Tag: census

I was working on an extended redistricting of Texas, but I accidentally closed out the file! I had saved it using an .RTF, but I don’t know how to open it (can anyone help with that??). But anyway, I did take a photoshot of Southern Texas before I closed out, and I think it might be worthwhile to examine what redistricting will look like along the border.

I used the 2010 Census numbers for this, so all follow the VRA. I also plugged in the partisan data for TX-23 and found that if you attach the district to San Angelo, you get a Obama 44% district and VAP of 59% Hispanic. Pretty cool!

I drew an extra fajita strip (purple) that went about 49% for Obama, while being around 60% VAP. The other Hispanic districts (TX-15, 20, 28, 35) are all around 70% VAP. The new TX27 (green) is safe for Farenthold (back-of-the-envelope calculations say that it went 41% for Obama).

Also, as you can see, McCaul is significantly safer, it’s now a 38% Obama district. However, and this is important, the estimations under the partisan data are wildly different than the actual Census numbers: the district is actually far more Hispanic under the 2010 numbers. In fact, it’s only 60% white VAP, and less so with the total numbers. Austin is far more Hispanic that one would imagine.

Also, Carter is made a lot safer in his district by removing Killeen to the super-duper red TX-11.

So tell me what you think! Sorry I don’t have the rest available–I will if someone helps me out. I do think this is what’s going to happen, though.

Florida was one of the nation’s biggest gainers, both in terms of overall numbers (18,801,310, up from 15,982,378 in 2000) and House seats (up two from 25 to 27, making it the only state besides Texas to gain more than one seat). Florida’s new target is 696,345, up from 639K in 2000.

Most of the state’s gains come in what’s called the I-4 corridor, reaching from Tampa Bay through Orlando over to Daytona Beach and down the Space Coast. (Of course, that’s not consistent from district to district; the only district in the state that lost outright population is FL-10 in St. Petersburg, and Tampa’s FL-11 will also need to gain voters.) FL-05, centered in Pasco and Hernando Counties north of Tampa, is now one of the largest districts in the nation, in fact. Both of the new districts seem likely to be centered somewhere in the I-4 corridor, although there was enough growth in the Miami area that it will need to expand a little, too, shifting in-between districts like the 13th and 16th a step to the north. (Miami area growth was concentrated in FL-25 in Miami’s westernmost suburbs; the rest of south Florida, especially the Gold Coast, seemed pretty stable). Despite the GOP-held trifecta, predicting the final map right now is a bit of a fool’s errand, though, considering that the effect of Florida’s Fair Districts initiatives will probably need to be filtered through the courts and the DOJ.

Florida, as you’d expect, is one of the states showing large-scale Hispanic growth. That’s not as clear-cut in the Democrats’ favor as it is in other states, in that it has a large Cuban community, although that’s largely limited to the Miami area and Cubans are becoming a smaller percentage of the total Hispanic community even there. Hispanic growth in central Florida tends to be Puerto Rican and Central American. The state as a whole moved from 65% non-Hispanic white, 14% non-Hispanic black, and 17% Hispanic in 2000 to 58% white, 15% black, and 22% Hispanic in 2010. While the most heavily Hispanic districts, naturally, remain the three Cuban districts in the Miami area, most of the biggest increases in Hispanic percentage have come in central Florida. In particular, see FL-08 (18% Hispanic in 2000, 26% Hispanic in 2010), FL-11 (20% Hispanic in 2000, 28% Hispanic in 2010), and FL-12 (12% Hispanic in 2000, 21% in 2010). Could we see one of the new districts be a Hispanic-majority VRA district that joins Tampa, Lakeland, and Orlando? The biggest Hispanic percentage increase might surprise you, though: Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s FL-20, which went from 21% to 31%, apparently based on a lot of Cuban movement to the suburbs further north).

