2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[Mr.Phips]

You’d think that PA would be the perfect state for both sides to agree to a non partisan partisan redistricting commission for Congress and State Legislative districts.

[Mr.Phips]

You’d think now would be a perfect time for non-partisan redistricting in Pennsylvania.  Republicans should be afraid of being wiped out in the legislature in the 2020s due to a Dem controlled apportionment board (through the Supreme Court) and Democrats should be a afraid of potentially losing the governorship and legislature again in 2030 right before the 2031 redistricting.  Seems like it would be something both sides would see as in their best interest.

[Mr.Phips]

Honestly find a way to Chop Cartwright and give the best parts of Lackawanna to Wild while Fitzpatrick takes  the redder parts of the Lehigh Valley so Houlahan can keep more of Chester.  Everyone besides Cartwright should be pretty happy.



Here we go, Cartwright is effectively chopped as Mueser/Wild eat up his district.

Houlahan manages to keep a +5 D composite district while Fitzpatrick's district moves moderately to the right. Wild gets a pretty Safe district at +15 composit although probably only +8 Clinton although double digit Biden.

Dean takes a light hit but its still clearly Safe D even without Lower Merion.

I think Wolf and Dems may be OK with something like this as long as PA-17 is also shored up for Lamb (giving him some Pittsburgh precincts). 

[Mr.Phips]

Have you ever actually made a fair map in good faith?

What are you talking about?

Dude every single one of your fair maps are D gerrymanders, stop trying to deny it.

This particular court is overwhelmingly likely to draw a soft D gerrymander (in fact they already did for 2018-20), so it's appropriate for PA specifically.

This is true, to me the biggest question is what they do with PA-01, because you can make it much more D by pairing it with lower Montgomery, but that might be too blatant of a gerrymander.

One incumbent protection option is to make PA-01 redder by giving PA-07 a tendril into the most Dem areas of Bucks county while giving PA-01 Republican areas of PA-07.  Its ugly, but it would protect both incumbents.

[Mr.Phips]

I don’t know why Dems aren’t trying to get Republicans to agree to an independent redistricting commission here given the Damocles sword of the state Supreme Court drawing a Dem gerrymander of the legislature otherwise.

Or are Dems just too stupid to think ahead (2031) here?

[Mr.Phips]

I don’t know why Dems aren’t trying to get Republicans to agree to an independent redistricting commission here given the Damocles sword of the state Supreme Court drawing a Dem gerrymander of the legislature otherwise.

Or are Dems just too stupid to think ahead (2031) here?

Dems should get the PA Supreme Ct to gerrymander at least one state leg. branch. That is the best way to put a quick end to Trump's post-2024 loss shenanigans before it begins.

Even then the state legislature still probably wouldn’t flip in 2022.  Unless they baconstripped a bunch of suburban Philly and Pittsburgh districts into the city.

[Mr.Phips]

I don’t know why Dems aren’t trying to get Republicans to agree to an independent redistricting commission here given the Damocles sword of the state Supreme Court drawing a Dem gerrymander of the legislature otherwise.

Or are Dems just too stupid to think ahead (2031) here?

Dems should get the PA Supreme Ct to gerrymander at least one state leg. branch. That is the best way to put a quick end to Trump's post-2024 loss shenanigans before it begins.

Even then the state legislature still probably wouldn’t flip in 2022.  Unless they baconstripped a bunch of suburban Philly and Pittsburgh districts into the city.

Its also a bipartisan commision although the tiebreaker is appointed by the PA Supreme Court. He doesn't seem like a full hack though. Dems have ok geography in the state senate actually but   they would need to start winning that Erie seat which as of far they can not. And the Erie seat can't really be made much more blue.  There is a small college town in the outskirts of the county but it just would shift it a bit left.

The Dem incumbent really should have never lost the Erie seat in the first place in 2016.  Even Hillary won that district.

[Mr.Phips]

I tried my hand at a fair congressional map of Pennsylvania using the 2020 census results.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is less than 0.01%.

57/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
69/100 on the Compactness Index
36/100 on County Splitting
50/100 on the Minority Representation index
33/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential election in Pennsylvania.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 Pennsylvania Attorney General Election: 10R to 7D

2016 U.S. Senate Election in Pennsylvania: 12R to 5D

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Pennsylvania: 11R to 6D

2018 U.S. Senate Election in Pennsylvania: 11D to 6R

2018 Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Election: 11D to 6R

2020 Pennsylvania Attorney General Election: 9D to 8R

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Pennsylvania: 9R to 8D


Got two plurality-Black seats in Philly. One at 45.8% VAP and 44.6% VAP.
Surprised nobody else is doing that and the current map doesn't have that, it was really easy to draw.


Opinions?

