North Carolina 2020 Redistricting

[Mr.Phips]

I don’t understand why Districts 5 and 10 are drawn that way, though I’d assume the NC GOP wanted to protect their only female rep from Mark Walker’s potential carpetbagging. Railroading Virginia Foxx is bad optics for a party who’s trying to win over women.

Does Virginia Foxx count as a woman?

[Mr.Phips]

The NC senate and NC House are really in play?

In the state senate,  SD-39 will probably flip regardless of the national environment, it's a Clinton +20 district that's held by an R.

Other than that, SD-18 can go from R to D as well, it's Clinton +1 and R held.  It's in north Wake county and trending D overall.  The incumbent isn't running for re-election.

If the Dems can defend all their vulnerable seats (SD-9, SD-17, and SD-19 imo) then that brings them to 23D-27R.   To get the last two they'd need to win some Trump +9 or 10 districts.

Not impossible (especially if they can flip the Robeson County one, SD-13) but it's an uphill battle.

They’d need to get SD-01.

[Mr.Phips]

The NC senate and NC House are really in play?

In the state senate,  SD-39 will probably flip regardless of the national environment, it's a Clinton +20 district that's held by an R.

Other than that, SD-18 can go from R to D as well, it's Clinton +1 and R held.  It's in north Wake county and trending D overall.  The incumbent isn't running for re-election.

If the Dems can defend all their vulnerable seats (SD-9, SD-17, and SD-19 imo) then that brings them to 23D-27R.   To get the last two they'd need to win some Trump +9 or 10 districts.

Not impossible (especially if they can flip the Robeson County one, SD-13) but it's an uphill battle.

They’d need to get SD-01.

Why would they want to try for that?   That's the rural seat in the northeast coast.  

That seat should be trending R if anything.   There's way better targets than SD-1.  There's SD-13 in Robeson,  SD-31 in Forsyth,  even SD-7 south of Pitt would be better than SD-1.

SD-31 is incredibly inelastic due to Davie county and basically had a Dem ceiling of around 48%.  SD-01 has a large number of blacks that will always keep Dems in the game.

[Mr.Phips]

What's the restrictions on mid decade redistricting if any?

Tbh not sure, if they draw a 10-4 in the beginning maybe they won't take the move of mid decade redistricting for 1 congressional seat that slightly weakens others. If there aren't any restrictions but the D court imposes some 6D map or something I would expect them to do it.

A mid decade redraw would be illegal for the state legislative maps unless court-ordered, but there are no restrictions for redrawing the congressional map mid decade.

Is there a window as to where maps for Congress can be drawn without being subject to veto?  After a certain date, would the maps be subject to veto?

[Mr.Phips]

They should try for an incumbent protection 9-5 map.  Base it off the current one, except Butterfield gets a bit of Raleigh which makes him totally safe.  It would be a tilt R map, not anything egregious like before.

Yeah I think that is probably the safest bet and Dems likely wouldn’t sue.

[Mr.Phips]

I made a rough pass at a 10-4 map:



link

This map is uglier than it should be, because there are incumbent considerations at work--Hudson, McHenry, Adams, and Bishop all live quite close together and need to get their own districts--plus Tim Moore might want his own district based in Cleveland County.

Here's a cleaner alternative:



link

That green district looks suspiciously similar to what was done in the prior gerrymander that led to the map eventually getting thrown out by the state Supreme Court.  Even if the court flips back to Republicans in 2022, it could easily flip back to Dems later in the decade and result in something like a 7-7 map getting forced.

[Mr.Phips]

Looks like Democrats are going to pay again for stupidly not passing an independent redistricting commission here in early 2010 when polls showed them losing their legislative majorities.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/lekhashupeck/status/1448698473348542466

State senate draft

Democrats could try a VRA lawsuit between 1 and 2 for the county splits but I think those clusters were forced by the algorithm. Nothing too crazy besides Wilmington I guess. Fayetteville I guess is weird but honestly just blame the algorithm there.

Seems to be 20 Biden districts in 2020 although the Northern Wake + Granville would be relatively close.

Robeson Scotland and Hoke being together is great for the Lumbee though.


For Democrats to win a majority they need to win the Nash/Franklin/Vance district which is Trump +1, Wilmington district which is like Trump +3,Robeston,Scott, Hoke which is Trump +8 but Clinton +2 the Wilson/Wayne district at Trump +6, and Cabarrus county which is Trump +8 and zooming left

Looks like they turned the Wilmington seat into a Trump 2020 seat.  What are the Presidential numbers on the Moore-Fayetteville seat?  I assume that was another Biden seat that shifted to Trump?  What was the other district that changed from Biden to Trump (I think there were previously 23 Biden seats).

