represent the people and the Representatives are then suppose to represent those districts. If they cannot do that, then they need to retire.

I would gladly vote for Holden over Rouzer in a primary if it were to come to that.

thanks uwu that's flattering to hear from a north carolinian. i agree on the thing about double bunking being BS, what bearing should incumbents' hometowns have on drawing fair districts? isn't the virtue of the latter with respect to the people, not a small group of politicians?

Today they will make changes to the map. Let’s see what happens. But we do know we will get two new Dems seats.

Anyway, I'm back up, some other remarks.

I find it amazing that if the map returns to the courts and they have to make edits, it won't really be because of partisanship, it will because of incumbents. All the Dem seats are good in theory, it's the fact that every GOP seat except the distant 3/11 are strips thanks to incumbent homes. The sad thing is that like in my incumbent map, all you had to do is bus uber-freshman Bishop as well as Holding and Walker and you could get it good. There's enough GOP votes in the SE to get compact seats that should elect the GOP without Bacon stripping the sandhills that badly. You just know that if Dems won the 9ths special instead of Reps than the stupid provision wouldn't have been accepted.

Also a minor point is how Wayne remains whole in every map. The first is actually closeish to the margins because it has Nash, Franklin, and Perquimans uncut on the main map. Cutting Wayne would go a long way to fixing the seat, with Washington and Pasquotank right there to substitute deep red precincts for AA ones.

Btw anyone notice the GOP wants a winnable Nc 1? The one in that map is clinton +6.5. Definitely winnable for the GOP in a wave.

Currently the GOP are  pushing Lewis's map from my previous post that keeps Cumberland whole. They voted and approved it in committee from three separate but very similar plans. It's funny how it's the dem seats that all look good, it's the GOP ones that go crazy for incumbents.

However, Lewis does have something new up that while bacon-stripping does start to Bus Incumbents.

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Also here's a detailed version of the current map, the competitive first was never going to stay since it's VRA.

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Its fun:p

I doubt it,  almost all the voters are AA.   That's going to be a rock solid floor for Democrats.

Keeping Union/SE Mecklenburg in with the Sandhills area is a blatant partisan gerrymander and an effort to keep Bishop's home in the seat.   There's really no other defense for it.

The two areas have absolutely nothing in common.

I think everyone agrees that from the plan on the  table right now, NC08/09 need to be cut east/west rather than north south. But you know "wE CAn'T PaIr inCUmBenTs" so sh**t happens. I mean you are already busing Holden and Walker, whats one more? Also 10/5/13 should probably reshuffle the counties between them, but once again"reSIdEnCiES." And that's the story how the North Carolina courts got the pen from the state legislature.

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195028349309071361

So the suggested plan my very well be our 'final' map before the judges bang their gavel.

Geez. 8 and 9 are terrible, but 5 and 10 are terrible, too. What's the reasoning behind them? It doesn't seem to be to separate incumbents or to preserve the existing map.

The Republicans had to screw an incumbent with a W-S-Greensboro district--so they decided to screw Foxx or McHenry rather than the incumbent in the area? That seems like the most plausible explanation for WNC to me.

Anyway the 7th sucks--but it does highlight the unfortunate truth that one of NC-01, NC-03, or NC-07 must crack into either the Triangle or the Sandhills.

The sad thing is I don't anyone has problems with any of the dem seats - they aren't packing beyond their geographic area, and they all have clear COIs. It's the GOP seats. Why is 5 and 10 E/W rather than N/S? If the stupid 7th has to exist than everything to the west is passable...but it certainly can be improved. 13/8/9 actually make sense considering where the incumbents live, but that doesn't justify the strips.

Indeed they are, but the 8th could be competitive with all of Cumberland County (Fayetteville) and increasingly competitive Cabarrus County (Charlotte suburbs). I'd love to see its PVI in the version including all of Cumberland.
EDIT: I found some kid on twitter that estimated the PVI on this map, if he's correct the 8th would be R+5 and 9th R+7. https://twitter.com/JacksonMartin42/status/1195024367559860225

The 7th is obviously terrible, but we knew that was likely. But the 5th and 10th are worse imo because there is no need to strip there. McHenry and Foxx would be stuck with a ton of people they haven't represented before, although solidly conservative areas, I doubt either are happy with that. I'm very confused as to why they stripped those two seats. On top of everything else, the incumbents live far apart.
I'm not as annoyed with the 8th and 9th because they were already stripped and we knew they were likely to remain so due to where the incumbents live.

What's with everyone trying to place the Raleigh suburbs with Raleigh itself? Personally, I much prefer creating one Triangle district (durham-chapel hill-raleigh) and one Raleigh burbs one - Raleigh the city has much more in common with Durham then it does with say Holly Springs/

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195084351798759424


Dem's proposed a amendment, and frankly I'm happy it got shot down with that 6th.

I did some data estimates here, you can find it upthread. If you need Zoom to read, than here.  (https://twitter.com/OryxMaps/status/1195011738116210689)

()

This change passed. Sounds like it added a bit more of the black ares of Pitt County into CD-01.

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195078027253866502?s=20

Continuing the trend of every Dem district being rather good but you have to scratch your head for every GOP one.

Honestly, this map is not terrible.  There are thinks I don’t like. But overall I will get it a C.

I'll give a brief summary of the statehouse map.
NC-01: D+17 to D+4. This makes sense, as it is uncracking the Wake gerrymander and making it a primarily rural minority-heavy district. It's 42% black, which should be enough to keep Butterfield happy.
NC-02: R+7 to D+9. Holding is most likely toast here, as the 2nd becomes a district with most of Wake County in it, rather than a suburban gerrymander.
NC-03: R+12 to R+12. This district is always a tough one to draw because the population centers are split up (Greenville, Jacksonville), and it is squeezed between Wilmington in 7, the AA seat in 1, and the coast. Still, safe R for Murphy, and the partisan lean doesn't change much here. Communities of interest basically is just ENC not included in NC-01, and the Outer Banks.
NC-04: D+17 to D+10. The successor to the Durham seat, this one gets a little less Democratic, but Clinton still won over 60 percent of the vote here.
NC-05: R+10 to R+18. This one makes sense, as the old 5th had Winston Salem in it drowned out by really red rural NW NC, but now that the Winston-Salem/Greensboro gerrymanders are being unwound, the 5th becomes a predominantly rural district, stretching all the way from the Northwest to the western Charlotte suburbs. This is clearly a gerrymander as the shape of the 5th and the 10th (which I shall talk about later) have no precedent in any of the previous shapes of the districts.
NC-06: R+9 to D+8. Walker is likely toast here just as with Holding because his old district had Asheboro/Randolph County (voted Trump 76-20) keeping it solidly red, as well as some of the Piedmont to the north of Greensboro. The new district becomes a Greensboro/Winston-Salem seat as it should be, and is a likely pickup for Democrats.
NC-07: R+9 to R+11. Not significantly redder than it originally is, this district contains Wilmington as well as heavily red Brunswick County, except now it stretches further north all the way to Johnston County (Wake suburbs formerly in NC-02). I don't necessarily think this was the best idea, given that NC-07 has always been a Sandhills/Southern North Carolina district. That being said, if the district had to expand (as rural NC is losing population to urban very quickly), north is probably the way to go, because east is the 3rd which is already boxed in and west is the 8th/9th which both represent rural swaths of the Sandhills region, and have enough population to sustain a district for a Community of Interest. Rouzer is likely safe here, Trump won this new district by 20, he won the old one by 18, so it's not that different. This area used to be represented by a lot of conservative Democrats (Mike McIntyre for example), but unless one of them wins a primary (which given that Wilmington is in the district, probably won't happen), this district is a Safe R seat, maybe going to Likely in a 2018-style wave and Lean in a 2008-style wave. (Also, this 7 has all of the famous Bladen County that had the electoral fraud in the 9th district)
NC-08: R+8 to R+5. So to preface, 8 and 9 are twins so to speak in modern-day NC apportionment. Historically speaking, 8 was the Fayetteville district with the rural swath of the state between Charlotte and Fayetteville, and 9 was the suburban Charlotte district (think Mark Harris and Union County). When the GOP took over, they slashed Cumberland County (Fayetteville) into 2 and divided it between 8 and 9. The new district becomes much more bluer and gettable, as it has all of Cumberland back in it, and is only Trump +9 as supposed to Trump +15. Someone like Larry Kissell could do well if he wanted to run here again. This district could have been drawn worse. As of now, I'd say it's a Likely R seat. Hudson would still likely win.
NC-09: R+8 to R+7. This district, being the flip-side of 8, takes in the southern band of the Sandhills region, and stretches into metro Charlotte. McCready would probably win this district both times. Metro Charlotte is trending D, and a Dem that can keep up the strength in the ancestrally Democratic eastern parts of the district (read: Richmond, Anson, Scotland, Hoke, Robeson) could do well here, so someone like McCready. The counter-argument to this is, of course, Union County, which is a huge GOP bulwark against Democratic inroads, as well as Moore County (a small central NC county that is very Republican as well, though not all of it is in the 9th). Given that this is Trump +10, I'd say it's Likely R for a seat. Dan Bishop would probably still win, but if Mark Harris or some other nutcase wins the primary, this could get competitive real fast.
NC-10: R+12 to R+19. Western North Carolina historically is the most Republican part of the state. McHenry is going to be safe from any Democrat, his only threat is a primary. Adding a bunch of High Country NC in the Northwest may not make him very happy, but in the interest of fair maps, this district is tied with 5 as the worst one on this map. The only community of interest I can see for either of them is partisanship, these are very Republican areas. They should have cut these two seats north-south, as has been done before, and not east-west as we are seeing here. This seat is Safe R.
NC-11: R+14 to R+9. One of the biggest partisan shifts on this map towards Democrats, the 11th historically has been the flip-side district of the 10th and has historically included all of Buncombe County (the city of Asheville, a very liberal enclave), as well as some ancestral Democrats in the far western part of NC. When the GOP took over in 2010, they cut Buncombe in half and we got Mark Meadows (the Freedom Caucus bomb-thrower) as a result. This new map puts all of Asheville back in the 11th and stretches further a bit to the north and east, which makes sense as rural NC is losing population. The Republicans who drew the map chose to go east into Polk and Rutherford Counties (two arch-Republican counties that historically were in the 10th), instead of north towards Watauga County (which is Democratic-leaning and if drawn into it, would have made it a Trump +13 district instead of Trump +17. This district is one that could potentially get competitive with the right candidate (probably a Blue Dog), but for a Democrat to win, they would need to supercharge turnout in Asheville (which I guess is probably easy enough if Meadows is their representative), as well as hold back the reddening of those ancestral Democratic areas. Currently Safe R, but could become competitive if the right candidate jumps in.
NC-12: D+18 to D+17. This district hasn't changed much, as it is the Charlotte-based seat that is the successor to the shoestring AA seats of the 90s and 00s. Alma Adams should be fine and only has to worry about a Democratic primary here, given Republican urban and suburban bleeding. Thus, I think this new seat is Safe D.
NC-13: R+6 to R+18. This seat is the converse of NC-06, which shared a crack of Greensboro. Now that this is unpacked, this seat becomes a much safer R seat but again drawn rather badly. My guess is that they wanted to shore up Democrats in 4 with Chatham and Orange. Anyway, this seat is Safe R.