Excuse me, any map that isn't a light Dem gerrymander in the Pittsburgh area is unfair.

/s

Looks pretty good, PA doesn't have that many variations in how to draw it fairly, however you did some interesting things with Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Interesting that you drew the rest of Allegheny into the SW corner instead of pairing it with Beaver and Butler.

I don't think people are drawing the two Black seats in Philadelphia because they have trouble detaching their idea of fairness from the current map. Brendan Boyle, a White guy, is the representative from that side of Philly so the prevailing assumption is that the North Philly seat isn't to be drawn as a VRA seat and that Evan's seat should take the lion's share of Black voters.

The same bias is what's poisoning thought around Lamb's seat. Without regard to any partisan metric, the most compact, fair version of that seat would be around Trump +5. But since the current seat is a moderate Dem gerrymander and still seems reasonable, most posters here are gravitating towards keeping it intact or even shoring up Lamb as their idea of fair.

The whole redistricting process in PA is screwed up along these lines. I understand that a lot of Democrats have become bitter to completely neutral map-drawing because of Republican gerrymanders, but the PA court drawing isn't benevolent or in good-faith. The fact that it can be lobbied by the incumbents and takes into account their demands isn't good government, even if the end result is only a moderate Dem gerrymander.

If the redistricting process here is screwed up, why won’t Republicans agree to independent redistricting here?

[Mr.Phips]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/222b5cee-1ab5-472a-8ea0-53ea1eb85515

I’m not sure cracking Pittsburgh is a good idea. Those districts are like Biden+11 and Biden+14 and may fall in a wave. Better to have a safe seat and a swing or even R-leaning seat.

That doesn't follow what we've seen in states like Nevada or Oregon.   Democrats seem more interested in maxing their ceiling than their floor.

Don’t forget Illinois.

We also may be seeing the same pattern in MD, NJ, NY if Dems get too greedy.

If Dems are losing Biden + 8 districts, the House is already long gone and so is the Senate of course.

[Mr.Phips]

If PA Dems want to replace Boyle with Street, it's pretty easy to make both Philly districts Black influence without all the other ugliness (and honestly they should--pretty messed up currently to be honest).

Well that would mean outer Montco goes with Berks making a swing seat. It seems the main goal is more to protect Houlahan while giving up Lambs seat(which would sorta happen anyway in a fair map but with certain preferences from Mike Kelly.) However in exchange for those preferences they place Indiana college instead to keep it at the same partisan level.  After that Perry just gets to stay secure.

Also Fitz gets a marginally better district I guess but the shift is quite small.

What would the 2020 Presidential numbers be for the Houlihan seat?

[Mr.Phips]

If PA Dems want to replace Boyle with Street, it's pretty easy to make both Philly districts Black influence without all the other ugliness (and honestly they should--pretty messed up currently to be honest).

Well that would mean outer Montco goes with Berks making a swing seat. It seems the main goal is more to protect Houlahan while giving up Lambs seat(which would sorta happen anyway in a fair map but with certain preferences from Mike Kelly.) However in exchange for those preferences they place Indiana college instead to keep it at the same partisan level.  After that Perry just gets to stay secure.

Also Fitz gets a marginally better district I guess but the shift is quite small.

What would the 2020 Presidential numbers be for the Houlihan seat?

Probably only a few points right of the current seat.(Biden +17). Should still be safe for her unless it absolutely collapses. IMO the court map will do a lot for that Western PA seat and keep the Harrisburg York seat but I don't think the special master will go as far to do that tri chop of Berks to save Houlahan. Along with that consider there is like 2 D state reps from that Harrisburg district and no state senators.

Possible Wolf could actually agree to this map.  If I were Dems, I’d propose to throw Cartwright under the bus to give Wild a safer district.  That would be a pretty fair 10R-7D map.

[Mr.Phips]

My attempt at a fair PA map. Pretty least change and I made small decisions in favor of Dems to cancel out geography disadvantages

As I’ve said before Dems would be wise to throw Cartwright to the wolves in order to protect Wild.  His seat is not holdable for Dems long term anyway.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1470813556362948609
Cleaned up  R map which also makes PA06 more red. Not sure what the point of these antics are when all this does is antagonize Dems who might be interested in a compromise.

Why should we compromise when we control the State Supreme Court?

Because they'll probably draw a map that resembles the current map (that they drew) with a red seat in the middle cut out but with PA-7, PA-8, and PA-17 taking in more red territory. So a mostly fair map that has some competitive districts. It could be better to lock in an incumbent protection gerrymander type map.

Unless Republicans agree to a D-leaning PA-8, Democrats would be better off letting the court draw the map. And you have to get pretty creative to draw an incumbent protection map that would both pass muster with the court and actually protect Cartwright. Here's what I came up with: https://davesredistricting.org/join/7c175385-a006-42db-b014-3dffed8f0450

Dems could agree to make PA-08 quite a bit redder in order to protect PA-07.

