Potential Political Implications of Legislative County Clustering in North Carolina

 by Christopher Cooper

What are the political implications of legislative county clustering in the North Carolina redistricting process? This is one of a series of posts involving the 2021 redistricting cycle in North Carolina’s General Assembly Districts. I’ll review some of the pertinent points before getting to my analysis, but if you want to get caught up on all of the details, I’d recommend reading these posts in the following order:

 

·      This post, written in September, 2019 from Blake Esselstyn gives a terrific background on the Stephenson decision and its implications for redistricting in North Carolina.

 

·      This piece from Jonathan Mattingly and his team on the quantifying gerrymandering blog explains the ways that the Stephenson criteria might be applied in 2021.

 

·      Rebecca Tippett at Carolina Demography has a terrific trio of blog posts on the demographic side of redistricting. The first explains the demographics in general, the second applies these lessons to the NC House and the third to the NC Senate.

 

·      Blake Esselstyn digs into the weeds and discusses the potential implications of one wrinkle in the possible Stephenson groupings.

What Precinct Polarization Might Tell Us About NC's Politics Before Redistricting Kicks Off

By Michael Bitzer

As the U.S. Census Bureau gets ready to release the data for redistricting activities in the states, a sense of what the "ground" in North Carolina politics looks like going into the "most political activity in American politics" would shine some light on the future maps and their designs.

North Carolina redistricting efforts are centered around a core set of principles, often referred to as the Stephenson criteria. Written by then Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake of the NC Supreme Court (a summary of the full criteria can be found in his majority opinion, starting on page 42), one of the key components is the "whole county" provision of the state constitution, which holds that for both state senate and house districts, "No county shall be divided in the formation..." of districts (Sections 3 & 5, sub-section 3 of Article II).

Therefore, when legislators begin their work, they will start with counties that can sustain legislative districts within themselves, and then work towards "clustering" other counties to develop districts as well (a good explanation of this principle is found here). 

But beyond the counties, one can dive even deeper into political geography through precincts (or voting tabulation districts ("VTDs")), which are the foundational geographic areas for election administration and where voters (who vote on Election Day) go to a central site to cast their ballots. 

Analysis of North Carolina in "The Almanac of American Politics"

One of the standard reference books for many of us is the "Almanac of American Politics," which profiles all 50 states and their political dynamics. Lou Jacobson, a long-time observer and analyst of American politics, provided the chapter on North Carolina for our readers.

The 2022 Almanac of American Politics 50th Commemorative Edition will be released this month (August 2021) and can be purchased online at https://www.thealmanacofamericanpolitics.com/ or by calling 1-888-265-0600. 

You can also use the code “15AAP2022” for a 15% discount during check-out.

Lou begins his analysis of the Old North State with this passage:

In few states today is the political climate more polarized between rural and populated areas as it is in North Carolina—and in few states are the margins between the two parties so consistently narrow.

Along with a history of the state's politics, Lou analyzes the state's congressional districts and Governor Roy Cooper's first term and re-election bid in the chapter. 

An Early Look at 2022's NC US Senate Race Fundraising

By Whitney Ross Manzo

Everyone knows fundraising is critical to the success of political campaigns, and in the post-Citizens United world of campaign finance, the amount needed to be successful is ever-increasing. In the 2020 election cycle, over $14 billion was spent, more than doubling the previous record holder of the 2016 election cycle! Part of that spending was for the two most expensive Senate races ever, in Georgia, where both the Republicans and the Democrats spent enormous sums in order to secure partisan control of the US Senate. There is every indication that the 2022 US Senate race in North Carolina will also be a record breaker for two main reasons.

How Might Politics Impact NC's County COVID Vaccination Percentages?

By Michael Bitzer

As with many things nowadays, partisanship and polarization has infected many aspects of our society; not just our political lives, but things that 'normally' one might consider apolitical. With the intensity of what we see in our polarized environment, pretty much any issue, especially those seen as a public policy, becomes framed in partisan dimensions. 

Recently, political scientist Seth Masket at the University of Denver noted that the relationship between how a state voted in the 2020 presidential election and its percentage of adults who have received at least one COVID vaccine is "remarkably strong," at a level of 0.85 correlation which is something social scientists "almost never see this high a correlation between variables." This relationship was also found by another political scientist, Tom Pepinsky, regarding county-level data.