Finally, the breakdown.
Most likely, this seat will elect 5 Democrats and 8 Republicans, an improvement over the current 3-10 map. It should be near 6-7, but in a good year, this number or even 7-6 can be attained.
NC-01: Safe D, Likely D in R wave year
NC-02: Safe D
NC-03: Safe R
NC-04: Safe D
NC-05: Safe R
NC-06: Safe D
NC-07: Safe R
NC-08: Likely R, Lean R in D wave year
NC-09: Likely R, Lean R in D wave year
NC-10: Safe R
NC-11: Safe R, Likely R depending on candidate
NC-12: Safe D
NC-13: Safe R
Therefore, we can see Democrats could gain an absolute maximum of 8-5 in the delegation in a good enough year.

THE END

Not sure why you wasted a lot of ink on the 7th since its both safe R in any scenario these days,there are no more blue dogs, and these districts are drawn using 2010 data so the seat doesn't need to expand to reflect pop change until 2021. NC-01 is also D+5 following the edits made on the floor.

Also of course the courts can and probably will intervene after this passes tomorrow, even if only to make 8/9 E/W and 5/10 N/S.

7 (or 8 if we concede the stupid 7th into existence) of the seats are 'passable.' Personally I say those have reached the point of marginal returns on COIs and partisan balance. It's just that other 5 (5/8/9/10/13) that really raise eyebrows.

Hold on, does Governor Cooper get a say in any of this? It seems like he should.

Not in NC. Redistricting is normally in the sole  hands of the legislature, presently GOP. This is why the courts have been moving against all the maps right now at the end of the cycle so as to establish themselves as the de facto overseer for 2021. The courts will get a say when the legislature presents it's maps.

Nope
Nc is the state of parties self owning.
Democrats and the veto
The GOP and a partisan court.

Not the perfect place for it, but what's with the leftward shift of Cabarrus? Especially compared to Union or Gaston.

As a local I can give a guess.
Gaston is separated from Mecklenburg (and thus Charlotte) by the Catawba River and it has acted as a physical barrier to suburban growth. I could easily be wrong, but I'd assume Gaston is home to more native North Carolinians than the other counties that border Mecklenburg, thus it is very "WWC".

Union borders the historically Republican (and well off) part of southern/southeastern Mecklenburg. The suburban part of Union reflects it by supporting Republicans for local and national office. In addition, Union stretches far to the east (much further than Cabarrus), containing very WWC areas.

Meanwhile, Cabarrus doesn't border conservative areas or have a river separating it from Mecklenburg. In fact, the border is very close to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and University City (a huge mixed use development with office parks and a hospital). A few hundred feet across the county line, Concord Mills is the most visited tourist attraction in the state and there's nothing in any other area counties that can compete with it in encouraging suburban development. Cabarrus also has easy access to Charlotte along recently expanded ten lane I-85 (the route to Charlotte from suburban Union is along notoriously clogged NC-16 and US-74). Basically, it's the most convenient and closest suburban area not in Mecklenburg to Charlotte, and thus has had the most suburban development. As a result, it has attracted more newcomers (many who are minorities and many from relatively liberal states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and California who tend to be less conservative than native whites) than other non-Mecklenburg Metrolina counties.

So, if the Senate passes the current map. How long until we know if the courts approve it or not?

They will be sure to let us know. Practically though, if they intend to make edits then it will go quickly - in PA  the courts took authority quickly to banish uncertainty.


Anyway, the senate is going to look at, and likely pass unchanged, the House's map today. The NC state house isn't sitting again for a while so it's very unlikely they make any edits at all.

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195369646142238720


https://twitter.com/NCCapitol/status/1195370914742816768

Practically I feel this amendment is a delaying tactic, not a real move to change the lines. 2/4 lines are really not a problem, though they can be improved marginally.

Hopefully the courts redo the 5/10 and 7/8/9 lines.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1195437707796897797

The legislative side is now done.

That really just leaves Ohio and Texas as the last two surviving "major" R Gerrymanders left in the country.   (Not saying the NC Map is perfect now or anything)

We'll see how well the Texas one holds up next year though.

Important to note that Texas uses the same statewide partisan judicial election system as PA and NC for its state supreme court (except with normal primaries, so it is always 1 D and 1 R running per court seat in the GE).  This is all enshrined in the state constitution, which would require a 2/3rds majority vote of both state legislative chambers (which Republicans have never held in both chambers simultaneously) and then a majority statewide referendum vote to change.  Currently, all of the state supreme court seats are held by Republicans, but if Democrats reach the point where they are often able to win statewide elections, PA/NC style map reform is likely coming to Texas during the 2020's. 


Normally 3 of the 9 seats are up every 2 years.

Georgia too.

If that ends up being the map then Holding is pretty much f[inks]ed and we'll see a Budd v. Walker primary battle.

Yeah, Georgia is going to be one of the toughest large state gerrymanders to break.  There is simply no statewide "backdoor" available for reform advocates and a 2/3rds majority gerrymander of the state legislature isn't impossible either.  If VA is gerrymandered in favor of Dems, it will be similarly hard to break. 

And Michigan

The NCGOP is playing much smarter than the PA GOP is. The PA GOP just tried an absurd map only conceding 1 seat out of them all and using that to shore up the remaining seats. Instead they got smacked by the courts. A fair map would probably have a 6-7 delegation but the GOP can reasonably fight for a 5-8 delegation as a 5-8 isn't an extreme gerrymander or insane either. Unfortunately for them the NC dems did not give bipartisan cover so the courts will probably give a tossup/Tilt D seat to the D's with Fayetville.

Michigan and Georgia aren't as bad anymore.   At least there's a reasonable chance of getting a somewhat fair delegation in those states.   

I honestly think they could be able to get away with it if 5/10 weren't crazy. Maybe those two are  meant to be bait to distract from 8/9? I keep wondering why 5/10 were drawn like so. The only conclusion I have is that the house GOP wanted to protect against or facilitate certain primaries, potentially because they desire to save Walker and Bus someone else  in a GOP primary.

There is no requirement in the Texas constitution for partisan judicial elections.

Yes, I regret that error.  It would presumably be possible to make the elections nonpartisan or change the primary format by passing a standard law, but moving away from statewide elections (to merit selection, senate confirmation other than until next election, supreme court districts, or whatever) or changing the number of seats or term lengths for the state supreme court would require going through the amendment process.

BTW I wish all states with partisan judicial elections would remove the party labels.  The concept is repugnant.

When can we expect to hear something from the court?

BTW it increasingly looks like the NC-07/eastern NC-09 area is "going WV" on Dems even compared to other parts of the rural South.  I wouldn't count on Dems flipping anything in that area even with the most favorable map.  The best potential for an outstate Dem flip during the 2020's is in the mountains if the court forces Asheville and Boone into the same seat given how hard left both have been moving.
 

I think the best flip potential is actually the 8th, which includes Fayettesville and almost voted for Stein in 2016, but agreed other then that. Was drawing NC districts last night, and crazy seeing how much Trump overperformed PVI in the area, especially in Robeson County etc etc (though for some reason Stein, a Jewish Democrat from Chapel Hill, also really overperformed in the whole region).

I don't know if I'd say that--a compact Sandhills and Fayetteville district still voted for HRC. There were certainly big GOP swings and the area is definitely trending R in a big way.

But some of that is due to the Lumbee vote which is more idiosyncratic and could definitely snap back to the Democrats for a candidate who is strong on Lumbee issues--not impossible to see Robeson voting for a Democratic president in 2020, much less for Congress.

Additionally, these areas have big Black populations which give a Democratic floor in the area.

So if the courts don’t say anything by dec 2, the map they put out will be the final map?

There is history pushing back the NC congressional primaries to make appropriate time for mapping and candidate filling, so I would treat that as a soft date at best, especially since it falls near the holidays.

NC Court rejects the legislature's map.

https://twitter.com/pnrodenbush/status/1197286403677315072

Well, hopefully the courts can make a good map

Beautiful!!!

I just wish they will hurry this up and give us the final map.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1201564346356244482

Looks like the 8R-5D map will be used.   Plaintiffs can still appeal to the state supreme court though.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1201566864784199681?s=19

Yep, disappointing. If the deep blue supremes don't like it then they will let us know shortly since they would want to fast-track an appeal. For now, let's assume the ruling stands and those odd GOP seats remain intact.

Ah, what the hell. At least we'll have something new in 2022 (7-7 if they have the guts).

I kinda like the fact the new map is only 8R-5D. It's considerably less atrocious than 10R-3D and the map will only be there for just one cycle. State leg will matter however and Ds need to try their hardest to flip at least one house in 2020 lest their hand in 2022 line-drawing be weakened.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1201684489086394368/photo/1

Looks like its set in for an 8-5 delegation. This does push my house rating from lean D to Likely D even if this was already confirmed.

Playing around on DRA, it looks like a fair map would probably be 8-6 and 9-5 could be accomplished with relatively clean lines.