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/lekhashupeck/status/1448698473348542466

State senate draft

Democrats could try a VRA lawsuit between 1 and 2 for the county splits but I think those clusters were forced by the algorithm. Nothing too crazy besides Wilmington I guess. Fayetteville I guess is weird but honestly just blame the algorithm there.

Seems to be 20 Biden districts in 2020 although the Northern Wake + Granville would be relatively close.

Robeson Scotland and Hoke being together is great for the Lumbee though.


For Democrats to win a majority they need to win the Nash/Franklin/Vance district which is Trump +1, Wilmington district which is like Trump +3,Robeston,Scott, Hoke which is Trump +8 but Clinton +2 the Wilson/Wayne district at Trump +6, and Cabarrus county which is Trump +8 and zooming left

Looks like they turned the Wilmington seat into a Trump 2020 seat.  What are the Presidential numbers on the Moore-Fayetteville seat?  I assume that was another Biden seat that shifted to Trump?  What was the other district that changed from Biden to Trump (I think there were previously 23 Biden seats).

Like Trump +18, Definitely is ugly but it can be defended under the purpose of keeping Fayetteville whole and being forced by county clusters. Currently the 2nd Fayetville district is paired with Hoke county and not Moore.



Now that Wake and Mecklenburg are relatively uniform(The GOP can still win 2 seats out of Wake and 1 seat in South meck) the crazy gerrymandering just isn't there.  Strict County split rules arent always the best(See SD01/SD02) but they did limit gerrymandering .

What are the 2020 numbers for the south Meck district and the two Wake districts you are referring to?

[Mr.Phips]

It also looks like they made it so only one black Democrat can win a seat in the rural east.

[Mr.Phips]

Ds are hard-pressed to win a majority in the NC Senate if this map holds.

They are hard pressed to win it in any map that isn’t a Dem gerrymander to be honest.

[Mr.Phips]

Welp, hopefully this gets struck down but I doubt it. Newby will probably stall until GOP wins the court

Some people have said they he doesn’t have the power to do this if the majority of the court wants to expedite hearing any case.

[Mr.Phips]

Cracking Greensboro like that has to be a nonstarter. No way the SC doesn't strike this map down.

Only if Dems can get the case heard and decided by November 2022 when Dems are likely to lose control of the court…

[Mr.Phips]

Cracking Greensboro like that has to be a nonstarter. No way the SC doesn't strike this map down.

Only if Dems can get the case heard and decided by November 2022 when Dems are likely to lose control of the court…

Even then, a narrow 1-seat GOP majority might not necessarily want to undo a clear precedent. That's counting on a lot of things to go right for the GOP and I honestly don't understand why they'd bother when they can get a fairly compact 10-4 map and be done with it.

This map is clearly intended to be a bit provocative--that's why they got rid of NC-01 as well. They aren't playing it safe.

Yeah what they did in NC-01 is going to almost certainly result in a VRA challenge. 

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/will_doran/status/1453778674491215880

Seems they decided to use the other cluster in the NE.

Other than Wilmington it doesn't seem like anything is really gerrymandered.

Looks like they gave back one of the black NE seats. 

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/will_doran/status/1453778674491215880

Seems they decided to use the other cluster in the NE.

Other than Wilmington it doesn't seem like anything is really gerrymandered.

Looks like they gave back one of the black NE seats. 

Yeah thats what I said they changed in the NE. The old cluster was a ridiculous non contigious cluster.

We’ll see what they do with NC-01 on the congressional map.  Excluding Greenville in exchange for Beaufort was clearly an attempt to bring down the black percentage in the district.

[Mr.Phips]

It doesn't do anything partisan-wise but the split of Durham is kind of silly (it's not for VRA reasons).  I guess they're trying to keep incumbents happy, though why they would care what Natalie Murdock and Mike Woodard think is anyone's guess.

It helps to keep the Fayetville district logical.

There is a comment in the above tweet screaming its a gerrynander to get a GOP senate district out of Durham lol!

Lol that’s still probably a 67% Biden district at least.

[Mr.Phips]

Remember, only the congressional maps can get a mid decade redraw. If the court strikes down the legislative maps, they're stuck with whatever the court does.

I believe mid decade redistricting is prohibited in NC unless it is court ordered.

[Mr.Phips]

North Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to delay the primaries.

https://twitter.com/SFalmlen/status/1468697706994544640?s=20

GOOD

If the NCGOP wants war, they'll get war. They might still win it, but they'll have to fight it out and pay a price.

