US House Redistricting: South Carolina

[dpmapper]

I *think* all white-majority districts should "usually" be safe for Republicans. Race is CD1 69-24, CD2 65-27, CD3 77-18, CD4 70-20, CD5 71-24, CD6 38-58, CD7 66-27. If you know the state better than me (not that hard) and beg to disagree and have an idea how to rectify things, just say so.

There are a fair number of white liberals in Columbia and Charleston, so I'd make sure the districts that include them have a larger white majority.  CD7 in particular seems like it might be borderline. 

[dpmapper]

In an attempt to spread the GOP strength in the northwest, I tried the following:



Shoving a tendril from Duncan's district into Columbia (to take a few blacks, plus what I assume would be the most liberal white neighborhoods around USC) allows Clyburn to take more of Charleston's blacks from Scott.  Mulvaney seems like a decent fellow, so I'm guessing he's more amenable to the rest of Columbia's moderate white voters than Joe Wilson is.  Instead of Columbia, Wilson soaks up some blacks downstate.  The grey seat is the open seat, perfect for a Myrtle Beach Republican. 

[dpmapper]

That CD-1 looks somewhat marginal. I know though that the Hilton Head Republicans want to get out of Wilson's Lexington based district.

It looks like it might be, but I shoved basically every black precinct in Charleston/North Charleston into Clyburn's district, and there's room to put some liberal white areas in there too.  (I don't know which ones those are, but I have some white downtown Charleston precincts in Clyburn's right now.  Switch them around if they are the wrong ones.)   A significant number of these areas are in CD-01 currently. 

Berkeley and Dorchester have also had their black areas removed, so the remaining parts are pretty hyper GOP.  The only Dem areas left are the Geechees along the coast, and who knows, maybe Tim Scott might appeal to them more than a white Charleston liberal.  

[dpmapper]

I tried running the numbers on Scott's district in my map.  It's kind of hard because SC lists absentee ballots separately from their precincts, and there are a sizable number of them.  Using a conservative estimate of them, I have Scott's district at 55.22 McCain.  This is probably low since I assumed that absentee ballots ran roughly in the same proportion as each precinct, but they actually go quite a bit more Dem than the in-person ballots.  

So Scott should be quite safe this way, and you could easily make him a point or two safer if you want to soften the grey district a bit.  

[dpmapper]

According to the newly added partisan figures in DRA, my 1st is 58.6 McCain.  The app's numbers are (on average) 2.7% redder than the real numbers due to the lack of absentee ballots, so figure about 56% for the true total.  It should be safe for Tim Scott.  

I'll repost the map:


Other numbers for my map, before the absentee adjustment:
CD2 (orange, Joe Wilson): 61.8% McCain
CD3 (purple, Duncan): 62.2%
CD4 (red, Gowdy): 61.6%
CD5 (yellow, Mulvaney): 60.4%
CD6 (teal, Clyburn): 68.4% Obama, 57.2% VAP black
CD7 (grey, open): 59.3% McCain.

So the balance is pretty good; Mulvaney shouldn't mind getting parts of Columbia at all, given that, overall, his district goes from 53% McCain to about 57-58%.  Duncan's district is hurt the most by taking in parts of Columbia but he is still in the reddest district of them all.