The plaintiffs won't appeal to the State Supreme Court, the map is final.

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1201684489086394368

Will there be any intense D primaries in NC-02 and NC-06?

Well, we shall see. The map appears to have not been challenged because of the filing window. Already former senate candidate Deborah Ross has filed for NC02 and 2018 NC-13 candidate Kathy Manning filed for NC-06. However, there are large blue bases in both seats, so we will see who emerges.

I don’t understand why Districts 5 and 10 are drawn that way, though I’d assume the NC GOP wanted to protect their only female rep from Mark Walker’s potential carpetbagging. Railroading Virginia Foxx is bad optics for a party who’s trying to win over women.

Have we ever heard anything of the sort from the GOP? I know electing more women to the party has been one of Stefanik's goals for some time, but there have been no indication I've seen that either the voters or the party establishment wants that. Nor do they really care about the optics of it.

Does Virginia Foxx count as a woman?

The voters didn’t make the districts themselves. Even if the GOP base isn’t in the mood for more female representatives, I’m assuming the politicians in Raleigh are concerned that not holding on to their state delegation’s only female Republican would make it hard to fight back charges of sexism. Especially after they elected men in both of their special elections.

We saw this same thing play out in Georgia. Brian Kemp picked a woman to be their new senator for many of the same reasons NC is trying to keep Foxx aboard.

I doubt the peculiar lines of 5 and 10 (and to a lesser extent 13) had anything to do with Foxx's gender. I suspect it had everything to do with rigging the primaries for someone - we just don't know who yet. It could be that the mappers wanted Walker to survive so they made the 13th in a way that could benefit him in a primary, and cut 13 between districts to prevent Budd from fleeing. Or the lines could be set up to prevent or facilitate the advancement of state legislators to Washington. We won't know till everyone has filed.

Why would they want to get rid of Budd? And how do you know he wouldn’t go to the 10th instead?

No idea, just guessing. The fact that so much safe R territory was unnecessarily shuffled when everything could be kept compact suggests an external desire. The partisan makeup of the region implies this desire  has to do with the GOP primary. What those primary desires exactly are remain unknown.

I agree. It probably means they want to keep certain MOC safe from primary challenges. This configuration seems to benefit Foxx the most as it puts her district away from the 6th. A more compact split would have her district touching the new 6th.

Most of these new CDs are fair. The only exception are 7, 8, and 9 being at least Likely R, as opposed to a CD combining Fayetteville, Lumberton, and Wilmington into 1 or 2 districts, which could have produced at least a tossup CD.

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1201619512556236807

Also just confirming the feds won't get involved.

Also what a garbage article by the Washington post on this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/north-carolinas-new-congressional-map-shifts-two-seats-toward-democrats/?arc404=true

Yes two completely compact districts wholey within their counties and communities are examples of a gerrymander, not the fact that a Dem tilting region was split among 3 GOP districts.

Also uses some really garbage PVI and it claims NC 4th in the new map which is 65% Clinton only leans to Democrats by less than 5%. They must be on crack.

It's worth bearing in mind that Foxx is 76 years old, so she must be on a retirement watchlist anyway.

See, heres a good reason why they might have messed with the western seats. Plenty of others her age are looking at the figures and expecting that the GOP won't take the House. The 5th could have been drawn to specifications for say another Suburban Charlotte legislator who wants to advance, couldn't previously without a primary, and is expecting Foxx to throw in the towel.

Interesting. The main weirdness in the 5th is the arm it sends out to grab Cleveland and Gaston counties. I note that the speaker of the General Assembly represents a district based in Cleveland county.

Kathy Harrington?

I ran up a rough outline for what the Republicans might try for in the next round of redistricting, based on a new seat being created south of Raleigh and an attempt to lock in a reasonably secure 9-5 advantage. I've aimed to minimise change with the other seats and to pay some attention to incumbent protection considerations, although given we don't know exactly who the map was drawn for I may have made mistakes.

A secure 10-4 is probably possible if you put Forsyth and Guilford counties in separate districts, but given how many maps they've had struck down, it's questionable whether they want to risk that again and get a worse map imposed on them.

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I made it with 2016 population numbers, but the Clinton-Trump numbers were taken by recreating it with 2010 voting districts. They don't line up perfectly, but it should be close enough.

NC-1: Clinton +12. 48% white, 42% black on 2016 numbers, probably more like 50-40 on VAP but should still reliably elect a black Democrat. If more counties are split, you could raise the black VAP a couple of points fairly easily.

NC-2: Clinton +26. 57% white by population.

NC-3: Trump +25. Greg Murphy doesn't live in this district (he's in Greenville), but putting in an arm to catch his residence wouldn't be difficult.

NC-4: Clinton +37. Loses its outlying counties. 58% white by population.

NC-5: Trump +40.

NC-6: Clinton +29. Shrinks somewhat and becomes more strongly Democratic. 49% white, 34% black by total population, which means the Democratic primary is probably plurality black?

NC-7: Trump +7. Loses its northern tendril and gains most of Fayetteville. I figure Mike McIntyre isn't coming back, but if this is too marginal then you could always swap more of Fayetteville for Sampson County.

NC-8: Trump +35. Shifts northwards and westwards.

NC-9: Trump +10. Loses territory on both its eastern and western edges. Depending on how worried they are about south Charlotte, you could always shift more of that into NC-12 and grab territory from NC-8 to compensate.

NC-10: Trump +32. I've added back in Gaston County and I've also added northern Mecklenburg County, making it more purely suburban in exchange for the arm north.

NC-11: Trump +15. As it's no longer a realistic Democratic target, you don't need to do anything daft with the boundaries.

NC-12: Clinton +47. On 2016 numbers, white 36%, black 40%, Hispanic 15%. It would still be safe for a black Democrat even if it does have to add more of southern Mecklenburg.

NC-13: Trump +28. This is possibly slightly more cohesive than the remedial seat, but it's still a leftovers seat.

NC-14: Trump +14. Somewhat suburban, but most of it still trended R in 2016 so it ought to be reliable enough.

I actually think NC-11 is the best Dem target of the outstate districts, particularly if it has to shrink and gets pushed more up against the mountains and out of the blood red counties just west of Charlotte.  Asheville is racing left in a PVI sense, while the entire Sandhills area is racing right (there's even been a trend right in Cumberland, which was basically unheard of for urban centers in 2016-18).

There's also a decent chance the court imposes an all mountains district for the 2021 redraw that would include Boone, in which case it starts out Lean R at most.   

I got bored and drew this map (https://davesredistricting.org/join/8cfff20b-92bc-4a51-b65f-ff6ea56eb0ef), which is what I think the Democrats would/should draw post-2020 if they controlled redistricting somehow (deeply unlikely). It uses 2016 data so doesn't have the most recent partisanship, but it's pretty clear where each district sits. I think this could also pass state constitutional muster. I think the map actually has favorable trends for the Democrats overall, and population changes from 2016 to 2020 would probably allow the Democrats to squeeze a bit more utility out of the map as well. Summary below.

NC-01 (Rocky Mount): Safe D, minority opportunity (46W-45B-6H)
NC-02 (New Bern-Outer Banks): Safe R
NC-03 (Wilmington): Safe R
NC-04 (Fayetteville): Likely D, minority opportunity (44W-32B-9H-9N)
NC-05 (Durham): Safe D
NC-06 (Raleigh): Safe D
NC-07 (Cary-Chapel Hill): Likely D
NC-08 (Asheboro): Safe R
NC-09 (Charlotte North-Concord): Safe D, minority opportunity (47W-35B-11H)
NC-10 (Charlotte South-Monroe): Toss-up/Tilt D*
NC-11 (Gastonia): Safe R
NC-12 (Greensboro-Winston-Salem): Safe D, minority opportunity (49W-34B-10H)**
NC-13 (Wilkesboro): Safe R
NC-14 (Asheville-Boone): Lean R***

*This could have been drawn much safer, but I was trying to preserve NC-09 as a minority district. As it is, NC-10 takes about as many white Democrats from Mecklenburg County as possible. Obama only won it by 300 votes in 2008, but it's also an area trending solidly towards the Democrats, so I am reasonably confident it's a good decision for the Democrats.
**I know others have advocated for splitting Greensboro and Winston-Salem into two districts, but I couldn't create an Obama seat based on Winston-Salem alone, so I decided the whole project wasn't worth it. Also, keeping the two together creates another minority-opportunity district, which I think is important for passing constitutional muster and ensuring unity in the state legislative caucus. This is actually the most Obama-08 seat on the map.
***This was closer than I was expecting in 2008 (47-51 McCain). Maybe Lean R is an aggressive rating for the Democrats, but it is at least potentially winnable dependent on turnout differentials. And why not draw it; there's nothing else to do for the Democrats in this part of the state.

If this is going to be the thread for NC next decade Redistricting as well, then I suggest we change the title. If so, then I will post two maps.

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NC Gerry 2020. Essentially if the GOP are allowed to work unmolested then this is likely the type of map to emerge. They kinda tipped their hat in two ways with the current map, which is receives an 'decent' using 2010 data. But if they try to preserve it using 2020 data the gerrymander really emerges. NC-06 becomes a tight pack for all the dems in that region. The Sandhills remain cracked to bits, only Fayetteville now needs to be carved up because the county weighs more under 14 districts with 2020 pops. Raleigh is reworked to make one of the new Safe Dem seats into a AA opportunity seat, which makes NC02/04 into a Yin-Yang of Safe Dem packs. I kept the oddities in the west because I am now fully expecting a Gaston/Cleveland Republican to be making preparations to succeed Foxx. NC-13 also could allow Walker a chance back if he wins the primary. These Asheville lines are the Safest the GOP can get while still making the seat look sane. NC-09, as before, is the weak link on the  map and could potentially be vulnerable if the Republicans didn't have favorable trends  with the Lumbees. NC-14 could be vulnerable by the end of the decade if Wake keeps up it's current growth. Only real improvement is that NC-07 is now fully in the Wilmington region, but that happens on any 2020 map.