In fact, Masket found that vaccination rates are a "better predictor" of state voting patterns than what we normally think of as predictive (read, in statistical language, independent) variables such as race, education, or other demographic factors. 

Beyond just analyzing the fifty states, Masket analyzed Colorado's counties to evaluate the role of vaccination and voting patterns in 2020, and found another remarkable correlation/relationship between the two (at 0.835, where a 1.0 would mean the two variables are identical in their relationship and that one variable perfectly explains the other variable).

For those of us who study state politics and are interested in a particular state, this type of analysis is fairly simple: take the 2020 county-level election results (say, the 100 counties of North Carolina and their vote for Trump) and the vaccination rates by counties and see how the two numbers relate to each other. 

Innumeracy and General Assembly Salary

By Christopher Cooper

State legislators don’t make much money for their legislative service, and that’s an understatement. In North Carolina, they receive $13,951 a year, plus a mileage reimbursement and a per diem for time in session. This paltry salary has wide-ranging implications for understanding North Carolina politics, as I discussed in this piece for The Assembly. 

 

Despite the problems of staggeringly low legislative pay, efforts to increase legislative pay have not progressed very far in the Tar Heel State. I have always suspected that one reason why that may be the case is that the average North Carolinian drastically overestimates how much legislators make. If that’s the case, would correcting these misperceptions help? I tried to answer those questions in some recent research that I published in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly. 

 

The paper includes data from ~2000 registered voters four states: California, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and New Hampshire—states that vary in terms of legislative salary (with California at the top of the salary scale, New Hampshire at the bottom and Wisconsin and North Carolina in the middle), region, and partisanship. In this post, though, I’ll just focus on North Carolina.

"Late" Absentee by Mail Voters: Who Are They?

By Michael Bitzer

With the passage in the state senate of Bill 326, the move to require absentee by mail ballots by received by Election Day, instead of three days afterwards, has cleared half a legislative hurdle. This legislation was brought about due to the controversy over the extension in 2020's election of receiving absentee by mail ballots from three days after the election to nine days. 

But how big an issue are mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day in North Carolina? Luckily, the N.C. State Board of Elections' public data allows us to see how many mail-in ballots were received and accepted after election day and what kind of partisan (and other) dynamics, if any, are at work. 

An Early Look at NC's Primaries for the Open US Senate Seat

By Susan Roberts and Michael Bitzer

Recent attention to former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Representative Ted Budd (R-NC 13) for the Republican nomination to North Carolina's U.S. Senate seat is instructive for several reasons. Beyond sending a cue to Republican primary voters of who the former president supports, perhaps most important aspect is the significance of NC as a battleground state and the fact that the seat could be one that determines control of the Senate itself.

But for both the Republican and Democratic primaries, important dynamics also weigh in on who will claim each party's nomination for what many consider a national race centered once again in the Old North State. We take a look at the general dynamics of mid-term elections, with an introductory focus on the primary battles shaping up in both parties for the 2022 contest. 

A “Perfect Storm” for Pro-Life Activists?

By Susan Roberts

Conservative attacks on reproductive rights are once again in the news. Headlines were made when Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court, and pro-choice advocates could only imagine the restrictions on access to abortion that would result. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey made headlines by enacting the nation’s most restrictive bill on prevention of abortion at the sign of a fetal heartbeat, and pro-lifers anticipated a snowball effect of similar pieces of legislation around the country. 

Most recently, Arizona GOP legislator Walter Blackman made headlines when he said his pro-life proposal was “perfect” because it would prosecute women having abortion for homicide, and providers characterized the legislation as “nothing less than appalling.”  Indeed, pro-life advocates are very encouraged, and pro-choice activists are very worried.

Can You "Claim Credit" When You Voted Against The Bill? Yes. Yes You Can.

By Michael Bitzer

Following passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, which contains the latest round of stimulus checks and other policy initiatives, Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn, of North Carolina's Eleventh Congressional District, sent two tweets announcing several grants issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and funded through the ARA that would impact his western North Carolina district:

This is a classic example, from political science research, of 'credit claiming' by legislators to send cues and signals to their constituents (especially to the voters back home) of the member's legislative impact for the district. 

And yet, on the actual vote for the ARA, Cawthorn was a "nay" vote, voting against the legislation by proxy, and issued a statement that read, in part: