Whose Districts are most likely to disappear?

[Brittain33]

The consensus on this board is that NY-22 (Brindisi/Tenney) is likely to go because it's easy to carve up and isn't one Democrats will want to preserve, Brindisi's incumbency notwithstanding.

Similarly, if Pennsylvania has a bipartisan or court-drawn map, it's hard to see both PA-9 and PA-12 staying intact as they are now with the loss of 1 seat and population growth focused on SEPA. Both of them are "leftovers" rural districts and all other districts in the southeast and around Harrisburg and York make coherent districts.

For Alabama, I'll bet AL-2. Geography dictates AL-2, AL-3, or AL-4. The other four can't be dissolved. Carving up AL-2 is probably the easiest and Martha Roby is the least popular and entrenched incumbent in the state.

I'm curious what people suggest for Michigan (bipartisan) or Ohio (Republican).

MI-11 looks like the likeliest cut because it's ostensibly Republican, you can make MI-8 more Republican by getting rid of it, and repopulate other districts around Detroit, but I think that's too lopsided a result for Whitmer to accept.

For Ohio, it depends on how much the Mahoning Valley has really moved away from Dems. I do think cutting up Tim Ryan's district just ends up endangering a neighboring R district.

[Brittain33]

Zaybay, that's a great summary.

I have questions about a couple of suggestions you made, and they're actually the same question, re: NY-24 and MI-5. Are you imagining Onondaga County and/or Syracuse would be cut in two? I don't see how you avoid having an Onondaga County seat, and thus a Katko seat, especially if NY-22 is already divided up to its east.

Similarly, Gennessee County MI has more than 50% of the population of a Congressional District. This is a problem similar to the Tim Ryan's district problem - can you really get rid of that district without its population center "taking over" whatever district it's combined with? Do you think that they'd pair Flint with Lansing for a revised MI-8? I think a Flint-based legislator wins no matter what. 

[Brittain33]

Well, "cutting" Katko's seat doesn't necessarily mean eliminating a Syracuse-based seat or otherwise chopping up Onondaga County. A Syracuse-Ithaca seat is pretty natural and is unwinnable even for Katko.

Katko won by 13,700 votes in 2018. In 2016, Tompkins County gave Hillary Clinton a margin of 16,000 votes over Trump, with Stein and Johnson taking 3% each. I suppose if Dems take out strong Republican territory to put it in Katko's district, I can see it. The Southern Tier district would have to take in Binghamton from NY-22 and probably even more than that.

[Brittain33]

If CA loses 1 seat in the 2020 redistricting, Would the Non-Partisan Redistricting Commission make a  bipartisan vote sink district for the GOP or Dem then?

I think it's just as likely that the Non-Partisan Redistricting Commission ignores the old lines and draws a new map from scratch than choose 2 districts to merge.

[Brittain33]

re: New York, thank you I see it now.