NC-01: 56/41.8 Clinton
NC-02: 62/32.4 Clinton
NC-03: 59.7/37.2 Trump
NC-04: 66.3/29.4 Clinton
NC-05: 65/31.2 Trump
NC-06: 61.8/31.4 Clinton
NC-07: 57.9/38.2 Trump
NC-08: 57.1/39.2 Trump
NC-09: 52.9/42.7 Trump
NC-10: 68.6/27.7 Trump
NC-11: 55.2/40.1 Trump
NC-12: 70.8/24.7 Clinton
NC-13: 64.8/31.8 Trump
NC-14: 55.3/40.5 Trump

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NC Dem-tilting map. This is the type of map that the 6-1 (likely less in 2020, but still blue) courts would pass if given the option. This could be because the GOP tried to pass the previous map, and a citizens suit is fast-tracked to slap the map down. Or perhaps the dems take the State House (lean R under new lines) and force the courts to get involved. Either way, something like this is what may rise up: a map that gives both parties opportunities at control. NC-02 and NC-14 are both Wake based seats, though radically different. NC-14 is suburban and a swing seat (voting for Trump and Cooper by slim margins), whereas NC-02 gets all of Raleigh and the Northern white suburbs. NC-06 Loses High Point to become a more natural seat whose goal isn't to pack every democrat in the region. NC-09 is the Sandhills s eat everyone deserves, which while a Likely Dem pickup now is probably fated to slide to tossup by the end of the decade thanks to AAs leaving the belt for the cities. NC-03's community is the counties between the two AA seats, but it also has to reach up and grab the blood red counties north of Kitty Hawk. NC-08 could be competitive by the end of the decade, as long as the Charlotte white precincts keep moving left. The best community for NC-11 under 14 seats is actually based around the mountains and reaching up to Boone, whereas under 13, it should leave Boone for NC-05. This produces a weird seat t hat could be competitive depending on the candidates, Cooper only lost this NC-11 by 2%!

Overall, the map starts at 5 Safe Dem, 1 Lean/Likely Dem, 1 Tossup, 6 Safe Rep, and 1 usually Rep but weird (NC-11).

NC-01: 56.3/41.2 Clinton
NC-02: 59.1/36 Clinton
NC-03: 60.3/36.5 Trump
NC-04: 63.2/32.7 Clinton
NC-05: 71/25.7 Trump
NC-06: 58.4/37.4 Clinton
NC-07: 59.4/36.7 Trump
NC-08: 53.6/41.6 Trump
NC-09: 51.6/45.3 Clinton
NC-10: 66.5/29.9 Trump
NC-11: 53.7/41.3 Trump
NC-12: 68.7/26.8 Clinton
NC-13: 66.8/29.9 Trump
NC-14: 48.1/47 Trump

Wake and Charlotte are both at a position in 2020 where they cannot fully support 2 seats, that happens in 2030 if growth continues. Right now, the numbers are that each can support 1 seat, with pop to loan and top off other seats. In 2020, both are in the awkward position where they can either support 1 and have the county cut up a lot (like Charlotte and Wake in Gerry), support 1 and then share the second with other large counties (Charlotte Courts), or cut the county and base two seats in it but both seats need external support (Wake Courts).

The court map splitting guilford 4 times?

I know it doesn't really affect the partisanship of the map but its just flat out ugly.

Which do you prefer: cutting four counties 1 time each, or cutting one county four times? I prefer the latter since it keeps more counties, the easiest agreeable Community of interest, intact. However, this is just a cast of preferences,  and everyone has their own opinion on them.

For example I find preferable to keep counties whole when desirable, and every county cut needs to be justified. Random cuts that pop up just because you already finished one district and refuse to adjust said district to better accommodate others look ugly to me. This is just preferences after all.

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Anyone think they might split Mecklenburg like this.(not the GOP but the courts) The red district is only 50% white in 2010 and 35.6% black in 2010. Its almost 37% black by 2018 which is close to the current district. However its much more polarized at only Clinton 58.1 and Trump 37.8% The yellow district now has a few more minority precints to be around 20% black but also loses all of Union county and gains less red Cabarrus.
This district is nearly identical to VA 10th at Clinton 52.1% and Trump 42.8%(even has similar demographics just less asian and more black). Also voted for Romney but its basically Likely/Safe D. Because literally half of NCs population growth being in Durham/Wake and Mecklenburg I expect a 4th D leaning district in the triad to Raleigh.
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Pardon why the pink district is ugly was just testing how black it could go(36.3% in 2018 and its getting less black by the year so it probably will just include wake burbs and raleigh will get its own district with the rest of Wake county. The green district is still relatively safe at Clinton +10 but also voted for Romney so making the pink district cleaner won't matter, so a "neater" map would help Democrats here .

The only reason I even split durham there was for population equivalency as greenvilles precincts were like 7k each

I suspect the courts wouldn't go for a map that obviously gerrymandered if overruling a GOP gerrymander.

Tough to call it obvious when Charlotte has to be split anyway and the population growth makes it possible for it to consider 2 districts based mainly in charlotte as Mecklenburg by itself is around 10/7 of a district.

When discussing minority seats, I also played around with it in a GOP styled map a while back. I have not updated it for the 2018 numbers that were released today. The 2nd seat is 35% black, the 4th (colored for visibility) is 69% white, and both are Safe D. Seems like something that might get passed. I call it the 'Yin-Yang.'

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Although its pretty obvious that a 35% black seat in the triangle isn't very likely to elect the candidate of choice in a primary against white progressives in the area.

Especially since Durham is unique in basically all of the south for having a pretty much no Republican voting white areas in the city--the wealthy white parts are safe D.

That said, I do wonder if the GOP would like a Durham to East Raleigh district. Northern Wake County and Southern Franklin remain fairly Republican. Seems like it wastes those votes.

Anyway there is still a decent chance the NC Could sweep the supreme court races this year giving 4-3 control of the courts in which case the NC GOP could do 11-3 or 10-4.
If not it depends how hardball each side plays, I think Democrats will be much better prepared for the 2022 cycle and will hardball as possible for either the Charlotte split or 4 districts in the Piedmont to Wake or even both,

I don't think 11-3 would be possible. 10-3 was only possible with some of the worst looking districts ever.
 What I assume will be the starting point will be what exists for 2020: 2 triangle area D seats, 1 D Northeastern VRA seat, 1 D Triad (Greensboro + Winston Salem), and 1 D most of Mecklenburg County seat. The new court drawn 2nd district should be a D Suburban vote sink for the rest of this decade, so the GOP won't have that worry much about shoring up the Triangle. The big question for the GOP to decide is what to do about Charlotte's Suburbs, currently in the 8th and 9th districts, and Fayetteville. The strips from the Charlotte area to the Sandhills worked for the whole of the 2010s. But the new 14th district throws a wrench in the current map. As can be seen in the D Gerrymander already made, combining Cabarrus, Union, and non-12th Mecklenburg County creates a Tossup/Lean R seat that's trending in the wrong direction for Republicans and putting Cumberland County (Fayetteville) in any seat whole/mostly whole sways it significantly to the left. Assuming the GOP wants to avoid that, I assume they will keep those Charlotte area suburbs separate and split up Cumberland somehow.
I could see both sides agreeing on (well, the GOP deciding to be generous) a Fayetteville to Southern Wake seat (with the two other Triangle seats stretching to the north) creating a fairly solid 8R-6D map. Though NC-09 would likely still be the weakest link since it would continue to have some of Mecklenburg County in it. NC-08 would likely still trend left slightly due to Cabarrus County. NC-01 the opposite due to it not including any of Wake County, but I doubt it would be enough for either to become competitive.

A sweep this year would still be 4/3 Dem control afterward.   The lone Republican held seat is one of the 3 that are up. 

My bad thank you !

The thing about Mecklenburg is that it's a pretty easy area to split. Northern Meck. County is a good fit for a suburban district, as is much of South Charlotte. Putting Gastonia in a district with black parts of Charlotte as well as Northern Meck. is the sort of thing that screams "disgusting gerrymandering" and kind of undermines the court's point if they're striking down a nasty GOP map.

One thing that's funny about the current map: The GOP kind of left some numbers on the table in the split of the 2nd and 4th. The 2nd could have been drawn more Republican-ly by having the 4th's bite out of Wake County take in areas in the Cary/Morrisville/RTP area rather than the Northern portion.

Ironically that's actually better for communities of interest too--if you're putting any part of Wake in a district with Orange and Durham, that corner certainly is oriented the most towards those latter two counties.

I think they saw what happened with the greedy PA legislators who just sacrificed a retiring incumbent's seat to shore up everything else(infact that seat would have flipped in 2018 anyway) so they didn't really want to compete in the 2nd district and the 6th anymore
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They could also have drawn this district Clinton +0.5 or instead just drawn Guilford+rockingham+Alamance for a Clinton +8, the first one could easily see Walker winning(not safe R of course just IMO tilt R) and the 2nd one atleast gives him a fighting chance. I don't think anyone can really call 3 whole counties a gerrymander.

For more context, the lone Republican incumbent is vacating his seat to challenge the appointed Dem for Chief Justice, so the R held seat will be open.  The Dem Chief Justice has already been elected to the court as an associate justice in thee past.  Cooper just elevated her to Chief Justice.  IDK who is favored in this race between 2 incumbents.  The other Dem incumbent up in 2020 was appointed by Cooper in 2019, so this is his first supreme court election. 

In a good Republican year, they probably win 2 of the 3, in a good Dem year they maintain the current balance.  With Trump consistently doing well in NC but Dems doing somewhat better downballot, I think the most likely outcome is R's pick up 1 seat.  2 Dem incumbents are up in 2022, so to be assured of continued control beyond then, they need to maintain the 6/1 split.

It's also technically possible to pack the court, but only with 2 additional seats because the NC constitution weirdly sets a limit of 9 and there are currently 7.   So if Republicans flip the governorship or take a veto-proof majority (quite unlikely under the new 2020 maps though) and the court is 4D/3R, they could flip control by adding 2 seats.  Given that everything they tried during the 2010's to modify judicial elections has backfired on them, and a 4/3 court that could flip in 2022 anyway is likely to be more restrained, I doubt this would actually happen.     