Georgia is gaining one seat, from 13 to 14, and with that in mind, its new target is 691,975 (up from 630K in 2000). Pretty much all decade, those in the know have been expecting Georgia’s 14th seat to fall in Atlanta’s northern tier of suburbs, where the state’s fastest growth has been in distant exurban (and virulently red) counties like Cherokee and Forsyth. The new data basically confirms that, with the heaviest gains in suburban/exurban GA-07 (worth noting: Newt Gingrich’s old stomping grounds, Gwinnett County, is now the state’s 2nd largest county, having shot past Cobb and DeKalb Counties) and GA-09.

Perhaps most surprising is the deep deficit in GA-02, the VRA district in the state’s rural South; there had been discussion of it reaching up to take in central Macon in order to make GA-08 safer for its new Republican occupant Austin Scott, and that seems even likelier now, given that may be the only way for it to retain an African-American majority. The two VRA districts in Atlanta will also need to expand outward, but third black-majority seat in the ATL area, the suburban 13th, has plenty of population to spare.

The changes in Kentucky are much less dramatic, which stays at six seats, has seen little change in its racial composition, and which probably won’t even see much movement of its current boundaries. Its current target is 723,228, up from 673K in 2000. As in many states, the truly rural districts (in this case, the west Kentucky KY-01 and Appalachian KY-05) were stagnant, and will need to gain population from districts with exurban populations (KY-02, which includes Louisville’s southernmost ‘xurbs, and KY-06, centered on Lexington).

Today and yesterday’s Census data dump is of three states that didn’t gain or lose seats but will need some internal adjustment to reflect population movement from the cities and the rural areas to the suburbs: Minnesota, New Mexico, and Tennessee. (It also included three states with at-large seats that we won’t need to discuss: Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota.)

Minnesota barely made the cut for retaining its eighth seat (13,000 fewer people statewide and it would have lost it), which you can see in its very low new target: 662,991 per district. (That’s up from about 615K in 2000.) Despite the fact that Michele Bachmann lives there, people keep pouring into MN-06 in the outer-ring suburbs and exurbs to the north, west, and east of the Twin Cities. Only it and MN-02, taking in the southern suburbs/exurbs, will need to shed population, giving part to the rural 1st and 7th, and part to the urban 4th and 5th (and suburban-but-boxed-in 3rd). With split redistricting control, look for the parties, if they’re able to agree, to settle on incumbent protection.

Talk of moving the college town of St. Cloud, currently in MN-06, into MN-08 (which would enable Tarryl Clark to run there) may be premature, as MN-08 gained enough population that it can remain about the same. In fact, the fact that it did so may say a lot about last year’s election; the 8th’s growth has been happening at its southern end, where the MSP exurbs begin and where new Rep. Chip Cravaack hails from, and the population growth in this area has outpaced losses in the dark-blue Iron Range to the north, Jim Oberstar’s traditional turf.

New Mexico’s target is 686,393, based on staying at three seats (up from 606K in 2000). Not much change needs to happen between the districts; the largely rural NM-02 will need to gain some population, probably from the southern suburbs of Albuquerque in NM-01. New Mexico has become appreciably more Hispanic over the last decade, though maybe not as dramatically as the other three border states (California, Arizona, and Texas), moving as a state from 45% non-Hispanic white and 42% Hispanic in 2000 to 40% non-Hispanic white and 46% Hispanic in 2010. That means that, since 2000, it has become the first state with a Hispanic plurality. The movement was fairly consistent among districts, with the 1st going from 42% to 48% Hispanic, the 2nd going from 47% to 52% Hispanic, and the 3rd going from 36% to 39% Hispanic (the 3rd, though, is the least-white of the three districts, thanks to an 18% Native American population, which stayed consistent over the decade).

Tennessee stays comfortably at nine seats, and its new target is 705,122 (up from 632K in 2000). It, like Minnesota, has seen a big population shift from cities and rural areas to suburbs and exurbs, as seen in the huge growth in the 6th (which half-circles Nashville on the east) and the 7th (a thin gerrymander that hooks up Nashville’s southern suburbs with Memphis’s eastern suburbs). In particular, western Tennessee, both in the city (TN-09) and the rural areas (TN-08) were hard-hit, with the 8th barely gaining and the 9th outright losing population. The GOP controls the redistricting process for the first time here, but with them up 7-2 in the current House delegation (and with Memphis unfixably blue), look for them to lock in current gains rather than getting aggressive with TN-05 (seeing as how Nashville could be cracked into multiple light-red urban/suburban districts, although that has ‘dummymander’ written all over it).  

