You know, the map I drew earlier is good. It's a reasonably solid 4-9 that probably gives the Republicans all they want. But in the immortal words of just about every character in Christopher Nolan's Inception, we have to go deeper. Deeper down the rabbit hole of the Republican doomsday machine. Let's not underestimate our friends across the aisle, here.
I had two goals when drawing this map, both of them closely related: shore up Rep. Foxx, and crack Wake County. Cracking Wake County, of course, allowed me to snake a Democratic vote sink through Greensboro to Winston-Salem, which was the major source of potential grief for Mean Granny on my previous map.
The coloring scheme is bonkers, but unlike the previous map, I decided not to go through the rigmarole of renumbering districts oddly. The result is that the districts are numbered oddly...just as they are now. So, sorry in advance for this summary jumping around a bit...
NC-01 (blue): Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D) - 70.6% Obama, 28.9% McCain
NC-02 (green): OPEN - 43.7% Obama, 55.5% McCain
NC-04 (red): Rep. David Price (D) - 69% Obama, 30.1% McCain
NC-06 (salmon): Rep. Howard Coble (R) - 43% Obama, 56% McCain
NC-13 (gold): Rep. Brad Miller (D) - 42.6% Obama, 56.2% McCain
NC-03 (purple): Rep. Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R) - 43.7% Obama, 55.6% McCain
NC-05 (navy): Rep. Virginia Foxx (R) - 40.1% Obama, 58.8% McCain
NC-07 (brown): Rep. Larry Kissell (D), Rep. Mike McIntyre (D) - 61.9% Obama, 37.5% McCain
NC-08 (cyan): Rep. Renee Ellmers (R) - 42.7% Obama, 56.4% McCain
NC-09 (magenta): Rep. Sue Myrick (R) - 41.1% Obama, 58.1% McCain
NC-12 (orange): Rep. Mel Watt (D) - 67.1% Obama, 32.1% McCain
NC-10 (chartreuse): Rep. Patrick McHenry (R) - 42% Obama, 56.9% McCain
NC-11 (teal): Rep. Heath Shuler (D) - 41.1% Obama, 57.5% McCain
NC-01 is black-majority and both NC-07 and NC-12 are low-40s white-plurality. This map should be a rock-solid 4-9 unless there's some sort of NY-26 "perfect storm" situation in one of the open districts.
Thoughts, anyone? I think some other people have drawn brilliant gerrymanders of the Tarheel State as well and I'd like to thank Western KY Dem and twohundertseventy in particular for their feedback and inspiration.