Also worth noting--the NC Senate is a bit of a longshot pickup opportunity for Democrats. It's not likely, but definitely possible in a strong Democratic year.

The problem with the NC state legislature right now is that due to the growth its still quite hard for Democrats to have a fair count of their population.

Yeah it's likely that Blue counties would naturally be apportioned >50% in at least 1 chamber come 2020. County pairing changes what is possible in regards to the districts. Charlotte and Wake are growing that fast. However, there is no guarantee all seats would be safe, or even democratic - there are red parts of blue counties and visa versa.  

I mean they wouldn't be safe per se but in a wave year like 2018 Dems swept almost all the seats in these areas

The NC senate and NC House are really in play?

They cannot flip presently unless the Dems get lucky. However, if the power remains distributed as it is presently then the outcomes of the map are uncertain. Population has ballooned in the Charlotte and Raleigh metros and it will only get larger - 2030 the map will likely naturally favor the dems if coalitions and growth remain as they are. Right now though it is gonna be 50-50 between blue and red areas. In 2010 it favored R areas. Seats get reapportioned throughout the state. NC redistricting is 100% going to be a battleground if things remain as they are.

In the state senate,  SD-39 will probably flip regardless of the national environment, it's a Clinton +20 district that's held by an R.

Other than that, SD-18 can go from R to D as well, it's Clinton +1 and R held.  It's in north Wake county and trending D overall.  The incumbent isn't running for re-election.

If the Dems can defend all their vulnerable seats (SD-9, SD-17, and SD-19 imo) then that brings them to 23D-27R.   To get the last two they'd need to win some Trump +9 or 10 districts.

Not impossible (especially if they can flip the Robeson County one, SD-13) but it's an uphill battle.

Hmmm... the year the NC Dems would really want to take a legislative chamber is 2022.  They are assured a say in the 2021 process through the partisan state supreme court.

I think the say they'll have is more or less just protecting their incumbents like the last map

They’d need to get SD-01.

Why would they want to try for that?   That's the rural seat in the northeast coast.  

That seat should be trending R if anything.   There's way better targets than SD-1.  There's SD-13 in Robeson,  SD-31 in Forsyth,  even SD-7 south of Pitt would be better than SD-1.

Democrats have a strong candidate in SD-1, Tess Judge, who came very near to winning in 2018. It's also not without Democratic areas which give Democrats a decent floor.

SD-31 is incredibly inelastic due to Davie county and basically had a Dem ceiling of around 48%.  SD-01 has a large number of blacks that will always keep Dems in the game.

Democrats actually have a pretty strong candidate here too--and Davie County, although firmly Republican, has certain areas which are wealthy enclaves and in this topsy-turvy Tory Dem world may thus be likely to swing to Democrats.

The NC supreme court races? Any guesses?

Chief Justice is incumbent vs. incumbent, resulting in a previously R held open associate justice seat on the court.  The 3rd seat up is a Dem incumbent running for the seat they currently hold.  I'd have to guess 2R/1D or 2D/1R are the most likely outcomes?  CJ goes to whichever side does better statewide in general (though unclear if we should be measuring against Cooper, Tillis, or Trump?), the Dem incumbent probably holds on, and the GOP probably holds the open seat. 

Have y'all tried drawing with NC on the new population numbers? I've been tinkering around with some maps (nothing finished yet). So far it seems like the population distribution is a little better as far as drawing decent community of interest based districts ( :) ) but there seem to be fewer whole-county combinations which make concise districts ( :( ).

There also seem to be a few other "difficult points." The 1st district has been declining in population all decade even as NC has been gaining a seat, so it doesn't change much from 2010. Eastern North Carolina seems to have had laggy growth in general, but unlike last time it does seem to be possible to draw three ENC districts. Another thing worth noting is that Eastern Wake County is increasingly black; it means that a district based in Johnston or Franklin County might shouldn't cut in in that direction.

Yeah the map with the Charlotte split was with 2018 numbers as its now possible for a majority minority district there while keeping a Safe D white suburban district, anyway I wouldn't try for whole counties in a map rn, 2018 estimates are close to what actually happens but 2 years is still a lot of possible deviation.

That's fair. Still it's depressing to see that concise whole county NC-11 is basically impossible, at least under the current numbers, especially when there were multiple reasonable whole county combinations in 2010.

I messed around last week.

https://twitter.com/OryxMaps/status/1253732377072984066

https://twitter.com/OryxMaps/status/1253737004229066760

https://twitter.com/OryxMaps/status/1253744391941959680

Actually you can start from the west and go to Asheville and then drag a county strip to wautaga for a deviation of only +333. Not perfectly compact but still follows the COI of the mountain ranges and allows for the most competitive seat in the region possible. So its basically a no brainer seat.

That excludes Henderson County no? Frankly I'd call a version of NC-11 which excludes Henderson County unreasonable, considering how interconnected Buncombe and Henderson are. Still, a good catch, though I might actually prefer a map with a county split to cleaving those two counties.

No just look at Oryx slayers map, it will probably have to take a few precints from the next county over too but seriously this district makes no sense not to make in any court/fair map
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Preserves COI's(mountain ranges)
has a mostly reasonable shape with a very slightly odd arm
and keeps a slightly competitive district(Trump got 54% here) and it was only MCrory +2, trends aren't great here for D's but its the best district possible.
Obama lost it by 3.5 in 08 and if you divide the district into 2 parts(Wautaga+Henderson+Buncombe) vs the rest  you get a Roy Cooper +10 and Obama +4, part and a Mccrory +20 which was Mccain +16 so trends aren't completely awful here but it isn't great as Cooper still overperformed in the western rurals.

I really think Asheville would be Dem enough to dominate that CD by the end of the decade, especially with Boone included.

Ah I see-how dumb of me; assumed McDowell was included. :P

Not a bad district at all! In an ideal world this district would be a bit more southwesterly (i.e. exchanging Watauga and Avery for McDowell and Polk, but that's obviously splitting hairs.

Again it still Trended R from 2008 to 2016  at the presidential level, it would be a good wave seat for D's to pick up but would still stay GOP out of that, this district might be enough to entice Schuler to come back however.

Nah I think districts should at the very least prioritize a degree of competitiveness if its a fair map if possible while not tearing COI's up(Arizona went too far it used native Americans in the north along with liberals in Flag staff and then went to the South Phoenix burbs), but this is merely a choice of a perfectly clean district but mostly noncompetitive or a slightly competitive district but a touch messier but also keeps reasonable COI's together.

I'd argue that the parts of WNC which are in Asheville's sphere of influence are definitely a CoI, albeit a weak one for all but Henderson since most of them are more exurban (and not in the sense of massive developments of ticky tacky) than suburban. Henderson is different because it's more built up and linked to Asheville.

I doubt Heath Shuler would come back succesfully; he's cashed in as a lobbyist. Plus he's never represented Watauga, Avery, or Mitchell. These days he's a crappy fit for the Democratic primary electorate in that hypothetical NC-11, which would probably be dominated by lefties in Buncombe and Watauga.

(Watauga wildly punches above their weight in primaries; the Watauga Democrats picked the Democratic nominee in every NC-05 primary before Winston-Salem was added, and Bill Tooele won the Lt. Gov. primary this year there because he got the crucial local endorsement).

Wrt: WNC trends, there's a fair amount of counter-momentum to Asheville getting more D; Western NC is a popular place for retirees and Dems probably still haven't bottomed out in Madison, Yancey, Haywood, etc.

Are you referring to map 1, 2, or 3 here? 2 only micro-cuts Orange, and that's because of pop. But on the broader topic...incumbent protection deals are not the prettiest maps, they are guided by partisanship. Almost everything is copied from the current map, so blame the legislature for the mess. In concerning the makeup of 4 and 14, it came down to the easiest way to make all seats safe.  The way how the Dems in the legislature would see this is an expansion of the Triangles power since they would have Ross in Raleigh, Price, or likely his successor, in Chapel Hill, and someone new in Durham. That's just how parochial legislators think, which is why commissions are better. Unfortunately, NC lacks a commission so that style of map is not drawn.

I have no idea why you assume that 1. The NCGOP would consult with Democrats even if drawing a fairly modest map, and 2. that the Democrats would want a Fayetteville to Chapel Hill district. If your new 14th district is open, it's liable to elect a Fayetteville democrat. The status quo of a Durham-Chapel Hill district is pretty sensible and wouldn't be controversial with the local Democrats. Then you can draw a district based in Fayetteville and environs. The previous gerrymandered 4th went all the way to Fayetteville and was loathed, and not just because it was a hyper-partisan vote sink--Orange and Cumberland counties are extremely different.

Additionally, cutting Mecklenburg into 5 districts with 7 pieces is grotesque. No party wants to do something like that unless they're engaging massive scale gerrymandering, which isn't what they're supposed to be doing in this map and which isn't necessary. They'd split Catawba or Iredell or something first.

Sorry for the quote gore.

I understand why you'd want two districts dipping into South Charlotte, but splitting Northern Mecklenburg two ways is unecessary for a region which is much less populated, and which hasn't trended as far as certain areas in the south of the county.

Here's a map which I've been spitballing (https://davesredistricting.org/join/e591a33c-a672-417d-8bda-dce2421dcdcc), roughly a fair map drawn by a Dem court. There's a few things which I'd alter if I could--the real version of this map would have the 4th splitting a precinct in Lee. I'd also have to split a precinct in Northern Mecklenburg as well as they cut across city lines and are huge.

A few things:
-I tried to split counties where it'd make sense--so Franklin and Iredell are cut to separate their rural from suburban areas (roughly). The cuts in Northern Mecklenburg, Wake, and Pitt are designed to follow city lines.
-I wish the 1st was further east, but it was that or send the 7th into suburban Raleigh or Robeson County, which I figured were worse.
-Likewise, I wish the 4th went east rather than south. Alamance, Lee, and Moore aren't great fits for a Triangle district.
-I also don't like Goldsboro going into the Wilmington district, but I don't feel too guilty. Wilmington is too small on its own.