All out war ends in impeachment, the NC court should be careful about pushing it too far especially with regards to legislative districts. You tell me what you would strike down on the above senate maps.

https://sites.duke.edu/quantifyinggerrymandering/files/2021/08/countyClusters2020.pdf

Use these if you are confused about any weird districts. For example 19/21 look weird but are 100% justifiable.  Democrats wanted to split Fayetteville in 2 to get 2 Dem seats. The GOP merely said no to that. In exchange they were however consistent on the senate map and did not split Wilmington. If the NC court is going to say you can't split Wilmington but must split Fayetteville they really are pushing their luck.

Dems don’t have a ton of argument on the legislative districts.  However on the congressional districts, they can easily argue that the black vote was diluted in NC-02 and that there is no good reason for the Guilford county split.  Republicans could probably easily get away with a Guilford/Rockingham/Randolph district that would have only went 50%-48% for Biden that they would likely win in 2022.

[Mr.Phips]

This is pointless. The SCONC will flip anyway and republicans will draw another gerrymander mid decade

There’s no downside for us; why not fight it in court and see what we can get?

This.  It's also unconstitutional in NC to redraw the state legislative districts mid-decade, so if either of those maps get thrown out, the changes will stick.  Dems could plausibly flip a chamber over the course of the decade.

Did they explicitly forbid it? If not, this will be up to the likely GOP SC in 2022.

It says the process is done at the first legislative session after the census is released. 

[Mr.Phips]

This is pointless. The SCONC will flip anyway and republicans will draw another gerrymander mid decade

There’s no downside for us; why not fight it in court and see what we can get?

This.  It's also unconstitutional in NC to redraw the state legislative districts mid-decade, so if either of those maps get thrown out, the changes will stick.  Dems could plausibly flip a chamber over the course of the decade.

Did they explicitly forbid it? If not, this will be up to the likely GOP SC in 2022.

It says the process is done at the first legislative session after the census is released. 

Have you checked TX, GA, NV constitutions? I believe such language should be there as well. I am curious which state does not have this type of language.

TX and NV have this language for the legislative districts.  Georgia’s language is a bit more open.

[Mr.Phips]

This is pointless. The SCONC will flip anyway and republicans will draw another gerrymander mid decade

There’s no downside for us; why not fight it in court and see what we can get?

This.  It's also unconstitutional in NC to redraw the state legislative districts mid-decade, so if either of those maps get thrown out, the changes will stick.  Dems could plausibly flip a chamber over the course of the decade.

Did they explicitly forbid it? If not, this will be up to the likely GOP SC in 2022.

It says the process is done at the first legislative session after the census is released. 

Have you checked TX, GA, NV constitutions? I believe such language should be there as well. I am curious which state does not have this type of language.

TX and NV have this language for the legislative districts.  Georgia’s language is a bit more open.

TX did this back in 2000s. NV threatened to do this in 2010s. Hence I don't think such languages are major obstacles, especially with a friendly court.

TX did it for the congressional lines, not the legislative lines.  The legislative lines are to be drawn in the first session after the census in TX.  The constitution in TX is silent on the congressional line drawing timing.

[Mr.Phips]

This has been a disaster this cycle for the GOP

On the Margin

Midterms have never been determined by redistricting

It hasn't determined which party had a majority, but there is a substantial difference between an R+15-20 majority and an R+30 majority.

This could make it far easier for Democrats to take back the House in 2024.

NC gop will certainly do a mid decade redraw for 2023 unless the court doesn't flip.

How safe would the R majorities in the state legislature be, though?  They literally read efficiency gap into the state constitution!

Also, worth noting that mid-decade redraws for state legislative maps aren't allowed in NC, so whatever legislative maps result from this process are for the whole decade.

I suppose they could go to SCOTUS with the "independent state legislature" argument since congressional maps are for federal elections.  A favorable ruling would give them back control of NC, OH, and AZ and also throw out the rules in FL, but it would also give Dems a chance to draw 49 67% Biden districts in CA and the NY courts would lose their ability to block the gerrymander there.  It would also result in immediate Dem control of WA and CO redistricting and a probable mid-decade Dem gerrymander in VA.

Pretty safe. The Democrats' real chance to win a State Senate majority was in 2020, when despite losing 5 seats in the State House they gained one in the Senate, and probably would have won a majority with a 1% popular vote lead, almost definitely with a 2% one. The issue for Democrats is they have a bit of an exaggerated view of what gerrymandering does in NC as they view NC like Wisconsin as being about 5% more Democratic than it actually is.