With the release of census data for Wisconsin, we can also crunch population numbers by State Senate district – and to see potentially how redistricting could affect the various senators with recall campaigns mounted against them.

Without further ado, here’s the table – the eight rows highlighted in green are the eight recallable Republican senators.

As also shown in the data by Congressional district, there’s a shift from Milwaukee to Madison, population wise.  The Milwaukee County based districts (3rd – 8th) are all quite underpopulated, while the Madison-based 16th, 26th, and 27th are now overpopulated.  The MSP exurbs – now expanding into St. Croix County – have also grown, as shown in the overpopulation in the 10th (Harsdorf, R).

Will this affect the Recallable 8?  I’m skeptical – it’s unlikely, IMO, that we’ll get anything friendly from an unfriendly trifecta. Likely, the relative stability means that not too much will have to change – most of the recallable eight have districts that were stable population wise.  Harsdorf’s 10th will have to lose some – but that could be easily some Dem-leaning territory given to Robert Jauch’s 25th (D).

The Milwaukee County districts will need to expand outward…which could conveniently remove the Dem-leaning North Shore from Alberta “anything but” Darling’s 8th.  Additionally, given that Milwaukee County is surrounded on three sides by heavily Republican suburbs, it’s pretty easy to slice that pizza.  On the flip side, the growth in Dane County hasn’t reached a point yet where that would have to be sliced four ways.

So, unless we actually manage to recall Hopper, Darling, Kapanke, et al., the census numbers don’t necessarily indicate any help to come from Senate redistricting…especially not with an unfriendly legislature drawing the maps.

Arizona is gaining one seat, from eight up to nine, and that means that its new target is 710,224, up from 641K in 2000. Interestingly, despite the fact that it’s gaining a new seat, there are still three currently-composed districts that are in a deficit and need to pick up people from elsewhere: the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. These are the three central districts in the Phoenix area that are essentially built out and can’t expand in any direction (except up); meanwhile, the 2nd, 6th, and 7th can continue to expand every which way into the desert, which is precisely what they did over the decade, so look for one additional GOP-friendly seat to be carved out of Phoenix’s endless suburbia (although whether it’s centered in Phoenix’s west or east suburbs remains to be seen… between the commission’s role in deciding, and possible multiple incumbents opening up seats to run for the Senate, there really aren’t any clues what will happen).

Like the other border states, Arizona has become signficantly more Hispanic over the decade, up to 29.6% Hispanic now compared with 25.3% in 2000. The Hispanic growth wasn’t concentrated any one particular place: that 4% increase was closely mirrored in all the districts. The 2nd had the biggest Hispanic shift, at 7% (from 14% to 21%), while the 1st had the smallest shift, at 3% (from 16% to 19%). That dissipation of the Hispanic vote means that it’s not terribly likely that a third VRA seat will be carved out, despite the fact that Hispanics are close to 1/3 of the state’s population.

I’m not the first one to observe that Idaho redistricting is pretty much drama-free. Nevertheless, there’s at least something interesting going on here in this small but fast-growing state: growth is very heavily concentrated in suburbs and exurbs west of Boise. For instance, the state’s 2nd and 3rd biggest cities used to be Pocatello and Idaho Falls; now they’re Meridian (a large suburb west of Boise) and Nampa (in Canyon County, the next county to the west). That means that the districts are kind of lopsided, and it looks like much of Boise proper, currently split down the middle, will wind up being given to ID-02. While Boise is certainly the most urbane part of the state, and it should tip the balance a bit in the blue direction (as for the past decade, the two districts have had almost identical PVIs), the 2nd should still be a long way away from somewhere the Dems can compete. (Idaho’s target is 783,791, up from 646K in 2000. Look for it to get a 3rd seat in 2020.)

