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founding
Nov 18, 2022Liked by Sam Wang

You missed Nevada - they made “Hispanic pie” out of Las Vegas in order to have three non-Hispanic democrats, as opposed to an Hispanic democrat, a non-Hispanic democrat and a republican. Gain of plus one D for this.

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Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Author

Is that really a Democratic gerrymander?

In CD1, CD3, and CD4, Democratic win margins were 4-6 points. Those seem like competitive districts. It seems that least one of them could have gone Republican. I think it depends on what we imagine the low-water mark for Democrats would be.

I see that CD1/CD4 might potentially split Hispanic communities: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::eb89e40d-595f-485f-9a43-d1bbdd6d0cb4

However, according to Census QuickFacts, Las Vegas city is only 33% Hispanic, which is lower than the 37%+ that has been reported in one study by Moon Duchin to be enough to give a community its preferred candidate.. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/lasvegascitynevada

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founding
Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022

The Hispanic population is clustered on either side of I-15 in Vegas.

The old Cd-1 was coming in close to 50% Hispanic in the new census, [so / and] the dems split CD-1 and C-4 right through the middle of the Hispanic cluster just as Sam suggests.

This is an excellent graphic: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Race_and_ethnicity_2010-_Las_Vegas_%285559885507%29.png

I agree the dem's drew a map with 3 dem leaning competitive seats and 1 solid R, instead of 2 solid R, 1 dem Hispanic and 1 competitive. Is that a gerrymander? You guys can decide - but it sure is "cracking". Deliberately drawing your line right down the middle of the Hispanic cluster sure seems like a "bug in democracy" - which this blog is about. But the dems did this for three decades after the civil rights era with the Black communities too - until a GOP AG busted them (purely for selfish GOP purposes, of course).

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Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Author

Hmm, that is interesting.

I wish Substack allowed comments to contain images.

Anyway, here is the Las Vegas area with current Congressional districts.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/116vDiNI3n0FU1W6TyeflsGTIgtL8OGql/view?usp=share_link

taken from Dave's Redistricting. https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::eb89e40d-595f-485f-9a43-d1bbdd6d0cb4

and for now, census.gov has the old CD-01, which was 47% Hispanic by total population (though note only 41% by Voting Age Population - see DRA link below).

https://www.census.gov/mycd/?st=32&cd=01

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founding

Will Dave’s let you see current Hispanic population with the current districts vs if they kept the old?

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Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Author

There is a way to compare plans, but I haven't used it. Generally each state has a list of plans of interest:

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#state::NV

From 2020, the old CD-1, with CD-3 to south and CD-4 to the north:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IsFf8S22i6cmuyLvEWIjwxbkD9wTmW1H/view?usp=share_link

Nevada 2020 plan: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::43ac26c6-a829-4102-9d40-be3288998318

I would characterize the old map as 1 D (41% Hispanic), 2 swing, 1 R, and the new map as 3 D (32%, 31%, 19% Hispanic), 1 R.

If Utah is a gerrymander on account of splitting Salt Lake City, one might apply similar logic to Nevada here. hmm

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