US House Redistricting: Georgia

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just realized the new seat has a good chance of having the highest GOP PVI in the country. You could easily draw a seat stretching from Cherokee to around Hall counties that would probably be around an R+30.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I highly doubt the DOJ would approve that map.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Uh, Birmingham is 24% white. Voted 90% Obama? LOL.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's the most McCain district you can draw in the Atlanta suburbs?



74% McCain.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ouch, Bacon King's home was 76% McCain. And I thought my home in Bismarck, ND was bad enough.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Barrow County definitely swung toward Obama.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Georgia has 180 State House districts. How many white liberal seats can be drawn?

I have 7. Two in Athens, two in the white part of northern Atlanta, two in DeKalb and one that kind of straddles the border between Atlanta and DeKalb. I haven't finished yet so who knows if there's white liberal enclaves in Savannah or whatever.

What's with Decatur? I have a 66% white seat around there that was almost 78% for Obama, this is the best performance among whites I've seen for Obama in the state.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Exactly; Decatur is not culturally Southern at all.

Also, you'll probably find about a state House district's worth of white liberals in Savannah.

How many of those will actually be drawn? The 2 in Athens? It should be easy to put the white liberals in black districts based on residence.

No it's not. Go look at the population map, northern Atlanta and DeKalb County are very white and the white areas have more than enough population for several state house seats considering that they aren't very big.

Savannah obviously has more liberal whites than the most places in the state, but it's tough to draw a Democratic state house seat there without a significant black population. The whitest precinct there that voted for Obama is 80% white and 51% for Obama.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Best you could do is something like this:



56.8% white VAP and 58.1% Obama. I padded it with a few uber-black precincts in Atlanta granted, remove those and you can get around 58.3% white VAP and 56.7% Obama. Keep in mind though that this seat would also have a notable Asian and Hispanic population and is only about 20% black VAP, so it's not like the type of seat that is like 56% white and 42% black in which case 58.1% Obama still shows uber-Republican whites.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And in an alternate universe where Barnes was elected Governor last year and the Democrats miraculously managed to hold the legislature the whole decade:




GA-01: Uber-GOP rural north Georgia seat. Graves wins easily.
GA-02: Uber-GOP exurban district. Appears to be open, should have an interesting primary.
GA-03: Broun doesn't live here, but he'd probably run here, it's not too different from his current seat minus Athens, he'd just have to move to suburban Augusta. 68% McCain.
GA-04: Kind of a leftovers district, it's basically exurbs + rural counties the Democrats wouldn't want in other seats, but it fits Gingrey pretty well with his current seat. 63.7% McCain and safe GOP.
GA-05: Another generic suburban Republican seat, 62.6% seat. Tom Price would most likely hold it.
GA-06: Here we have kind of a hodgepodge of types of Democrats, blacks and Hispanics in the more rundown parts of Cobb County, a chunk of Atlanta including the white liberal area, and blacks in southwest DeKalb. 44.1% black VAP. Kind of resembles Scott's current seat in demographics, but Lewis fits it better geographically. Over 70% Obama.
GA-07: Tons of blacks in Atlanta and southern Fulton + some generic rural counties. 54.6% black, yet only 65.9% Obama, still enough to be safe Dem, Scott no doubt wins.
GA-08: Blacks + white liberals in DeKalb + some suburban Republicans to dilute them. 52% black VAP, and Obama's best seat with 75.9%. Johnson wins.
GA-09: Here we start having fun. Athens adds the minority parts of Gwinnett and the Hispanics in northern DeKalb. 52.9% Obama because it still has to cut through some Republican parts, but Woodall would need a very strong personal vote to hang on.
GA-10: Augusta to Savannah. Probably Barrow's new seat. 54% Obama.
GA-11: 50.4% Obama, so not exactly a strong seat to guaranteed to be held in a year with bad black turnout. However this is also perfect for a Jim Marshall comeback if he has any interest, he could probably hold it in a year with no so great black turnout too due to blue dog appeal.
GA-12: Bishop's new seat, 42.9% black VAP, 52.5% Obama.
GA-13: 64.4% McCain pack seat, held by either Kingston or that guy who beat Marshall.
GA-14: The same, 62.8% McCain. If Kingston lives in Savannah he has to move obviously, but this seat would like him.

So 7-7 most likely, could go to 8-6 or 9-5 if the blacks stay home, but the GOP incumbents would require some serious skills to hold. GA-09 would also no doubt increase its D PVI as the decade went on, so even if Woodall hung on, he'd need a perfect storm every election since.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The other purpose of that Forsyth split is to solve the "Gwinnett problem" that isn't an issue now but would be in a decade. The demographic trend in that county is not favorable to the GOP. The other demographic trends mean they don't have to worry about anything statewide but a Gwinnett-based seat would be a problem in the future. The chunk of Forsyth negates that.