North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Tintrlvr]

Here's another alternative that I put together:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/7c5770ec-23d0-4b88-86b7-9848e2865e16

[Tintrlvr]

Here's a mostly clean NC map.

You realize the purpose of the court order is to "undo" the current partisan gerrymander...correct?

Its a much better map though then many of those posted so far in this thread. You can make some small shifts and turn 2 or 3 of those Republican seats into swings and do some shifts in the Triad to create a solid D seat there.


A lot of the so called "fair" maps posted so far in this thread, focus on getting the numbers right and yet preserve some of the most egregious aspects of the current map, like stretching 9th out to the Sandhills, putting Johnston in with Wilmington etc.

Not sure what the problem with the 9th district including the Sandhills is. Stretching from Charlotte to the Sandhills is a problem, but there are zero Charlotte-Sandhills maps posted on this thread so far... except for the one from nerd73 that you just praised (which also keeps the problem in the current map of splitting the Sandhills down the middle). Most of the maps have been pairing the Sandhills with Fayetteville, which is pretty natural, and pulling that district entirely out of the Charlotte metro.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1191806197294350336

Don't like the Greensboro/Winston-Salem and Fayetteville regions one bit. On the other hand, that 11th seems like it was drawn by a Democrat looking for a potential pickup.

Splitting Hoke/Robeson from Scotland/Richmond/Anson is a problem, too, and the arm up to Watauga is a mess, although it doesn't really matter from a partisan perspective. This doesn't seem like a good map, or, honestly, a nonpartisan one.

[Tintrlvr]

NC senate Dems map. They keep the Stupid 7th, the 6th and the 4th could probably do with an internal reshuffle, Greensboro/W-S of course, and I personally would have cut Wayne to boost NC01's AAVAP.

Me and NC Dems are on the same page,  looks very similar to mine again.

The only thing I really dislike here is keeping Forsyth and Guilford in separate districts, which, why? I don't love Johnston with Wilmington, or Watauga with Asheville, but those are not the end of the world.

[Tintrlvr]

NC senate Dems map. They keep the Stupid 7th, the 6th and the 4th could probably do with an internal reshuffle, Greensboro/W-S of course, and I personally would have cut Wayne to boost NC01's AAVAP.

Me and NC Dems are on the same page,  looks very similar to mine again.

The only thing I really dislike here is keeping Forsyth and Guilford in separate districts, which, why? I don't love Johnston with Wilmington, or Watauga with Asheville, but those are not the end of the world.

They are thinking ahead for next year when we gain a seat.

How does that make a difference? You still won't be able to draw a Democratic or even particularly competitive seat including Forsyth County without Guilford County, as Forsyth is smaller, less Democratic and, other than Guilford, surrounded by ultra-Republican counties.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1195028349309071361

So the suggested plan my very well be our 'final' map before the judges bang their gavel.

Geez. 8 and 9 are terrible, but 5 and 10 are terrible, too. What's the reasoning behind them? It doesn't seem to be to separate incumbents or to preserve the existing map.

[Tintrlvr]

I got bored and drew this map, which is what I think the Democrats would/should draw post-2020 if they controlled redistricting somehow (deeply unlikely). It uses 2016 data so doesn't have the most recent partisanship, but it's pretty clear where each district sits. I think this could also pass state constitutional muster. I think the map actually has favorable trends for the Democrats overall, and population changes from 2016 to 2020 would probably allow the Democrats to squeeze a bit more utility out of the map as well. Summary below.

NC-01 (Rocky Mount): Safe D, minority opportunity (46W-45B-6H)
NC-02 (New Bern-Outer Banks): Safe R
NC-03 (Wilmington): Safe R
NC-04 (Fayetteville): Likely D, minority opportunity (44W-32B-9H-9N)
NC-05 (Durham): Safe D
NC-06 (Raleigh): Safe D
NC-07 (Cary-Chapel Hill): Likely D
NC-08 (Asheboro): Safe R
NC-09 (Charlotte North-Concord): Safe D, minority opportunity (47W-35B-11H)
NC-10 (Charlotte South-Monroe): Toss-up/Tilt D*
NC-11 (Gastonia): Safe R
NC-12 (Greensboro-Winston-Salem): Safe D, minority opportunity (49W-34B-10H)**
NC-13 (Wilkesboro): Safe R
NC-14 (Asheville-Boone): Lean R***

*This could have been drawn much safer, but I was trying to preserve NC-09 as a minority district. As it is, NC-10 takes about as many white Democrats from Mecklenburg County as possible. Obama only won it by 300 votes in 2008, but it's also an area trending solidly towards the Democrats, so I am reasonably confident it's a good decision for the Democrats.
**I know others have advocated for splitting Greensboro and Winston-Salem into two districts, but I couldn't create an Obama seat based on Winston-Salem alone, so I decided the whole project wasn't worth it. Also, keeping the two together creates another minority-opportunity district, which I think is important for passing constitutional muster and ensuring unity in the state legislative caucus. This is actually the most Obama-08 seat on the map.
***This was closer than I was expecting in 2008 (47-51 McCain). Maybe Lean R is an aggressive rating for the Democrats, but it is at least potentially winnable dependent on turnout differentials. And why not draw it; there's nothing else to do for the Democrats in this part of the state.