And since I think any fair district should have obvious Canadian-style names, here are some:
1. Rocky Mount-Albemarle
2. Raleigh
3. Jacksonville-Outer Banks
4. Durham-Chapel Hill
5. Hickory-Yadkin
6. Greensboro-Winston Salem
7. Cape Fear
8. Fayetteville-Sandhills
9. Charlotte South and West (or Charlotte-Concord-Monroe?)
10. Gastonia-Shelby
11. Blue Ridge (or Western North Carolina?)
12. Charlotte
13. Raleigh East
14. Piedmont

Any D court is gonna squish a 4th tossup/ D district in the Piedmont to the triangle, you just have to start by using all of Forsyth then add a few extra moderately R leaning Counties in the north for the tossup. This keeps it relatively clean, one could make it a bit messier but more COI based by pushing it into one of Wake's exurbs counties.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/533404207668133888/707062709010694144/unknown.png
Blue is the main COI for the 4 districts and green is the remaining 250k or so pop needed to boost it to exactly 4 districts by 2018 pop.

Yes, any Dem court map is going to find a way to squeeze 4 D/Competitive seats out of the cities in north NC. However, they probably won't go with exactly the blue counties you selected because of the cascade effect it would have of the map. The 1st is already getting desperate for more favorable turf, so it probably needs AT LEAST one of Franklin or Granville. Even still, it would then require eating more from the west of the state. This then either requires 9 to give up needed swingy turf in the Sandhills or Johnston ends up with one of the eastern seats - neither a good outcome. That said, taking in a bit of red won't really hurt any of the seats in the long term - the court drawn map I suggested above for instance found a way to get a swing seat out of the region even with Johnston and Hernet. there is zero chance a dem court map tries to revive 2016 NC02 like in sols previous map.

Also, I will go over Sol's response point by point later, when it is not 11pm at night.

You mean the green counties right?
The blue ones are the big counties while the green counties are what I needed to boost up the district. Anyway IMO the 4th "Triangle" district should still be pretty R leaning like sol's map but yeah   a D court is gonna shove that 4th seat in, similar to decisions like PA 17th(made for Lamb) or smaller decisions like PA 1st which shifted it 3 points left, or PA 10th to squeeze a seat there.(taking in York)

Yep, swap green and blue in my orginial post. This is an excellent example of why I don't want to respond meticulously to a post at 11pm. 

If y'all are concerned about adding another Dem district, how about this (https://davesredistricting.org/join/ec86d4a7-ff19-4895-aa54-98f4080e0c1b)?

Yeah that should work, Also the court may try to make the 2nd Mecklenburg district more competitive say around Trump +9 or +8.

Played a bit with Mecklenburg, but it's hard to make the 9th district competitive without slicing up the Black community or putting one of Union or Cabarrus in the 12th, which I would assume are no-gos.

This scenario has the GOP wishing to avoid the court. Now why would they consult with the Dems and get their agreement even though right now it looks like the GOP will have full de jure mapping authority? Well, perhaps because the Dems and their aligned groups would be the ones pushing it up to the courts, so the GOP would want to get a map that they could agree to, so that they have confidence the lines won't be challenged. That is this map's scenario, and it follows likely trajectories based on that initial scenario.


Sure, the seat could elect a Fayetteville Dem, but that is less likely. Fayetteville had about 70K Dem voters in 2016, and a large chunk of them are AA, meaning lower primary turnout. The Triangle Area has 105-110K Dem voters, and most are Suburbanites. The region is also growing, and will get more dems. If Price stays on past 2022 then it would 100% be electing 3 Triangle dems, and there are more of them in the legislature. But on to the more pressing issue...



So this is about separating Chapel Hill and Durham, which only became united after the 2019 court case. Lets start the explanation from the triangle, but from the Sandhills. In this scenario, the GOP does not want Fayetteville in their red seats - it's too much of a blue anchor. In fact it would make more sense to throw the district into a pack. However, where would this pack come from? It can't be a long NC01 connection, a decision which would allow for a centralized third Triangle seat. Even if one is selective and takes away a bunch of counties near to the Triangle, NC01+Fayetteville+the connector is still too overpopulated. It can't be southern Wake - that area is still not blue enough to anchor a safe Dem pack, even if you go the for the blue areas like Cary. Plus I'm sure Ross might be a little fussy for losing the centrism of her Wake seat. It can't be Durham, even though such a move would create another AA opportunity seat. Durham is just to heavy, and both of the counties combined would almost equal one CD. By process of elimination, it has to be Chapel Hill.

But, you might ask, why not go for the Sandhills. Well, because a district with Fayetteville, Robeson, Bladen, Hoke, Scotland, Richmond, Anson, and whatever GOP turf if needed to fill out the seat has it's over issues. Such a seat would be weak in it's dem partisan lean, and would require a bunch of re-jostling across the map. This is ideal for a fair or court map, which cares about COIs first and partisanship second. It however is not ideal for a Bipartisan gerrymander. Democrats look at this and see a seat that would need money to defend in all years, and would be vulnerable to a flip in bad years. The GOP looks at such a district and sees a bunch of rural Republican precincts getting wasted in a Blue seat AND a bunch of weaker Blue and tossup areas - counties perfect for cracking. Fayetteville however is none of these, unless the GOP has the authority to go for complete carveup since they somehow found a way to flip the court.

In summery, Fayetteville is too Blue to be cracked, yet too heavy a democratic county to be paired with anything but Chapel Hill.



While I may have held the pen here, the decision as not mine. I want you to open your eyes for a moment. This map is mostly based on the 2019 lines, with some adjustments so that the dems would not challenge it in court. So I want you to think: Why did the GOP bacon-strip their safe R seats even though they are all Safe R and nobody has any threats. Consideirng they cross multiple media markets, it makes it all harder for incumbents to appeal to their entire district and leaves disconnected communities which can birth opportunists. The original thought was that the new seats were designed to facilitate certain primary challengers or lay the groundwork for certain legislative allies upon the retirement of said incumbents. But that didn't happen. However the decision was clearly premeditated and understanding why the districts were reoriented is key.

My understanding right now is that the districts were reoriented because of the actual population on the ground, even though they were mapping with 2010 data. Mecklenburg seems to have added above 200K last decade. Gaston added 20K. Cabarrus added 40K. Union added 40K. If 2016 and 2018 are good indicators, most of these new additions are democrats. Oh, and Charlotte doesn't appear to be slowing down her growth anytime soon. The GOP wants a map that can survive all 10 years safely. Sticking the entire counties surplus in NC08 or 09 will be dangerous in the future based on growth patterns. The trick therefore is to divide the surplus between the districts the GOP reoriented into the region for likely this very reason. The 2019 map laid the groundwork, for their plans in 2020. Now yes, I could have pulled one of NC10 or NC05 out of Mecklenburg and cut the county one less time, but if you are already committing to a mass-crack, you should probably go all the way.

I just think you're overrating the thoughtfulness of the GOP/their willingness to draw ugly districts to satisfy a purpose other than partisan gain. I suspect the GOP would look at a light blue (atlas red) Sandhills district and see it as more appealing than an extra Democratic vote sink which takes in several Republican counties and is ugly.

The scenario which you've outlined is one where Republicans are trying to draw a non-partisanish district which appeals to some Democrats. The map which the Republicans drew in 2019, which was about the same scenario, was significantly less ugly!


Wrt: Mecklenburg, I think I expressed above the specificity of my criticism. I don't mind that you dipped into South Charlotte, or the removal of Northern Mecklenburg--both make sense from pretty much any perspective. But slicing Northern Mecklenburg twice (!) is unecessary. If you look at the 2016 results, Northern Meck swung a good bit less and remains Republican. It will probably get more D so I don't think putting it in the 5th is crazy, but splitting a still Likely R area filled with a lot of Rich GOP power players seems a little odd.

In any case, very little here is certain. All of us, myself included, like to assume that we have some insight into what these legislators are going to do, but probably all of us will assume wrong at some point. A little humility is necessary, especially when one is arguing for outcomes which are certain to be controversial.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b8c66314-894f-4281-acd7-cc66dc6e3bb6

This is my fair map for NC. It's a 6R-6D and 2 Even

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ed5b1056-1df4-4243-85e9-fbbc927477a3
this is a fair map based off 2010 data (outdated, I know)
Effort was taken to minimize county splits.
Chapel Hill and Durham were separated for compactness and to preserve the whole-county NC-13 in central NC.
A new 14th district is made that covers most of Wake County.
The 9th becomes mostly centered Charlotte McMansion suburbs and exurbs, and its eastern territory is lost to the 8th, which is now D-leaning and maj-min, with a sizable Lumbee population.
Compactness is fairly decent on this map, as is keeping CoI such as counties together. But it is not really as useful for 2020 as it otherwise would have been otherwise due to it using 2010 numbers.

That is a good map. I would love see it using the updated 2018 data.

I've enabled all the possible data sets for viewing on the map. If you reload I think they would show up now?
And should I try to make an updated 2018 pop version of it?

Yes, that worked! I can work on an updated one.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ec158509-ff02-438d-94df-c067b8de5a98
I made an updated one but I also enjoy seeing what your version of an updated one looks like. Compare and contrast and such...

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a2b4d6c0-db04-4591-a73c-bed067f75a15
This is mine

You guys care to explain why you are sending NC01 into Durham? That was ruled as a gerrymander in December, especially since AAs can get their candidate of preference fine using only the belt counties. If you really need more AAs for partisan safety, east non-Raleigh wake is readily available and closer to the belt.

This is what I came up with: https://davesredistricting.org/join/c97e624d-8fd5-4448-8fe4-ea91e60f8eb4

I'm not sure who would draw this, as I doubt any political actor would like it. Possibly a citizens' commission?

Most of the elements are pretty familiar from other maps. The distinctive bits are having separate seats for Winston-Salem (safely Republican) and Greensboro (swing seat) and trying to keep the 5th away from both Charlotte and the Piedmont Triad, so that it's primarily a Catawba Valley seat instead.

It's a 4D-8R-2 swing map, but both of the swing districts voted for Clinton and at least one is trending blue, so it would have no appeal to the Republicans.