Wisconsin held steady at eight seats this year, and even its districts held pretty steady, too. Its target is 710,873, up from 670K in 2000. That means the only district that lost population is the Milwaukee-based 4th and even it only lost a few thousand since 2000. The main area of growth is the state’s other blue stronghold, the Madison-area 2nd (must have something to do with THE BLOATED STATE GOVERNMENT AND THOSE GREEDY PUBLIC EMPLOYEES MULTIPLYING LIKE LOCUSTS!!!!1!!), which needs to give about 40,000 people to the 4th (although they’ll have to pass through the suburban 5th, which sits smack dab between them). Also, it looks like Dairyland is gaining a little at the expense of the North Woods, as the 3rd will need to pick up 20K from GOP freshman Sean Duffy’s 7th. Although the GOP controls the redistricting process here, thanks to their House gains in 2010 and the overall uniform swinginess of the rural counties, they’re probably just going to be playing defense with their map.

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.

Today is the flipside of yesterday’s California release: states with stagnant populations and a bunch of old white people. We’ll start with Connecticut, which is certainly characterized by stability: it easily retained five seats, not being particularly near either the cusp of gaining or losing, and even its five districts are pretty close to in balance with each other. Its target is 714,819, up from 681K in 2000.

Ohio is one of only a couple states to lose two seats, taking it from 18 down to 16. Its new target is 721,032, up from about 631K in 2000. The state as a whole didn’t lose population (gaining 183,364), but seven of its districts did (the 1st, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 17th). The Columbus area was the only part of the state that seemed to experience robust growth; in fact, despite the state losing two seats, the 12th (a swing district held by GOPer Pat Tiberi) will actually need to shed population… much of the state’s growth is accounted for in the growth in the 12th.

The numbers today don’t really change the overall redistricting equation: one of the northeastern Ohio Democrats is clearly going to have to go, and while the Akron-area 13th (held by Betty Sutton) actually gained some population unlike its neighbors, it may be the one that gets dissected simply by virtue of being in the very middle (with the 9th pressuring it from the west, the 10th and 11th from the north, and the 17th from the east). As for which GOPer gets cut, I’d expected it to be one of Bill Johnson (in the 6th) or Bob Gibbs (in the 18th), but the 18th, despite its mostly rural, Appalachian flavor, seemed to hang in there better than expected, population-wise. Now I’m wondering if Bob Latta’s 5th in the rural northwest, which is going to be pressured by the 9th to its north and the 4th to its east, may be a more natural target. Or here’s another possibility (made likelier by the possibility that the local GOP might like rid themselves of a liability in the form of Jean Schmidt): the 2nd might be targeted, despite its decent numbers, as both the 1st to its west and the 6th to its east need to gain a ton of people (and extending the 1st east into red, suburban Clermont County would make GOPer Steve Chabot’s life easier).

Pennsylvania’s target is 705,688 based on the drop from 19 to 18 seats, up from about 646K in 2000. The 2nd, 3rd, 12th, and 14th all lost population. I’d really recommend looking at the Census Bureau’s interactive map of Pennsylvania, as it shows exactly what’s going on: the eastern half of the state gained a bit, while nearly every county in the state’s western half outright lost population. In fact, there were enough gains in the east that four districts wind up needing to shed population: the 6th and 15th in the Philadelphia suburbs/exurbs, and the more rural, Pennsylvania Dutch-flavored 16th and 19th. These are all Republican-held districts, but these are all districts that moved sharply in the Dem direction from 2004 to 2008, while on the other hand, the shrinking western districts are Democratic areas but ones where the overall trend has been away from the Dems. (Interestingly, two cities that over recent decades came to symbolize dead northeastern industrial centers, Allentown and Reading, are actually rebounding, gaining around 10,000 people each and helping to grow the 15th and 16th respectively. Much of the growth in those two cities, though, as well as the small growth experienced in Philadelphia, is Hispanic.)