[Tintrlvr]

Why are people assuming this map is going to get struck down at all lmao

Because the NC Supreme Court already struck down the last two maps the state legislature drew, and this one is just as partisan, if not more partisan, than those? The NC Supreme Court has found a state constitutional prohibition on partisan gerrymandering, which basically means the Republicans automatically lose when they do stuff like this map would suggest. Maybe not if the Republicans could get control of the state SC, but they don't have it right now.

[Tintrlvr]

Why are people assuming this map is going to get struck down at all lmao

This proposal is playing with fire regarding racial gerrymandering, and the North Carolina Supreme Court is 4D-3R

A federal suit’s likely result would be SCOTUS easing or eliminating the VRA district requirement, and the NCSC will be majority Republican by the time this reaches them. The map will hold up.

The state suit happens first, not the federal one. Democrats would be stupid to sue in federal court, and there's no removal if the suit is based on the state constitution.

[Tintrlvr]

Why are people assuming this map is going to get struck down at all lmao

This proposal is playing with fire regarding racial gerrymandering, and the North Carolina Supreme Court is 4D-3R

A federal suit’s likely result would be SCOTUS easing or eliminating the VRA district requirement, and the NCSC will be majority Republican by the time this reaches them. The map will hold up.

The state suit happens first, not the federal one. Democrats would be stupid to sue in federal court, and there's no removal if the suit is based on the state constitution.

Yes, but as I also pointed out, the full NCSC will probably not rule on this until after 2022 when it will likely have a GOP majority. So both avenues are fruitless.

Why would you think it would take that long? The NC SC will rule in late 2021, or at the latest early 2022. Even if you assume the Republicans win, the court election isn't until Nov. 2022 and the change in office not until Jan. 1, 2023. In any event, I don't think it's certain at all that all of the Republicans on the NC SC would vote to overturn their precedents on partisan gerrymandering.

[Tintrlvr]

I made an NC map that could function as both a fair-proportional and a fair-non-partisan map.
1, 4, 6, 12, and 13 are the Democratic districts, while 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, and 11 are the Republican ones. 7, 9, and 14 are swingy; 7 is trending R but still is quite winnable for Dems, 9 is lean GOP but increasingly winnable for Dems, and 14 is trending D and soon might count as a full-blown Dem district.
7 is a new majority-minority district. 2 is anchored in coastal counties such as Onslow and New Hanover, while 3 is a "leftovers seat". 9 is a dedicated suburban seat. 10, 8, and 14 mix suburban and rural.
Trump won 8 of these seats, Cooper also won 8, and Burr won 7.
DRA link

Overall a good map, but I have a few thoughts:

1. Rather than going into Gaston, I think 9 would be more natural going into Cabarrus - this would also mean it doesn't cross across Mecklenburg
2. Personal preference is to split both Guilford and Forsyth so you can keep more of the urban/suburban areas together. Alternative is to put High Point in the central NC district. Both I think are better than splitting Winston-Salem from its inner suburbs.
3. While the whole counties are nice, I actually think the Asheville-to-Watauga connection is better for 11. The reason actually has to do with 10, which awkwardly splits a bunch of smaller metros right now. Together with pulling 9 out of Gaston, I think you could do much neater versions of 5 and 10 with those changes.

The eastern part of the state is particularly nice. Wouldn't change anything there, except I might consider trying to pull the exurban areas of Franklin and maybe Nash into a Raleigh-area seat to help bolster 1's black percentage and send 1 into Wayne or Lenoir.

[Tintrlvr]

According to Gerry Cohen, who was the legislature's special counsel up until 2014, the impeachment strategy some Republicans are floating likely isn't legal.

https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article257419417.html

If it's a federal constitutional question, it would presumably be a federal district court judge making the ruling, not the state Supreme Court.

[Tintrlvr]

I'm not a North Carolina expert, but this is how I would have cleaned up the court map:





Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are unchanged.