I was using His map. This is my fair map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/b8c66314-894f-4281-acd7-cc66dc6e3bb6

That's a great map! I'd maybe trade some territory in the Nothern part of the 7th in exchange for unifying Pender (which is pretty Wilmington-oriented) but this is a very nice map! I especially enjoy the thoughtfulness of keeping RTP together.

Why the ugly 14th?

NC-01 was sent into Durham because of the districts I had in Central NC were whole-county and I didn't want to disturb that.
In the updated map, it was because I didn't want to deviate too much from the original.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a0e07306-4fda-4c60-b44d-f9ac7a4e4ba1
I went out of the box with this one.
Distinctive elements:
the 12th is rooted in southern rather than northern Mecklenburg
Unlike most maps here the 6th has some of Forsyth and all of Guildford instead of vice versa
There are more swing districts
Semi-competitive R+5 CD in SE NC taking in New Hanover, Columbus, Brunswick, Bladen, Sampson, Robeson, Hoke, and Scotland counties

Here's (https://davesredistricting.org/join/3e286448-5d6f-4f5b-b71a-64f164d649cc) a subtle GOP gerry, with the idea being avoiding court intervention with a relatively compact map.

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NC-01, NC-02, NC-04, and NC-12 are safe D, while NC-14 is a D-leaning seat. NC-06 is very likely R, while NC-13 is safe R now but might move more towards the Democrats over the decade.

The one downside of this map is that it screws over Budd, who's double-bunked with McHenry. He might could primary Foxx or run in the 6th though.

Splitting Guilford County three ways isn't subtle imo. :P

But thank you for getting rid of the NC-08 and 09 bacon strips. The light blue Union to Gaston district with a strip in South Charlotte is pretty ugly, but at least it's all in areas of the same metro area, unlike the aforementioned current strips. 

You could probably go into Stanly/Montgomery or Rockingham.

If the current 6/1 Dem majority on the state supreme court holds, they will likely just impose their preferred map no matter what.  If it falls to 4D/3R, they probably won't intervene unless it's something as egregious as the 2011 map. 

There's a greater chance of it going 7-0 than 4-3, but even a court like that would likely step in on most maps.

Here's a relatively clean map.

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1 is 46.7% AA CVAP

9 is 37.2% AA CVAP

11 is 45.3% AA CVAP

1 and 11 would definitely be functional minority seats, 9 most likely would be an opportunity seat.

Probably is 8 Safe R, 5 Safe D, and 1 tossup (NC-7) to start, but over the decade NC-4, NC-10, and NC-14 would all be trending D.   By 2022 NC-4 might already be a tossup actually.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/1daa5814-bfa4-4b55-b77b-6f3f3c9825e8

Butterfield might need Durham back, in some deal or so considering he is only up by 8 points. I think a 9-5 map is probably what happens. NC D's look likely to take a net of -1 in the state supreme court and possibly -2 to a total of 4-3.

Nah, this was just a weird year.  Butterfield will be fine.

Not good enough. If we don't win the senate and pass hr 1 dem courts need to enforce as many d leaning maps as possible.

If there's a concern about Butterfield you could also draw something like this (https://davesredistricting.org/join/eed0691e-25cb-4c45-bc7c-3c54353eacd1), pronging into Raleigh instead of Durham.

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It has the advantage of relieving the pressure on ENC, thereby allowing for more logical districts--though obviously it's still not optimal. Eastern Wake County is also getting a good bit Blacker, which might help too if there are concerns about a decline in minority communities in the Northeast.

Well I still believe that a rural coi is key im merely commentating on what could happen

There’s no problem in the rest of the South with creating VRA seats which contain Black Belt rurals and inner cities.

The CJ seat has narrowed from R +4K votes to R+<1K, and there are 10's of thousands of absentees left to count.  Pretty sure that one flips back to the incumbent Dem, but R's are sure to win the other 2 seats now.  5D/2R is the most likely outcome.  The seats up in 2022 are 2D/1R, so it is very possible the court flips in a Biden midterm.

Of course, none of those are optimal wrt: Communities of Interest.

The NC Democratic Party might need to go out and recruit a few more fake Republicans.

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As the court seems its heading towards 4-3 here is a clean map the NC GOP could draw. Guilford can mostly be drowned out by Randolph but it still is Clinton +3 FWIW. I didn't take much of Durham btw, its only like 10k.

are any of the R seats marginal?

The one with Fayetville and Hudson kinda is at Trump +7.

I think a good compromise would be shoring that up but in exchange the Greensboro seat is safe.

Beasley actually still has a decent shot; probably the narrow favorite at this point though there will be a recount.

Do you have a link?

CJ Beasley is now likely to lose.  The late absentees and provisionals were surprisingly R, as they have been in other states.  So the court will be 4D/3R when it reviews the maps.  This leaves a couple of different scenarios:

1. Is one of the remaining D's known as a don't-rock-the-boat moderate?  Did any Dems dissent from or more narrowly concur in the decision throwing out the 2010's maps?  It only takes one crossover vote to defer to the legislature now. 

2.  If they are all committed liberals, they could go for broke in trying to set up the most Dem possible maps for 2022 knowing that they will almost surely lose their 1-seat majority in a Biden midterm anyway?

I don't care if its 4 or 5, I want a d leaning map lol
NC dems should appeal the Republicans map no matter what they draw

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a802d155-c302-4c53-a994-d876550a22c4

Here's the link.

True. Anything less than 6 safe dem districts is completely unacceptable

As of this morning Beasley is still ahead by 35 votes, but Robeson still has some provisionals.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1327628816345411585

that's not what the court said last time.

NC is gaining a 14th seat. It should go to Democrats.

Technically it should be neither, it would be a swing district but all of us know thats unlikely.

7R-6D-1T would be a fair map for a swing state that is always close nationally and votes in favor of both Democrats and Republicans for statewide offices, but definitely has a slight Republican tilt. Of course, never doubt the NCGOP's willingness to draw up the most horrendous maps possible. A 10R-4D map is relatively easy (the most favorable R leaning seat for Democrats would be likely R in a Biden midterm) if Republicans wanted to go down that path. No doubt it would be challenged in court, but having such a favorable map for a few cycles might be worth it in the NCGOP's estimation. That's basically the strategy they used in 2010 Census redistricting.

Yeah Harnett, Johnston and southern wake right

Yeah what I did in my moderate GOP map was have eastern Wake taken up by the black seat basically which cancels the need for this new swing seat.

Oh dear god, not Robeson again.

Titanium Tilt R Florida Robeson

not really, there is no easy place to draw another safe dem seat.  A swing district in sandhills could be drawn, but a fair district there wouldn't be safe dem.

A fair map pretty clearly produces 6 Democratic districts and then a tossup, but yeah, it's unlikely. Anyway, the black belt seat, Charlotte seat, Triad seat, and 3 Triangle seats should go to Dems (plus a Sandhills toss-up). Dropping a Triangle seat for a Chapel Hill-Fayetteville seat (yielding 6D-8R) or dropping a Triangle seat for a Chatham-Alamance-Orange-Person-Randolph-Guildford-Rockingham tossup seat and a Sandhill tossup seat (yielding 5D-7R-2S) would also be acceptable.

Going for 9+ safe R seats, however, simply isn't going to fly.

Not really sure how you get 3 Democratic Triangle seats if you're going for a fair map? It'd be more like 2-1R or 2-0-1 at best.

District 1: Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Pittsboro
District 2: Durham, RTP, Wake Forest, Henderson
District 3: Raleigh, East Wake, Johnston County

Yea, thats D gerrymander straight out of 2002.

I am not going to get trapped into this R versus D gerrymandering dance of death.

Durham and Chapel Hill go together--they're a pretty logical community.

Democrats have always had this fetish of drowning out Johnston like Bob Etheridge's seat did.

It is very easy to draw 2 safe D and 1 Swing district in this area, but he doesn't want to do that because he is trying to compensate for TX at our expense.

It is worth remembering that my hate boner for the NC GOP started when they f'ed up my district and put me in with Wilmington.

Just realized you have Cary and Apex in the Chapel Hill district--you do realize that they're right on top of RTP right?

How?

The Raleigh-Durham MSA has 2,105,771 people. That's 2.9 congressional districts. Adding in Caswell and Person Counties brings it up to 3.0. Starting out, you obviously have to pair Wake and Johnston Counties.

This is where the first problem comes in. Wake+Johnston is 1.7 congressional districts. You have to drop 0.7 of a cd and give it to the rest of the metro area in the north and west. Conveniently, the cities of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, and Wake Forest add up to 0.7 congressional districts. Since they are closer to Durham/Chapel Hill than Johnston County, they should obviously be paired with the former.

The second challenge is dividing Caswell, Person, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, Durham, Orange, Alamance, Chatham, North Wake, and West Wake into two congressional districts. Obviously, Caswell, Person, Orange, Alamance, and Chatham should be lumped together based on geography. However, that's only 0.6 of a congressional district. You can choose to get the remaining 0.4 of a congressional district by splitting the city of Durham (not ideal) or take it from Cary/Apex/Holly Springs (much better.)

This leaves behind a district of Durham, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, and Wake Forest.

What else would you do?

Which is why Southern wake and Harnett and Chatham works great.

I feel so much like the mis attributed quote in the movie Patton about if he was stuck between the Soviets and the Nazis, he said he would attack in both directions.

If it isn't the Republicans dumping Johnston in with Wilmington it is the Democrats dumping it in with Raleigh. Replacing one set of crooks with another.

I would take LfromNJs light tan district, shed some of its Southern extremities and use parts of Wake to make it a swing district.

Also the MSA definition here is problematic as it skews too far Northward and leaves out a lot of territory that is in Raleigh's orbit to the South.

I would center the 8th in the Sandhills and Fayetteville making it straight up tied the last time I drew it, but it is likely trending R, though on the other hand the swing district above is trending D

Reminder that fair map and non-partisan map are NOT the same and pro-Dem lines in the Triangle are perfectly fine if the aim is to have a map proportional to the state.

If a fair map requires placing Durham and Chapel Hill in two separate districts, so be it.

Yes but then you have to put Cary and Apex and Wake Forest somewhere else. And I don't think connecting them around to Johnston which is on the far side of Raleigh is fair at all.