With the GOP in control of the redistricting process in Pennsylvania and the population losses heavily concentrated in the Pittsburgh area, it looks like the axe is going to fall heavily on fairly-new Dem Mark Critz in the odd-shaped 12th, which was designed to be a friendly district for John Murtha cobbling together Cambria County with the Dem-friendly parts of Pittsburgh’s collar counties but is barely holding onto its Dem roots these days. Mike Doyle’s 14th (in Pittsburgh proper), despite being the biggest population loser, is probably going to stay intact, as Republicans will need to concede at least one blue vote sink in the southwest (and probably get bluer, as it’ll need to expand into the dead steel towns of the Mon Valley to its south, currently the bluest part of the 12th).

If Critz wants to stick around, he’s likely to find himself either fighting Jason Altmire in a primary in the 4th or Tim Murphy in a general in the 18th (although Critz has enough of a Johnstown-area base that he might be able to pull out an upset in whatever district Johnstown winds up in, unless the GOP decides that the 9th, in the central part of the state, is red enough to safely absorb Johnstown).

The crown jewel of the 2010 Census is out: California. The nation’s largest state is, well, even larger than before, at 37,253,956, up from 33,871,648. Divide that out among 53 districts (it was the first time in ages that California didn’t gain a House seat, despite gaining more than 3 million residents… it gained at a rate close to the country as a whole), and you have a target of 702,905, which is up from about 639K in 2000.

It may not come as a surprise, but much of the state’s growth is Hispanic. Since 2000, the state’s Hispanic population grew 27.8%, while the state’s non-Hispanic population was almost stagnant, growing only 1.5%. (The Asian population grew 31.5%, but that’s a fairly small subset of the overall population.) In 2000, California was 46.7% non-Hispanic white and 32.4% Hispanic, but in 2010, it had drawn much closer: 40.1% non-Hispanic white and 37.6% Hispanic.

Looking at the table, you’ll notice that a large number of districts have moved from white pluralities to Hispanic pluralities over the last ten years: the Democratic-controlled 17th, 23rd, and 27th, and the Republican-controlled 21st, 44th, and 45th. (The latter two were also the state’s two fastest growing districts, both in Riverside County to the east of Los Angeles.) Two more GOP-held seats in the greater Los Angeles area are also dancing close to the edge of a Hispanic plurality: the 25th, and the Orange County-based 40th. Of course, that doesn’t presage an immediate change in voting patterns; given lower Hispanic voter participation rates and the fact that much of the Hispanic population is under 18, changes will be slow to happen. Case in point: the 20th, where incumbent Jim Costa had a close call in 2010 despite it being a 70% Hispanic district! (One other bit of trivia: Pete Stark’s 13th moved from a white plurality to an Asian plurality, the only Asian-plurality district outside of Hawaii.)

One other thing you’ll notice: despite the fact that California didn’t lose a seat, there is going to be substantial reconfiguration of districts, with boundaries moving from west to east. The Bay Area gained little population, and will need to give most of a seat to the Central Valley; likewise, Los Angeles County proper gained little, and will need to give most of a seat to the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties). Although the Central Valley and Inland Empire tend to be Republican areas in general, most of the growth in those places has been Hispanic, to the extent that “new” seats are probably going to wind up being Hispanic VRA seats carved out of the general overlay of red; on the other hand, the Bay Area and LA proper are already Dem strongholds and have nothing but Dems to lose, so the overall effect is likely to be a wash. Of course, given that this is the first year that California switches to an ostensibly impartial commission, which has no compunction to preserve the incumbent protection intent of the 2000 map and may actually place a premium on compactness, we could see all manner of scrambling that goes well beyond what I’m describing.

While we aren’t going into as much detail as we did with Texas, we’re adding a few details to California that most states haven’t received: each district’s representative (as it’s well nigh impossible to keep track of which district number is what when there are 53 of them), and the district’s racial composition in both 2010 and 2000. The four categories expressed as overall percentages, left to right, are non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic African-American, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic.