What are your metrics for clean-up? For example, in Torie's world, "cleanup" means subject to the VRA, drawing a map using neutral metrics, which means minimizing splits and erosity and respecting metro are lines, and then as a tie breaker between plans that are about equal in merit, going for partisan proportionality.

In the case of NC, it would assume that the state constitution would not have a role here, because the court will have new personnel and reverse itself, or SCOTUS will emasculate it, and that the VRA will be trimmed back to not require maps that fail to hew to the metrics above, leaving only that if a series of maps hewing to neutral metrics can be drawn, then if one or more of them entails a majority minority CD, or perhaps even a performing minority CD, such a map must be selected.

Your map does not entirely hew to the neutral metrics outlined above.

I at least contest that your metrics are neutral, or at least that they way you measure them is neutral, in effect if not in intent.

The only by-definition neutral metric of redistricting is partisan fairness, which is unfortunately quite vague to be a particularly strong guide. The next-most neutral metric is communities of interest, but what those constitute is itself debatable, and I strongly disagree that counties (or even in some cases municipal boundaries) are an appropriate way to measure them.

[Tintrlvr]

I'm not a North Carolina expert, but this is how I would have cleaned up the court map:



Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are unchanged.

What are your metrics for clean-up? For example, in Torie's world, "cleanup" means subject to the VRA, drawing a map using neutral metrics, which means minimizing splits and erosity and respecting metro are lines, and then as a tie breaker between plans that are about equal in merit, going for partisan proportionality.

In the case of NC, it would assume that the state constitution would not have a role here, because the court will have new personnel and reverse itself, or SCOTUS will emasculate it, and that the VRA will be trimmed back to not require maps that fail to hew to the metrics above, leaving only that if a series of maps hewing to neutral metrics can be drawn, then if one or more of them entails a majority minority CD, or perhaps even a performing minority CD, such a map must be selected.

Your map does not entirely hew to the neutral metrics outlined above.

I at least contest that your metrics are neutral, or at least that they way you measure them is neutral, in effect if not in intent.

The only by-definition neutral metric of redistricting is partisan fairness, which is unfortunately quite vague to be a particularly strong guide. The next-most neutral metric is communities of interest, but what those constitute is itself debatable, and I strongly disagree that counties (or even in some cases municipal boundaries) are an appropriate way to measure them.

Everyone can have different opinions on what metrics to use, and that is fine. My only suggestion was to spell them out, and then I spelled out mine as an example (they are quite close to the Muon2 rules). Defining terms is the first step to having a more productive conversation. So if proportionality is the trump card, just disclose that. I assume that when picking between proportional maps, you would prefer one that is less erose with fewer chops, but perhaps not.

I didn't say proportionality, I said partisan fairness. They're not necessarily the same thing. But the inherent nature of partisan fairness is that it is not clearly able to be defined by strict rules (proportionality is an attempt to define partisan fairness into a strict rule, but I don't think it's the only way to consider partisan fairness and may not be the best one). But partisan fairness is clearly the only partisan-neutral way to redistrict; every other way to redistrict can have built-in unfair partisan effects (even if not partisan intent). I know that's a bit tautological, but it's the place from which you have to start: The goal is partisan fairness, the only question is how you get there.

My view is that fair redistricting can't be determined by strict rules, and attempts to do so are failing ventures to begin with. The only good standard is know-it-when-you-see-it re: partisan fairness. That reasonable map may or may not be compact, may or may not follow jurisdictional boundaries and may or may not be proportional. Anything else inherently prioritizes some goal other than partisan fairness above partisan fairness, but, as stated above, partisan fairness is the only partisan-neutral redistricting goal. The second alternative to partisan fairness is to follow communities of interest, but that has a similar challenge, since communities of interest are often not bound by jurisdictional boundaries, occasionally are not compact and may sometimes not result in districts that are proportional.

[Tintrlvr]

Maybe you accomplish it by linking Durham to NC-01 for a majority-black seat that is super D and just sinking Chapel Hill? So the eliminated seat is the Durham-Chapel Hill seat instead of the NE black seat.

[Tintrlvr]

NC-2 is entirely within Wake County in both versions, so that's obviously a dem sink.  NC-12 is entirely in Mecklenburg County in both versions too, so same there.

I rmbr there was one joke of a Republican map proposal in the 2020 cycle that tried to split Charlotte like 4 ways with no Dem sink. Huge dummymander given one of the seats still narrowly voted for Biden in 2020. Ceding a Charlotte and Raleigh based districts are essential for any R gerrymander at this point.

Also any such map would definitely get challenged on Section 2 grounds in the current judicial environment. I think there's a chance for such a challenge to splitting up Greensboro and Winston-Salem, depending on how the South Carolina case goes.