It depends on what you are doing in the rest of the state and if you are engaging in horesh@%t like the parrellel 8th and 9th etc, then sure, but those are not even justifiable in any map, any more then the Asheville 10th bs or the Johnston in with Wilmington garbage.

Well unfortunately I don't think that the MSAs are fundamentally great guidelines in this circumstance.

First of all, Durham and Raleigh are both relatively small cities. Johnston, for example, is very much an exurban rather than inner urban county--the kind of place where a lot of it is fairly rural still (NCYankee please correct if wrong). Franklin is similar.

Granville and Person are even less metropolitan; Southern Granville isn't too far from Durham but the northern portion is pretty dang rural. Person is pretty much just in the metro because it's small and has a weak economy --> more commuters. Even Chatham has areas (Western half) which aren't really oriented towards the Triangle.

The Black Belt counties you put into the Durham district are not good fits. Granted, Henderson is part of the CSA, but it's a lot more like Roanoke Rapids or Rocky Mount in most matters of culture or economy. No clue why you put Warren in there. Plus the 1st district needs those Black voters to continue to perform under the VRA.

I actually don't think there's anything objectionable about putting Johnston into a district with Wake if you do it smartly--i.e. not sinking it in with Raleigh but putting in Wake Forest, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, along with other exurbanish areas like Franklin.

I actually think I drew a fair map which did unfortunately squish Johnston with Wilmington, it was unfortunate but it was a leftover district for that :(

There's a decent argument for putting Cary and Apex into the Durham/Chapel Hill district, actually, on account of RTP.

I don't think anyone here is complaining about Johnston being with Wake, its probably one of the better choices, its just obviously not with Raleigh.

Is NC really gaining a seat in 2022?

It was 436 in 2012 so 100% .

wasn't MN-07 seat #435?

With regards to the Durham-Chapel Hill thing, just take a look at the area on Google Earth. The area along  15-501 is pretty heavily littered with strip malls and suburban developments, without labels you'd be hard pressed to find the county or municipal line. Both of them are university towns with a high degree of contact between the local colleges. There are lots of commuters, in both directions--I know because I used to be one. They're kind of a no-brainer link.

You hop in a car in any direction from 70, it is very rural. Even along 70, stuff is rather spaced out until you get to Clayton and points Northward.

Smithfield has parts of it that look like fast growing exurbs, by the High School and the Wal-Mart, with a new road development that I had the misfortune of driving through while practicing to get my license, they basically extended a Stimulus era bridge and road project all the way to 301 right beside the Wal-Mart, this was formerly a short road called Ava Gardner Avenue that basically went nowhere. There was already a 70 bypass that siphoned traffic away from Market street and so West Smithfield is basically a ghost town, with an abandoned K-Mart, Furniture stores and a bunch of closed gas stations. Matthew also flooded this whole area out.

South Smithfield and points South to Four Oaks hasn't changed much in 20 years. Go passed the Walmart Area into Selma, and very little changed at all except for stuff that got tore down after multiple flooding events.

So yea, excluding the older parts of 70 that go through West Smithfield, all the action is along 70 and the rest of the county hasn't changed much at all and is heavily rural.

Right. But if you do that, it messes up the rest of the map. Durham-Chapel Hill-Apex-Cary-RTP is a district and (most) of the rest of Wake is a district. However, once you pencil in the Sandhills, Triad, and Black Belt districts, you have a bunch of awkward, stranded territory you have to work around--Johnston County and Alamance County being the most obvious examples.

I miss typed above and said Wake where I meant to say Raleigh, that might be some of the confusion. In fact in another post I said basically use parts of Wake to make a Johnston based seat a swing district.

Pairing Johnston with any significant part of Wake that isn't Raleigh makes for a very uncompact district.

You have two options that are very compact. Johnston, SE and Eastern Wake, Wilson, Wayne, and/or Franklin and/or Nash. Or Johnston, Harnett, Southern Wake and parts of Sampson and Wayne.

Again, the MSA definitions are wrong, two small and/or include too much to the North and not enough to the South.

North Carolina is a hard state to draw--it's population is both dense and even and as a consequence you kind of have to screw over some areas. IMO the best approach is to draw most districts as being just slightly off from optimal in order to most closely draw to communities.

On 2018 population estimates and 14 seats, you can make a whole county CD of Orange, Durham, Chatham, Lee, and Randolph counties. It would measure out to be D+11.26 on 2012/2016 PVI.

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Here's an example for yall. Has some drawbacks due to OMOV and stuff ofc; hate splitting Greenville and Goldsboro and IMO NC-1 goes too far west but I did this quickly to illustrate what I meant.

link (https://davesredistricting.org/join/566e8298-a232-4589-98ec-83ad70545c8c)

You can also make a tossup CD out of Orange, Alamance, Randolph, Chatham, Lee, Rockingham, Caswell, and Person counties which might be better considering you have to work around Greensboro even if it brings back the Durham/Chapel Hill split.

Putting Randolph into that district isn't optimal either!

And the dumpster fire continues.

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https://davesredistricting.org/join/950155b2-0f2a-47f0-9b49-283d89e455eb
quickly drew up this map.
All but the most black precincts in Wake are in the 13th. The 2nd has been made blue by the inclusion of said precincts. The 14th takes in parts of Mecklenburg and isn't too badly suited for Ted Budd. This has 6 Dem and 8 Rep districts, which is reasonably proportional to the state. The 8th is the most competitive district, at R+3 it would be winnable for either, and the two Wake districts are more Dem than the PVIs let on.

I mean putting Randolph with Orange/Durham is just a clear and obvious way to unsink those 2 counties lol and there is no reason to split Raleigh in half to get a 2nd Safe D district there. If you want to talk about a D court map, go ahead but that isn't a good map.

There is at least one good reason for splitting Raleigh I can think of - unpacking Dem votes.

No there isn't if you want a more proportional map, then do logical stuff like putting Wautauga with Western NC having the Charlotte district take in North Mecklenburg so the main suburban district can be a bit more swing, then form a last swing district in the actual Raleigh suburbs instead of that absurd gerrymander which splits a major city to form 2 Safe districts.

Unifying Raleigh forces the "rest of Wake" seat outwards and unless you put either Chapel Hill or Durham in there, you create not a swing district but a seat that is at least R+5 most likely.

No thats stupid, you can easily create a lean Rsuburban seat based on Cary/Apex instead of blatantly splitting Raleigh.

Blatantly splitting Raleigh is better if it creates an extra bona fide Democratic district as opposed to one lean/likely R seat and one solid Dem one.

So its a D gerrymander then?

Would this type of map ever get approved in NC? Its a 9R - 5D map

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::cf4d4eb1-0b6a-4d93-a24e-340dc8141612

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I thought we were talking proportional here? I don't mean "split Raleigh to create 8 Dem seats out of 14", I mean "Split Raleigh to bring the number of Dem seats from 5 to 6 or 6 to 7".

Proportional isn't fair if actual districts are involved, Nothing stays proportional for 10 years, what do you do if some trends cause the map to go 10 -3 or something?

More generally I don't think of Raleigh as some kind of sacred CoI that must never be split. I see it as a strongly Dem unit that, if proportionality would be so helped, should and could be split within boundaries of reason. NC-12 already sucks up a lot of Dem votes from Charlotte, only 1 Dem district can be made from Triad, NC-11 shrinking doesn't help as much as one might hope, NC-09 winds up having to soak up heavily R turf in either Gastonia or Union counties, and SE NC isn't as Dem as it used to be, turning once might have ended up as a safe Dem seat as only lean/likely Dem at best.
Given all this, you almost have to split Raleigh if you want to have 6 real Dem seats.

No because you double bunked Bishop and Hudson. Bishop lives somewhere in south Charlotte while Hudson is from Cabbarus.

In a state like NC, I don't think I'd consider it a serious possibility for a map tailored for proportional to go 10-3 for a majority of the decade, provided the seats are safe enough for both parties (which is not hard to accomplish).

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Here's a coincidentally proportional that is also made with mostly non partisan intent map that actually plays within the bounds of communities instead of drowning out Randolph and Johnston with mega Democratic areas.

5 Safe D with 1 lean D trending R and 2 Lean/Likely  R trending D with a last likely R not trending anywhere and 6 Safe R.

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https://davesredistricting.org/join/f6494b97-7c53-4cb9-9b53-7927bac62d52
This is an oddball map I just made that is mainly aimed not at helping either party but at creating as many minority influence seats as is plausible while keeping some level of compactness and keeping counties whole.

If fairness in this thread is being defined as essentially dividing up Eastern Europe between the Russians and the Germans, then I will stake my flag for Polish Independence.

My concerns are communities of interest and having at least some competitive seats, not a strictly proportional wall of 7 SAFE R, 7 SAFE D seats, which gives you all of the negative consequences of gerrymandering I listed in my post (https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=408877.msg7770094#msg7770094) earlier today, but splits the difference between two bands of criminals. Not interested.

Best map I have seen all day.

I don't think you are fairly representing my position. Also, I don't think you understand it much either.
6 Dem, 6 Rep, 2 more or less even, is perfectly fair. 6 Dem, 7 Rep, 1 even, is sufficiently fair. Why, 5 Dem, 6 Rep, and 3 more or less even, is fair, given the standings of the two parties in question.
Problem is, Dems can't rely on NC-11 and can't rely on SE NC as much as they used to, so if you want actual proportionality, it's clearly better than not at this point to split Raleigh and increase the Dem seat count by 1.
I'm not against having competitive seats. I'm against one party having a substantially larger number of uncompetitive seats leaning towards it in such a close state such as NC. And having Raleigh whole wastes Dem votes and stands in the way of fixing this.

I understand that you are an expert at subtle gerrymandering, and after a conversation with Adam years back, I take all your maps as suspect.


Nope


Nope


Better, but still not there.


Don't give me that crap, their are a plenty of Democrats who could win those seats on LFromNJs map. Quit nominating sleezeball adulterers and socialists and you wouldn't have as many problems. Of course that is the whole point in having more competitive seats, you actually have to not suck to win them. In that scenario, I would say that is truly fair.