Democrats kind of view NC as a D+1 state which due to gerrymandering behaves like a R+7 one. In reality, it is an R+3 state which because of gerrymandering behaves like an R+7 one. Democrats might win legislative majorities on entirely non-partisan maps in a landslide year like 2018, but even then you would be talking about maybe one to two seat margins. Notice the NCSC Ds went further than last time. They realized that neutral/nonpartisan maps will probably never produce D majorities so demanded affirmative gerrymanders in favor of Democrats with the proportionality stuff.

In short, gerrymandering is largely why the GOP generically would have 32-18 and 73-47 majorities rather than 28-22 and 66-54 ones most years. Democrats range from 45-50% of statewide vote and GOP from 48-54%. As was seen with 2020 statewide races, even a landslide reelection for Cooper wasn't that wide.

I really don’t think winning the senate majority in 2020 was this easy.  Even Cooper only won 23 out of 50 seats when he won by five statewide.  The only other seat they would have won with less than a five point popular vote lead was the Wilimington seat.

[Mr.Phips]

This has been a disaster this cycle for the GOP

On the Margin

Midterms have never been determined by redistricting

It hasn't determined which party had a majority, but there is a substantial difference between an R+15-20 majority and an R+30 majority.

This could make it far easier for Democrats to take back the House in 2024.

NC gop will certainly do a mid decade redraw for 2023 unless the court doesn't flip.

How safe would the R majorities in the state legislature be, though?  They literally read efficiency gap into the state constitution!

Also, worth noting that mid-decade redraws for state legislative maps aren't allowed in NC, so whatever legislative maps result from this process are for the whole decade.

I suppose they could go to SCOTUS with the "independent state legislature" argument since congressional maps are for federal elections.  A favorable ruling would give them back control of NC, OH, and AZ and also throw out the rules in FL, but it would also give Dems a chance to draw 49 67% Biden districts in CA and the NY courts would lose their ability to block the gerrymander there.  It would also result in immediate Dem control of WA and CO redistricting and a probable mid-decade Dem gerrymander in VA.

Dems would also get control in NJ and draw a 10-2 map.

[Mr.Phips]

It would be funny if somehow Democrats actually end up winning at least one if not both chambers of the GA assembly in 2022 under the new Court map. This is extremely unlikely, though certainly not impossible.

Democrats are extremely lucky though that the County Splitting rules for districts are in place because it curbs GOP gerrymandering at least a bit.

The bad news for Dems in NC is their self-packing problem will probably get worse. Yes, some 50-50 suburbs are likely to get bluer, but the fact is most rural D areas are depopulating and getting redder by the day.

My guess is Dems will control NC legislature when/if the blue bubbles of the cities actually become close to a majority of the population

If you kept the GOP map in the senate but fixed the NE district here are the swing districts.

1 Exurban/Black mix that is Clinton Trump. Trended R for 2020.
One NE black seat that is Biden +4 and trending R
One Trump +8 seat that voted for Clinton based in Robeson.
One Cabarrus seat that had a very strong D trend in 2020
3 swing seats in Mecklenburg and Wake all of which have trended very D except the northern wake one which is partially blunted by rural Granville.

Overall 22 Biden seats and 28 Trump seats which seems relatively reasonable and a lot of Clinton -Trump / Trump- Biden seats which shows the map is quite responsive.

Ye I think the Court is kind of overplaying it's hand a bit when it comes to the state legislative maps, though I think what the GOP did with the NE really gave the impression they drew the entire map with bad faith.

It important to remember the court isn't an expert on redistricting, so a lot of their opinion will be based on visual observations and stuff.

Makes me think the court will implement a D-leaning map which may give Dems a narrow path but still a path to control one of the chambers in 2022.

25 Biden seats + 1 Clinton-Trump Exurban Raleigh/Black belt seat and 1 Clinton Trump Robeson county seat.

61 biden seats + D friendly as possible Robeson seat. (Make All Wake/Meck/Buncombe seats Safe D which is a total of 29.)'

This is basically a Texas style gerrymander more or less. NC Dem geography isn't really that bad legislatively overall. As I showed a fair senate map is probably 22 Biden seats but getting to that half way mark does seem a bit hard. They could just overturn the county provision and institute their own gerrymander from there I guess which would be the smart thing to do if they were going down this route anyway.

Wow nice job. Even if the court is partisan I don’t think they’d go that far; “worst case” would prolly be a Marcy Kaptur 2.0 situation which would actually prolly work out better in NC given the state is closer, or an “accidental” unpacking of Dem maps.

I think unfortunately for Dems, 2022 is prolly the wrong year even with the right maps, and at least one of 2024 or 2026 will prolly be the right year with the wrong maps

State legislative maps in NC can’t be redrawn mid decade.