County Clustering: Looking towards the 2020 Census

 

The decennial redistricting cycle is an important moment in our democracy. Drawing districts can have a dramatic effect on how our elections are interpreted and the people’s ability to hold their representatives accountable.

Today, roughly 1 month before the 2020 Census is release, we and 3 other North Carolinians are releasing an analysis around the coming 2020 Census and how it will affect the county clusters used to draw the legislative districts for the N.C. State Legislature.

The study can be found HERE

For more information on what county clusters are and how they affect districting, see here and here.

We do not intend our analysis to have much predictive value.  A main takeaway from the study is that the clusters are very sensitive to fluctuations in the county populations; the official county populations will not be released until mid-august.  Nonetheless, it is clear that the current county clusters will change in the coming redistricting cycle and that there will likely be multiple options for which clusters we implement. We hope that our note will inform public discussion around this process.

Quoting from the study, the main takeaways are:

1. 1. We expect that county clusters based on the 2020 Census population will be very different from those used in the last decade.
   2. There is significant variation in the county clusters across the different population estimates for 2020. Hence, caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from the specifics of the maps we have included. We note the few clusters which seem to be stable across the population estimates.
   3. Using the 2010 population figures we found 2 possible clusterings for the N.C. Senate. The number of clusterings for the 2020 population estimates ranged from 12 to 33.
   4. Using the 2010 population figures we found 4 possible clusterings for the N.C. House. The number of clusterings for the 2020 population estimates ranged from 2  to 16.

Some members of the study team will be releasing further commentary on what we have seen here during the coming month.  We expect to release a similar discussion once the official 2020 Census population figures are released.  Please watch this site and the following venues for further commentary:

• • NC Demography.org blog
  • Districks blog
  • Old North State Politics blog

Jonathan Mattingly
Gregory Herschlag