US House Redistricting: Tennessee

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It could turn bad for the Republicans if they aren't careful. They need to make sure TVA counties don't end up with the Nashville districts if this is their plan. I would say they should make the Memphis district even safer, by adding the blacks in the surrounding rural/small town areas into the Memphis distict. That way you free up more of the Memphis suburbs for the 8th, which gets added in with the TVA areas. Pretty sure that would work, no?

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Here's the map, sbane.

http://www.redracinghorses.com/diary/993/tennessee-considers-ketronmander

I don't know if its a reality, and frankly, I'm not a huge fan of 8-1, but regardless its cool to see people's work reflected. Torie of course had that WSJ article.

That's a formidable map. Definitely pretty close to what I would have done. Maybe I'll go work on that now.

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Can you show me a closeup of Nashville please? Hope you didn't put me in Blackburn's district. She is a little off. Though she is pretty hot. I'd hit that.

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Well, looks like I am in her district. I guess I live on the "wrong" side of Nolensville Pike.

Why not put the southwest corner of Davidson County, the Bellevue area, in Blackburn's district in exchange for some areas of central Nashville, or some Black neighborhoods of Nashville which are also in Blackburn's district from what I can tell. CD-6 might be a little overpubbified.

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Well, if the numbers are like that then it's probably the right move. I thought you were trying to avoid the black areas with Blackburn's district, but it's not so. And yeah, 58-59% should be enough. And Cooper might not lose, but he will have to become more conservative, yes. Also to answer Lewis's question, you seem to have put the areas that should have more suburban growth into Cooper's district. But you also put the areas where the Black middle class will move in into his district as well.

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TN-3 is quite odd. Not like it matters though. TN-6,7 and 8 around 60% seem about right. I wonder if the pubbies in the legislature realize they need to keep things more GOP in these seats to hold all of their gains. I wonder how pretty their matrix is.

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Meh, this was likely to happen anyways. Blackburn should be fine as long as she stays generic R. I remember her being a little crazy back in the day, but she seems to have settled down. Or the pubbies doubled down on the crazy, and she isn't so noticeable anymore. Probably a combination of two. I would just like to add that the slice of Nashville you are giving her is swingy. It has a Trader Joes, and lots of Yoga places. Get what I am saying?

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Belle Meade, my neighborhood (the area right to the north and east of Brentwood, and called Brentwood by the locals) and the Green Hills mall area is swingy. All those areas are in that district. The Black areas on the other hand are not swingable since they already vote Dem no matter what. Blacks are moving into northern Rutherford County and the extreme southeast part of Davidson. The newer areas in Antioch basically. No, you did not put those areas into her district. Like I said, generic R will win every time in this district. Lay off the crazy though.

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BTW, Bill Ketron, the guy likely to run against Cooper, thinks Sharia law is the biggest challenge facing Tennessee. Lol, he should do very well in Rutherford County.

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Cooper asks for the Republican parts of Davidson back.

http://wpln.org/?p=32652

And the repost from the Pub legislator was that keeping Davidson whole was not high on the Dem's agenda with their little gerry a decade ago, when Pub areas of Davidson were removed, and she appreciates their little epiphany towards a good government map now that they are the ones left out in the cold. No, the Pubs are going to gut Cooper it seems. Why wouldn't they? AZ must be avenged! 

WA was revenge for AZ wasn't it?

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Cooper asks for the Republican parts of Davidson back.

http://wpln.org/?p=32652

And the repost from the Pub legislator was that keeping Davidson whole was not high on the Dem's agenda with their little gerry a decade ago, when Pub areas of Davidson were removed, and she appreciates their little epiphany towards a good government map now that they are the ones left out in the cold. No, the Pubs are going to gut Cooper it seems. Why wouldn't they? AZ must be avenged! 

WA was revenge for AZ wasn't it?

You think WA was as egregious as that lawless (yes lawless) thing that McNulty drew in AZ with Mathis in her pocket? Really?

Yes, it is. Have you taken a look at the 2nd district in Washington? It makes no sense other than to help Republicans win another seat. It's still a swing district, but so is that Dem leaning swing district wrongfully drawn in the Phoenix area. On the other hand the Tuscon district is perfectly fine. Taking it for a ride into Cochise is a Republican gerrymander, and I frankly don't care if it was drawn like that on the silly grid map. Who draws that anyways? So basically we have a ridiculous gerrymandered Democratic district in Phoenix and one gerrymandered for the Republicans in Washington. About the same amount of ridiculousness I think. I wish neither existed but that's life.

And of course Sam is right. Tennessee doesn't have anything to do with either Washington or Arizona. This is all about getting revenge for what the democrats did to them in years past.

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Huh, the Republicans really went easy on Cooper. I don't know how good of an idea it would have been to create a real Republican district for him, due to what it would do to the surrounding districts, but they could have created a more Republican district for him while keeping everyone safe. I guess they really want to protect their gains from 2010. Wise move, even if the 5th could have been made more Republican.

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What the Pubs did was make sure that no rural Middle Tennessee reversion to its Jacksonian Dem voting habits would threaten any of their incumbents, because everyone gets a suburban county or two as a Pub anchor. 

Yeah, I got that impression as well. And get Blackburn out of Memphis. Fincher's probably not too happy.

Well, the first thing a party must do while redistricting is protect their incumbents. This map does a perfect job of that, although Fincher won't be happy, but Memphis Republicans will be. This is not like Ohio or Pennsylvania where Republicans had to heavily gerrymander just to save their incumbents. Trying to go after Cooper would have weakened one or more districts and the other incumbents must not have been interested in that.

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That's a good gerrymander, and yes it is very comparable to what was done in the Phoenix area (the Tucson district is perfectly fine). Marsha keeps her head down mostly so she would be safe but Cooper is a powerhouse. Though that could become not safe by the end of the decade (with most of the middle class black growth happening in Rutherford county though there might be enough in Antioch too, which you drew into Coopers district). Also Nashville is becoming sort of a hipster haven so I don't know what effect that would have.