US House Redistricting: Nevada

[muon2]

I chose to split Elko county rather than Churchill county in the north. In the south I tried to keep much of CD 3 intact only dropping the parts on the west side of Las Vegas to new CD 4. I improved the Hispanic influence in CD 1 to 49%. All districts are with 100 of the ideal population using the estimates.





Edit: I've updated the maps to reflect the comments. CD 1 improves to just under 50% Hispanic. Black and other D-leaning areas in Clark were shifted to CD 4 to create a likely 2-2 plan.

[muon2]

Yeah, there's no way the Democratic-controlled legislature is going to draw a new district like that. The deal with Sandoval is almost certainly going to be giving Heck a solid R seat while drawing a new lean/solid-D seat. And they're not going to be able to draw a Hispanic-majority seat, given that the Hispanic population is too spread out among Clark County. Maybe in 2020, but not this time.

The comments made sense so I adjusted my initial post accordingly. I shifted the black and D-leaning areas in LV to CD 4. In the north CD 4 I made the Elko parts over 1/3 Hispanic, and the picked a large NA population in Churchill. That should make it one that Berkley can hold (less than 1/6 the district is outside of Clark). I also improved the Hispanic fraction in CD 1 to a fraction under 50%. I expect that with block level mapping both CD's would improve in their expected direction.

That CD4 is a monstrosity.

I expect that we disagree on aesthetics. I don't like districts that totally surround one or more other districts, and I try to avoid them.

[muon2]

Why should they? It's not as if it could potentially end up worse than 2-2 if it goes to the court. (Okay, so I suppose it could end up 1-2-1 with the two being D leans... that then fall due to a wave election and/or weakass candidate selection.)

Heck would be an incumbent in 1 of the 2 Dem leans. I think both fall around 54-55% Obama or so.

In any case, gone to court.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/redistricting-appears-dead-in-nevada-legislature-123198738.html

Heller is going to have to win 3 of the 4 districts anyway to win statewide.

What is a court likely to do here? There seems to be one natural CD 2 that includes the I80 corridor across the northern third of the state. CD 3 would also seem well defined in southern Clark including Henderson, Enterprise, and Paradise. CD 4 is presumably the central third of the state along US 50 plus northern and western Clark reaching into Las Vegas.

Dealing with the minority population is the wild card here. Do they try to insure a strong Hispanic CD 1 at over 50% of the total population? They could boost it with additional minorities to reduce the white population and insure a likelihood of  minority control of the primary. This would reduce the Dem edge in the other Clark districts as the chance of Hispanic success increases.

[muon2]

I've concluded that a district with over 50% HVAP is not possible. Given the Bartlett decision, I don't know that any section 2 claim is possible, regardless of bloc voting analysis. So I'm not sure why there is so much focus on the voting behavior if the first prong of the Gingles test can't be satisfied.

I did get a 50.2% total population majority-Hispanic CD-1 with DRA. But I would describe it as a coalition district rather than a VRA majority district. I drew CD-2 to follow the I-80 corridor, and then divided CD-3 (51.4% D) and CD-4 (49.9% D) to make two highly competitive districts as measured by the DRA average, so the plan is 1R - 1D - 2 swing.



Here's the enlargement of the Las Vegas area to show CD 1. The VAP ethnic mix is 32.7% White, 13.8% Black, 44.2% Hispanic, 6.8% Asian.

[muon2]

Court-drawn map released.

Las Vegas area:

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Someone on DKE drew it up in DRA and got these numbers:

NV-01: Obama 64.5, McCain 33.0, Dem 64.4, Rep 35.6
NV-02: Obama 49.5, McCain 48.2, Dem 45.3, Rep 54.7
NV-03: Obama 53.6, McCain 44.5, Dem 49.7, Rep 50.3
NV-04: Obama 56.1, McCain 41.7, Dem 54.0, Rep. 46.0

It's unclear how final this map is.

I read the report, and I don't think the Masters always followed their own descriptions. I like the four general areas they set up, which aren't so different than my post, and they do keep the northern CD-2 down to one split county (Lyon). However, CD-1 doesn't really fit their goals set forth in the report.

Here's the summary of their objectives:

1. Do not irregularly shape districts by arbitrary or non-arbitrary distortion.
2. Do not unnecessarily divide current political subdivisions to the extent practicable.
3. Do not divide groups of common social, economic, cultural, or language to the extent practicable.
4. Draw districts to be as compact and regularly shaped as possible.
5. Avoid creating contests between incumbents.

What I see in CD-1 is a district that is very rectangular, but ignores political boundaries apparently cutting up a number of Vegas suburbs without necessity. The boundary between CD-1 and CD-4 also cuts right through the heart of the Latino community in North Las Vegas. It certainly doesn't look like points 2 and 3 were followed to the extent practicable.

[muon2]

Into Lyon County? Seriously? Anybody got a map of the split?
They seem to have valued compact-look-at-first-glance over all other criteria. (You'd pretty much have to to come up with a map that doesn't have the two-fillings donut, but they went well beyond that.)

The Lyon split is very reasonable. There is a natural divide due to a ridge between Yerington and Silver Spring. The state map is on page 15 of this document.

I was surprised that they included the other criteria in the form that they did, when the rectangular box for CD-1 clearly took precedence.

[muon2]

Did you forget to read my last reply to you, B.S.?  By making Heck's district fractionally more GOP friendly, do you believe he is now safe or something?

I think safe R is going to be hard to assess. Assume the district was redrawn to put the 74 K people outside of Clark in CD 3 instead CD 4, and then CD 4 wrapped around to get more Ds from CD 3. This version of CD 3 still votes for Obama by 52 - 46, and is only 51.5 R - 48.5 D on the DRA average.