There has evidently been some discussion of drawing a minority-majority district in Arkansas to give the Democrats a buffer against an 0-4 Republican sweep.
My criteria for making this map was:
1. There must be a minority-majority district, no matter how hideous.
2. Rep. Ross must have a district he could potentially retain.
3. Rep. Griffin cannot be allowed to have a safe district to himself.
I’m not going to go district-by-district, mostly because I’m already up past my bedtime. But we have an open seat here, and it’s something new and blue. It’s also 49% white, 44% black, and although it goes up to majority-white when you VAP it, most Democratic primary voters will probably be black, and it’s diverse enough to be a solid Democratic district.
As for Ross and Griffin, they get to square off over my hideous reincarnation of AR-04, which includes a hefty portion of Pulaski County and has a PVI probably not too far off the current R+7 version. But I’m just eyeballing it, and I’ve never even been to Arkansas, so someone should correct me if I’m wrong.
Rep. Womack gets to sit pretty in AR-03, and Rep. Crawford should be quite comfortable in AR-02, a.k.a. the Jolly Green Giant.
I do wonder if there’s a way to draw such a district that doesn’t run afoul of Shaw v. Reno.
Just a district under 50% white.
It is possible to draw a district with more african-american than whites, but I think it would not be necessary.
It would be very interesting also add to the democratic districts the most democratic areas of Washington county. That would give better rating to the red district (if I’m not wrong AR-04).
Why are you trying to elect a black Democrat? Its not going happen without some change of the demographics done naturally not by doing a gerrymander. The districts aren’t going to change much. Arkansas isn’t going to be VRA protected, so why even try?
Ross lives in the Black Majority District (Does he not live in Hope?) but you combined all of the areas Ross did bad in or won by very little.
Since discussion has already branched off into Louisiana, I hope you won’t mind if post an Alabama map here, SaoMagnifico. I don’t think it’s worth a stand-alone diary.
A second VRA district for Alabama is something we’ve been talking about for a while. But I don’t remember seeing any maps done for it since the 2010 data came out.
With apologies for the fact that I didn’t bother to make the colors correspond with the existing district designations.
The gold district is 55.6% African American by total population, 52.6% by VAP. The grey district is 53.1% African American by total population, 50.4% by VAP. Teal is the next most African-American district at ~22%. Blue and Green are at ~15%. Purple is at ~10%, and Red is at ~8%.
The map has a grand total of 5 county splits, with a variance of -795 (Teal) to +997 (grey). Montgomery is the only incorporated locality that’s intentionally split. I think, but of course am not sure, that if I were working with more granular units than precincts it would be the only one split.
This is what he had to say.
“I know there’s been a lot of reports that say we’re out for a Black district, but we’re just 15% of the population,” says Steele. “All of that population is pretty well spread throughout the state. It’s almost impossible to have a ‘majority-minority’ district. That’s really not the goal of the caucus. If an African-American campaigns and wins fine. If a non-African-American campaigns and wins and goes to Washington and votes our interest, we’ll still be in a better situation. That’s our No. 1 issue.”
http://www.thecitywire.com/ind…
Could probably do it from AR-02, although the dynamic among rural voters might be different than among urban voters …
Ross will insist that his district be 25-35ish and will also demand that he get Pine Bluff.