The lack of political data is a bit of a drawback in coming up with these North Carolina maps, but I’ve drawn North Carolina a few times now. In my experience, it’s hard to draw a pretty map, and in fact, I think it keeps getting grosser and grosser the more I try.

The idea here was to draw a rather unfriendly 4-9 gerrymander for the Republicans. I think it came out largely successfully, though at least two of those GOP districts (and perhaps one Democratic district) may be prone to a bit of wobble. I’d call it a 4-8-1 overall.

NC-01 (blue)

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, the Democrat who represents this VRA district, has little to complain about. It’s not pretty, but it is 44.4% white, 46.7% black, and no Republicans will be interested in seriously challenging Butterfield out here. Safe Democratic.

NC-02 (green)

Hey, it’s an open seat. Well, maybe. This district gobbles up a lot of ruby-red central North Carolina, much of which is currently held by Republican Rep. Howard Coble in modern-day NC-06, one of the most Republican districts in the country. I’m not exactly sure where Coble resides in Greensboro, but most of Greensboro is in another district, so I think this is open. Rep. Renee Ellmers, the freshman Republican who claims this district today, is certainly drawn out. No matter who runs here, the Republican will win unless he or she is caught with a live boy or a dead girl, as the saying goes. Safe Republican.

NC-03 (purple)

Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones, Jr., gets more respect here than most Republican congressmen. He’s an ally of Rep. Ron Paul, the iconoclastic Texas Republican who kick-started the nascent libertarian uprising within the Republican Party back in 2007 and 2008 when he ran for president, then flatly refused to endorse the party’s nominee, Sen. John McCain, in favor of holding a rival event to the Republican National Convention across town. The quirky Jones should be happy with this district, which looks rather similar to his current turf. He benefits heavily from water continuity here, of course. Safe Republican.

NC-04 (red)

Yes. Here is where things get a bit twisted. Democratic Rep. David Price gets thrown into the blender together with current NC-13 Rep. Brad Miller, another Democrat, in this urban vote sink. A primary fight between Price and Miller, both of whom claim a very Democratic voting record and both of whom are members of the extremely endangered club of white Democratic congressmen from the South, could be the source of some yucky schadenfreude for delighted Republican spectators. Whoever is the Democratic nominee will hold this seat, guaranteed. Safe Democratic.

NC-05 (yellow)

This is where Coble goes out of his NC-06. It’s a combination of the northern parts of that district and the current NC-05. Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, otherwise known as the Mean Granny, has been redistricted elsewhere, paying the price of living at the absolute extremity of her district. If the district absorbed swingy Winston-Salem, it might be more competitive, but in this configuration, Republicans won’t sweat it. Safe Republican.

NC-06 (teal)

Mean Granny actually ends up here, in the district that soaks up Winston-Salem. She has little reason to complain, though, as outside of some parts of the city, the district is eye-blisteringly red. Foxx is such a piece of work that it’d be nice to think a strong Democrat could take her out, but in this configuration, she or any other Republican who runs is basically secure starts out with a solid edge. Safe Likely Republican.

NC-07 (grey)

Somehow, Ellmers lands in this district, while current Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre goes elsewhere. With all the grace of a drunken giraffe, this district lurches from Ellmers’s home of Dunn down to the South Carolina border, scooping up lots of ancestrally Democratic territory. McIntyre likely would have gotten the boot last year were he not matched up against accused murderer and former Goldman Sachs stooge Ilario Pantano, as demographic trends in this area have not smiled on the Democratic Party. I’d rate Ellmers the favorite, but she’s not exactly Albert Einstein herself, and a good Democratic recruit could give the party a chance at keeping this seat blue post-McIntyre. Lean Likely Republican.

NC-08 (slate blue)

McIntyre, of course, wound up here, in the district now represented in Congress by his fellow Blue Dog Democrat, Rep. Larry Kissell. There’s been some talk of McIntyre running against near-toxic Gov. Perdue for the Democratic nomination in next year’s gubernatorial election, and if he gets deathmatched against his buddy Kissell (as appears likely), the odds probably go up. This district is probably going to stay in the Democratic column thanks to Fayetteville and the potent incumbency of Kissell, but the PVI is going to be pretty close to EVEN and Republicans will probably still want to take a crack at flipping it. Likely Democratic.

