US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[Torie]

The best way to get rid of Holden would be to divide Schuylkill among three or four districts.

Then he would just choose to run in whatever district connected to Schuykill is the most Democratic and run there. 

So perhaps the best choice for the GOP is to connect central Schuylkill through Reading to Montco. Holden can run safely there, and the Montco suburbs were a problem for any of the GOP reps in the area.

That is quite brilliant, and plus, if Holden retires, it may potentially be a swing district anyway. The Dems in Montco might nominate a liberal, cultural and otherwise,  who gets decimated in Schuykill.

[Torie]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Holden could never win a Dem primary in the new CD-12. He would run in the district that his home was put into. CD-s 6, 8 10, 11 and 15 all need to be made more GOP. Those numbers just are not going to hold up very well. Maybe the GOP needs to give up another seat in the northeast.

[Torie]

Well, gentlemen, I present to you what will be my one Democratic district in Western PA. You can't get much better than this.  Find the rivers, and you find the Democrats, living near the burnt out hulks of former steel plants.

The gray district is a work in progress. I may make it into a Pittsburgh suburban district in its entirety, or maybe not. I am not sure yet. I used Butler County to neutralize Erie County for the Northwest corner district, which you cannot see in this screen shot. That created a CD which McCain carried by 3%, along with the green one which you can see a part of. The gray one is so far, also McCain up by 3%. I may beef that one up a bit more, as I expand it.

My idea, outside the Philly burbs, is to have all the districts carried by McCain by at least 3% - maybe a bit more in the Altmire zone to keep him honest, but I will not try to unseat him. That would be a waste of votes. In the Philly burbs, I will settle for McCain break even districts, since he ran so anemically there. I will try to hew to county lines, except where it proves "inconvenient."  I see that the yellow district does sneak out of Allegheny County to pick up a few heavily Dem precincts up to the northeast. That was very naughty of me. I may want to adjust that.

[Torie]

For places like Allegheny County, it would be nice to have a computer program that just drew you the most partisan district within a county - instantly. Then you could play with it, to make it look a bit less erose, if you want, just to make it seem a big less outrageous, assuming it did not otherwise interfere much with your "agenda."  Another example, would be Marion County in Indiana. Or Milwaukee County in Wisconsin. Or Palm Beach and Broward Counties in Florida.

Who wants to volunteer to do that?  

[Torie]

Well, I was dumb, and mixed up PA's projected number of electoral votes (20), with the number of CD's, which isn't 20, but 18. So my effort above has districts with inadequate population. So time to start over. The "problem" with having to add another 80,000 folks or so is that I ran out of precincts in Allegheny County that I really wanted as part of the Dem pack (anything 55% Obama or less I really didn't want to include unless necessary as a connector). So it was time to throw the rule book out, and just go for the ultimate gerrymander, and thus this object d'art, 71% for Obama. Just call it the rust belt river snake CD.  Do you think the Dems might have any problem with it?    This little effort should make the rest of Western PA comfortably GOP, although Altmire can continue to represent a district when I get done that went for McCain by 6% or 7% or so, as long as he remains sufficient "traitorous" to his party. Crist will be total history. He's going to be fried. I am going to do a number on Cambria County, just to make sure he gets the message.

[Torie]

Here is my initial attempt with the 4 CD's in far western PA. Apparently, the are no legal or other constraints on the Pubbies gerrymandering CD's in PA, just legislative seats. So I feel totally unleashed, and this map reflects that, and then some. The stats are as follows (PA-14 is 71% Obama):

              McCain    Obama                 McCain %
CD-18   190029   155692   345721   54.97%  (yellow CD)
CD-04   203505   172984   376489   54.05%  (orange CD)
CD-03   162114   149307   311421   52.06%  (purple CD)

[Torie]

Torie, that spot by Monroeville appears to be completely cut off from the rest of the district, can you do that?

I can do anything, because I am a lawyer, and rules are for other people.



I did notice that I trapped one precinct elsewhere by accident (erose maps are hard to see when the "fits" are so tight, kind of like really satisfying sex). I have fixed that.

Meanwhile, in other news, having now drawn one more CD, CD-12, the infamous Critz CD, that CD is now 56% McCain, even though Critz has all of his beloved Johnstown. Shuster may not like it, but then I don't like Shuster much. Bud is kind of a useless drone earmarking porker type. It will be good to make him sweat a bit.

[Torie]

Hey Phil, you may well soon be residing  in CD-08.  Congratulations!    And Mr. Phips, you got the idea for how to draw PA-13, but there is always more, when one really tries - one precinct at a time.  The partisan coloration feature for PA really helps. Sometimes, I just click on a rather deep blue precinct, to add to a Dem pack CD, and then see if I can link it up, without ceding much ground that I don't want to cede, because it just isn't Dem enough.  There usually is a way. In father out areas, it typically is older little towns that have the blueish coloration one wants to suck up, and then you try to link them up with little snakes or spikes, through the most Dem precincts possible. I got almost everything that I wanted that way.

In any event, if you ever wondered where the Dems in the Philly area are who live in precincts that I can get at "cheaply," now you know. To be specific as to what "cheaply" means, I mean that it is a 57% Obama precinct or better, that I can reach without going through a precinct that is less than, with a couple of exceptions, 56% Obama. The Dems in the Philly area in general (except for a few prongs into Montco), really do hang together, and in this case, that does not mean just blacks. The blue CD is only 36% black (Hispanics 18%, and whites 36%), yet Obama carried it with 84%.