[Mr.Phips]

I take back what I said - the new House map seems very fair (102-101 Biden) but the new state senate map seems more trash than what I originally thought.

Realized that my home district in Montco, currently with Katie Muth (D) is going from 42-40 R edge to a 47-36 R edge which is ... an incredibly jarring change. Especially for a Montco district which continues to trend left (and my particular township does as well)

I thought Muth lost her portion of Berks in this map? Anyway it looks like Biden got 57% of the vote in her new district, where Muth should be able to win even in 2022.

[Mr.Phips]

I take back what I said - the new House map seems very fair (102-101 Biden) but the new state senate map seems more trash than what I originally thought.

Realized that my home district in Montco, currently with Katie Muth (D) is going from 42-40 R edge to a 47-36 R edge which is ... an incredibly jarring change. Especially for a Montco district which continues to trend left (and my particular township does as well)

I thought Muth lost her portion of Berks in this map? Anyway it looks like Biden got 57% of the vote in her new district, where Muth should be able to win even in 2022.

Are you sure? I used this - https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2021/12/pennsylvania-redistricting-house-senate-districts-lookup-tool/

It says Current District 44 (Muth, D) was by registration: 42.64% R, 40.08% D, 17.28% Other

Then new proposed District 24 would be: 47.15% R, 36.20% D, 16.65% Other

I know we have a ton of ancestral Rs voting D in my area, but Biden getting 57% in the new district with an R+11 registration advantage would be pretty surprising. If that's somehow the case, then I'm not as worried about Muth losing I guess.

You can see on the map in this article.  She is in district 44 I believe.

[Mr.Phips]

I take back what I said - the new House map seems very fair (102-101 Biden) but the new state senate map seems more trash than what I originally thought.

Realized that my home district in Montco, currently with Katie Muth (D) is going from 42-40 R edge to a 47-36 R edge which is ... an incredibly jarring change. Especially for a Montco district which continues to trend left (and my particular township does as well)

I thought Muth lost her portion of Berks in this map? Anyway it looks like Biden got 57% of the vote in her new district, where Muth should be able to win even in 2022.

Are you sure? I used this - https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2021/12/pennsylvania-redistricting-house-senate-districts-lookup-tool/

It says Current District 44 (Muth, D) was by registration: 42.64% R, 40.08% D, 17.28% Other

Then new proposed District 24 would be: 47.15% R, 36.20% D, 16.65% Other

I know we have a ton of ancestral Rs voting D in my area, but Biden getting 57% in the new district with an R+11 registration advantage would be pretty surprising. If that's somehow the case, then I'm not as worried about Muth losing I guess.

Muth is still in the 44th district, which moved to the left. But apparently you now live in the 24th district, which was Republican-leaning previously but moved to the right.

That's what I'm saying - I think the lines being drawn for this are pretty terrible if somehow Muth is going from a R+2 district to an R+11 district despite the fact that Montco and many areas inside (especially in my area that is included in this new district) are trending left.

Muth will almost certainly run in the 44th.

[Mr.Phips]

I take back what I said - the new House map seems very fair (102-101 Biden) but the new state senate map seems more trash than what I originally thought.

Realized that my home district in Montco, currently with Katie Muth (D) is going from 42-40 R edge to a 47-36 R edge which is ... an incredibly jarring change. Especially for a Montco district which continues to trend left (and my particular township does as well)

No clearly both are gerrymanders.

The house map splits up State college to give Dems 2 Safe districts there along with Lancaster for example. The state senate does similar stuff with Lancaster.

The house map then creates 4 "trump districts" in Luzerne in order to save the Dem incumbents there and spread out the Shapiro vote rather than creating 1 Biden seat in Wilkes Barres and spreading out the rest.

Is there currently a Biden won seat in Wilkes Barre?

[Mr.Phips]

Pretty easy overrule even from a non partisan perspective. The GOP was greedy, they can't go after Wild and try to give Meuser a better seat against Cartwright.

Even a district like the current one leaves Wild very vulnerable.

Of course, but I meant they wanted to give her a tossup instead of a Lean D while at the same time moving Cartwright drastically to the right. I wonder what the PA court will do. Probably safer to give her a tossup and give Cartwright a Trump +3 instead of 8 seat and then they have more cover to shore up Lamb's seat as the map is still relatively proportional while not really hurting Democrats in the short run atleast as Democrats overall are split on what to do with Cartwright/Wild.

Wouldn’t Dems be better off giving Wild a lean D seat while sacrificing Cartwright (make his seat something like Trump + 12 or so)?