NC-09 (cyan)

Rep. Sue Myrick, the longtime Republican congresswoman here, has kept a low profile on the national stage, but she’s well-connected and well-loved in suburban Charlotte. Her district has not changed too much at all, and she’s a lock for reelection if she runs. Safe Likely Republican.

NC-10 (magenta)

This district is the unlucky one charged with cracking the Democratic stronghold of Asheville, credited by some with keeping Rep. Heath Shuler, the Blue Dog Democrat representing NC-11, in Congress last year. Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry should be able to handle it, seeing as that most of the rest of his district remains the same (though it no longer stretches to the Tennessee border) and the modern-day incarnation is a dramatic R+17. Safe Republican.

NC-11 (chartreuse)

The man with the biggest target on his back in North Carolina redistricting this year, Shuler has been an irritant to the North Carolina Republican Party (as well as the national Democratic Party, but that’s another story) due to his apparent inability to lose despite occupying an intensely Republican district. But with about two-thirds of Asheville locked away in NC-10, this could be the end for Shuler. The thing is, I wouldn’t count the man out. Tossup/Tilt Republican.

NC-12 (cornflower blue)

I haven’t exactly made my loathing of Democratic Rep. Mel Watt, the congressman for Bank of America NC-12, a secret on this site. But he’s got a VRA district, albeit perhaps the most atrocious one in the country, and he’s not going anywhere. Republicans said they’d like to kill this grotesque district, which snakes from Charlotte up to Greensboro, but they also don’t want to get nerfed with a retrogression suit, because a court-drawn map of North Carolina would look a hell of a lot different than a Republican gerrymander. This district is 31.4% white, 47.6% black, and 14.2% Latino, which is about as strong a minority-majority district as can be drawn here. Safe Democratic.

NC-13 (salmon)

Despite its color, this district is not intended for every SSPer’s favorite authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence, last seen launching a committee to explore just how many points he would lose by to independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. With two pairs of Democratic congressmen deathmatched, this district must be North Carolina’s second open seat, and it’s a doozy. It’s basically an incomplete ring around the Research Triangle, joining together a bunch of white-collar suburbs and exurbs. It doesn’t exactly scream “recipe for Democratic strength”, but it’s an open seat, so it could be surprising. I’d bet strongly on a competent Republican candidate, though. Likely Republican Tossup.

UPDATE: roguemapper kindly calculated some political data (based on the 2008 election results) for the above map. This inspired me to get slightly more diabolical. If Republicans wanted to get very, very aggressive (and maybe a little bit spiteful), they could try a map like this:

I’d call this a 4-9, but I haven’t crunched the numbers yet. One of those Republican districts will belong to Rep. Heath “Captain Jack Harkness” Shuler, cursed with apparent political invulnerability, but there’s only so much you can do in redistricting.

NC-01 (blue)

No change from previous map. Safe Democratic.

NC-02 (green)

This district takes up a lot of swingy territory (helping to push a few marginal Republican seats deeper into the red) and tries to smother it with rural territory. It’s still an open seat, I believe. Democrats’ biggest foe here is its lack of geographic compactness; I don’t see a Durham-area Democrat running strongly in northern Cumberland County, for example, which would find a Blue Dog more palatable than Democrats from the Research Triangle would. Likely Republican.

NC-03 (purple)

No change here. Safe Republican.

NC-04 (red)

No change here. Safe Democratic.

NC-05 (yellow)

Scooping up more of Greensboro in exchange for some rural counties on the Virginia border will push the PVI of this district a point or two more Democratic, but it should remain a solid Republican district, especially with veteran Coble entrenched in the Greensboro area. Safe Republican.

NC-06 (teal)

No change here. Likely Republican.

NC-07 (grey)

No change here. Likely Republican.

