The Progression of Tennessee House District 13

co-authored by Jack Vaughan

Let’s explore “the most interesting State House district in Tennessee,” as co-author Jack Vaughan put it. Tennessee House District 13 is one of the 26 out of 99 seats in the lower house of Tennessee’s legislature held by a Democrat and has consistently hosted the most competitive races in the state. This first set of maps shows the last five elections for this seat, and it has in fact gone back and forth:

As Vaughan says in his tweet sharing the map:

Rep. Gloria Johnson has been on the ballot all five times HD-13 has had its current boundaries, winning 3/5 times.

This Knoxville-based district has become more favorable to Democrats due to the city's shifts leftward. It's one of two House seats Democrats hold in Knox County. pic.twitter.com/GaQriDMNNK

— Jack Vaughan (@theJackVaughan) April 8, 2021

Knoxville, like many metro areas across the country, is trending Democratic. The part of the district north of the Tennessee River has managed to outweigh the more conservative, rural southern areas of Knox County added to the district by the Republican legislature in the 2010 redistricting cycle in an attempt to swing the historically working-class district to the right. The recent shift is most notable after the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, where the district went from being within a percentage point or two to being above a 5% margin for the Democrat.

State Representative Gloria Johnson has also proven herself to be a strong candidate in Knox County, such as in her 2012 win despite GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney carrying the district by 4.6%

The margin shifts visible in this second set of maps shows that even the Republican-leaning southern portions of Knox County included in HD 13 are moving a little to the left. The significant shifts, though, have occurred in the portions of west and north Knoxville that make up the northern half of HD 13, such as the margin shift of 37% towards Democrats in the West Knoxville neighborhood of Sequoyah Hills and the double-digit shifts in North Knoxville.

HD 13 is somewhat of a microcosm of Knox County: composed of an urban & suburban core with a sizable rural population. The district’s trends mirror those in the county, exceeding double-digit shifts in favor of Democrats the past decade.

Redistricting for 2022 is a complete unknown, however, and Rep. Johnson may face another unfavorable district. She succeeded in 2012, and she may well do it again.

Three Redistricting Possibilities in North Carolina 2021

co-authored by Chris Kirkwood

North Carolina has been subject to extreme partisan gerrymandering by the Republican Party since 2010, resulting in a great deal of litigation.  In 2019, two particularly important court decisions regarding North Carolina were published.

One, from the US Supreme Court, ruled that federal courts could not overturn a gerrymander on the basis of partisanship.  Not only would the federal Congressional districts in North Carolina stay in place, but this was also a major setback to those fighting for fairer maps across the entire country.

The other, from the Superior Court of Wake County, struck down North Carolina’s state Senate and state House districts based on the state constitution, and mandated that they be redrawn under supervision of the court.  This was a reversal; in 2018, Democrats won the majority of the statewide vote but Republicans kept control of both chambers.  Despite the new maps, the state-level results were mixed in 2020, and Republicans retained control of the legislature, and therefore the redistricting process.

Thus the most likely result on the federal House level is some kind of Republican gerrymander.  @bluearrowMaps shows us what that might look like here:

The North Carolina House delegation is currently 8 Republicans and 5 Democrats.  However, North Carolina’s population growth as measured by the 2020 Census led the state to gain an additional seat in the US House.  The result is a 9-5 map, a net Republican gain of +1 seat.

Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper cannot veto the maps drawn by the legislature, so the Democrats have little leverage, but a remote possibility is a more balanced map.  This 7-3-4 map may better represent the state, which has had a 4% or less margin of victory for the past four presidential cycles:

In a hypothetical world where Democrats controlled the legislature and were gunning for the maximum number of seats, they could pursue a setup like this 5-4-5 map (with all of the 4 competitive seats tilted toward them!):