Benj
Jr. Member
Posts: 979
|
|
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2012, 11:03:54 PM » |
|
Here's a different 7-7 Dem gerrymander of Georgia (7 Dem PVI districts, six of which are quite safe and one of which is safe for its incumbent), maintaining four black-VAP majority districts (three in Atlanta, one in SW Georgia). Definitely could be more rigorous; one of the Atanta districts is still 64% black VAP. At that point I think you'd just be shoring up already safe seats, though.
Anyway. (All demographic data is in VAP; all election data is Obama-McCain 2008.)
GA-1 31W, 54B, 10H, 3A 78O, 22M
GA-2 34W, 53B, 8H, 4A 67O, 33M
GA-3 27W, 64B, 4H, 3A 78O, 22M
GA-4 49W, 19B, 21H, 9A 62O, 37M
GA-5 55W, 37B, 5H, 2A 54O, 46M
GA-6 52W, 40B, 5H, 2A 58O, 42M
GA-7 43W, 51B, 4H, 1A 61O, 39M
Plus seven very R seats (the Gwinnett-Fulton seat being the most "marginal" at 62% McCain).
I figured Barrow would want a seat that's not too safely Democratic to avoid a primary; 54% Obama in 2008 should be plenty enough to keep him safe without risking a primary, especially as the seat is very consistent with his past Savannah-Augusta alignment where he's well-known. I think this district is actually more Democratic than the 2006-2012 iteration and is way safer than the seat he held in 2012.
As for the other seats... a fourth black-majority VAP seat in the Atlanta metro is not possible without some extreme gerrymandering and extensions out to Newnan and other outer exurbs (even then it might be tough). Instead, I went for a safe D seat in the white parts of Atlanta, north DeKalb and the Hispanic/Asian parts of Gwinnett, which creates a very solid D seat. It could be much more D (there's excess black population in the three black seats), but I thought that was unnecessary, and this map is much neater in the Atlanta metro.
In another decade, a fifth D seat in the Atlanta area will probably be possible, even with four black VAP majority seats, since the black population is growing rapidly and there are a significant number of white liberals and Hispanics in the area who can be combined into a fifth seat.
The other new D seat is obviously the Athens-Macon-Augusta seat, which at 58% Obama is fairly solid though not rock-solid. It's dependent on black and student turnout, unfortunately, but that can't be helped. I boosted the Obama vote significantly by snaking around south Georgia to put black towns in this seat and white towns in the south Georgia seat; with a much more natural border, it would be about 55% Obama (still D PVI, but much less so).
Any questions?
|