NC-08 (slate blue)

One of the cruelest districts I’ve ever drawn, this minority-majority district basically screws both Kissell and McIntyre (who are both drawn into it) in the primary. That’s probably no benefit to Republicans, as Kissell and McIntyre are among the least loyal members of the Democratic caucus, but it fulfills the vendettas of the North Carolina Republican Party. Plus, if a black Democrat from Greensboro sneaks through in a primary, the consternation of ancestral Democrats happy enough to vote for Kissell and willing to begrudgingly pull the lever for President Obama in 2008 could give a moderate “good ol’ boy” Republican (including Kissell, if he switched parties) an opening. 45% white, 34.1% black, 8.2% Latino, 8.1% American Indian. Likely Democratic.

NC-09 (cyan)

Myrick gets a safer seat, with a lot of blueing Charlotte gobbled up by Watt and a lot of reddish territory incorporated into this district. Safe Republican.

NC-10 (magenta)

No change here. Safe Republican.

NC-11 (chartreuse)

No change here. Note that as before, the rating is only because Shuler is Shuler; in an unlikely open-seat scenario, it’s almost certain to flip. Tossup/Tilt Republican.

NC-12 (orange)

Yes, I changed the color. And the shape. Watt’s ugly snake-shaped district has been made more compact, and in turn, it has become much whiter. It remains minority-majority, but by a smaller margin, and it is white-plurality. 44.4% white, 35.6% black, 13.8% Latino. Safe Democratic.

NC-13 (salmon)

This district loses suburban Durham and Orange counties in exchange for exurban Chatham and Lee counties. This should be the district I meant to draw last time. Still an open seat. Likely Republican.

Of the states rolled out in this week’s Census 2010 releases, North Carolina is by far the most interesting one. North Carolina narrowly missed out on a 14th seat, so it’s staying at 13; its target is 733,499, up from about 619K in 2000. Unsurprisingly, the big gains come in the Charlotte and Raleigh metropolitan areas, with NC-09 in Charlotte’s suburbs and NC-04 in Durham and Chapel Hill both well past the 800K mark. (The 9th is represented by GOPer Sue Myrick, although the state’s district that shifted the sharpest to the left from Kerry to Obama, while the 4th belongs to Dem David Price and is the bluest white-majority district in the state.) NC-01 on the coastal plain, one of the nation’s few truly rural African-American-majority seats, gained the least, followed by the three mostly-rural Appalachian-flavored seats (NC-05, NC-10, and NC-11).

How this shakes out for redistricting is complicated, because Republicans control the process for the first time ever and will want to undo a pretty Dem-friendly map from 2000… but without getting too greedy. What may be their first task, shoring up newly-elected Renee Elmers in what’s currently a swing district, may be made easier by the fact the mostly-suburban/exurban 2nd will probably need to give a lot of its African-American population in Raleigh proper to the next-door 1st in order to preserve the dwindling 1st’s black-majority VRA status. But since the 2nd didn’t grow that fast, it’ll then need to look elsewhere to grab some enough white votes to replace them… and since the GOP probably won’t want those to be liberal transplants in the Research Triangle area, they may need to reach south into the 3rd or 7th instead.

I could see that in turn pushing Dem Mike McIntyre’s 7th further west into Fayetteville and south central rural counties, keeping his district swingy, while also pushing Larry Kissell’s 8th further west too, probably giving him a heaping helping of dark-red Charlotte suburbs and making him the likeliest Dem to get targeted for extinction. But the GOP has many, many ways to play this (see the Aaron Blake article linked above), and this isn’t the only scenario.

The other two multi-district states are much more clear cut and present similar profiles: in both Nebraska and Kansas, the big empty western districts need to expand greatly, and the urban/suburban districts need to shed population. The GOP controls the processes in both states; the only real intrigue might be whether they try to get fancy and crack the only-slightly-red Omaha-area NE-02 and Kansas City-area KS-03 to make them safer Republican seats. The target in Nebraska is 608,780, up from 570K in 2000. (Notice how low that is… Nebraska seems right at the top of the list for a lost seat in 2020.) In Kansas, the target is 713,280, up from 672K in 2000.