And you also now know where the Pubbies are competitive in Philadelphia. On the south side, it presumably is the land of Italians, military personnel, and airline pilots and their playmates perhaps. Yes, I know, the precinct through the Philly airport and a tank farm field or something, with next to no people, needs to be redrawn, with another slightly adjusted. But precinct boundaries, have to follow district boundaries, and not the reverse, so that should not be a problem, to connect the somewhat Pubbie clutch in South Philly (overall Obama probably carried it by a very narrow margin, but that means it needs to be cut out, so that the Dem CD's can take in more heavily Dem territory elsewhere) to the reasonably Pubbie friendly zone in Delaware County.

PA-13 (the tan CD), clocks in at 65% Obama, 34% McCain, for a 31% lead. With  3 of the Pubbie districts in the west now put to bed,  for the 11 Pubbie CD's yet to be drawn, McCain has now taken the lead by 1%. Thus I this point, I am putting up the Philly map. Isn't it gorgeous?  

For the two Philly CD's, by the way, I have increased the Dem pack by 7 points, from the 2000 map, with the Green CD clocking in at 91% Obama. Not bad at all, considering I was expecting a dilution, although granted I am using the McCain numbers rather than the Bush 2004 numbers, so perhaps there is no gain, but the two Philly CD's just grabbing more Dem territory due to population loss is a big help in and of itself.  And for Montgomery County probably, and certainly Delaware County, the internal county population shifts not reflected in the data base yet, should give another little Pubbie boost.

It looks like this map is indeed going to work limiting the Dems to just 4 CD's. We shall see. It is tight, and I need to see the Bush 2004 numbers when I do a 50%-51% McCain CD.  If it is much below 55%, or I don't like the trends, I am going to get nervous. If I have to create a marginal CD to make it all work, it will of course be CD-10 that takes the hit. The incumbent Pubbie, Tom Marino, was just elected, and is not well respected by Pubbies in PA. He is not respected by Phil, and he was not respected by a Pubbie operative I met at GOP headquarters in Gettysburg (Adams County), and he has ethical problems, and so on. If he goes down, fine. It will still be a marginal CD, and a Pubbie later on might pick it up. It looks like that might well be where we are headed.

And yes, when you draw your maps, it is best to do the Dem pack CD's first really. That gives you the information that you really need as to whether you are headed in the right direction. I will repost the text for my PA back of the envelop formula that I posted on the Ohio thread later on for purposes of reference so that you understand better what I mean by Dem pack and points.

Happy new year all!

[Torie]

If one wrote a computer program telling it to max the GOP take in the Philly metro area, drawing contiguous CD's, after telling it to redraw the two Philly airport precincts, and the Gulf Oil tank farm precinct, this is what the map would look like. PA-08 is 51%-49% Obama, and assuming the swing to Obama in the new CD was the same as the old (it is not all that different, but it is different, that translates into 52-48 Bush 2004 (the trend in this CD from 2004 to 2008 was only about half that of the nation). The old CD-08 was 51-48 Kerry, and 54-45 Obama, so the CD is about 3% more GOP than before. When the internal population shifts in Bucks and Philadelphia census figures come in, the CD might get about .5% more GOP perhaps. But maybe not. The precincts are so relatively monochromatic, including the Philly ones (which in some instances are actually a tad more GOP than much of Bucks), that in this neck of the woods, there may not be much movement.

So PA-08 is a about a +1% GOP PVI CD now, clearly marginal, but it is the best one can do.  There just isn't any GOP territory around to pick up really to the north and west, and if the CD did have some crazy prongs going in that direction, it would cause problems for other CD's in any event. So I suspect PA-08 will indeed look something like the way I drew it, if the GOP is not going to cede a seat.  Mike Fitzpatrick did win by 8% in 2010, and lost by just a handful of votes in 2006, so he should probably be OK if competent. Granted, I may change my mind about how to handle CD-08 as I work on the central and northeastern parts of PA, but I tend to doubt it. It may indeed by the case that even ceding a CD (or making another CD marginal (say CD-17 (Holden, or CD-10 (Marino)), will really not move the ball much given the geography involved here.  We shall see.

Granted, there is some attractiveness to making the Holden CD much more marginal, because then all the Pubbie incumbents will be safe, which is probably a rather attractive option for the PA GOP. But it is not as if CD-08 has any really substantially Dem precincts that can be carved out. It really doesn't, except for two 60-40 Obama New Hope precincts which are impossible to get at, in any event, and clearly not worth the candle anyway.

Finally, that green precinct in CD-16 to the far east of CD-16 is where the incumbent Potts lives, which is going to make the map a real mess. But it can't be helped, unless he moves, and he has lived there forever. CD-06 and CD-07 are not finished yet to the west and perhaps northwest. Drawing the balance of the map is going to get extremely complicated, and will require a lot of thought to get right.

I am also adding a zoom focusing on the City of Philadelphia itself, and the close in burbs, so that you can see better the wild mischief I did there. I really don't feel too guilty about it all, because frankly the existing map is ludicrously erose in many places. Erose maps I guess are a tradition in PA. The parties will stop at nothing to grab all they can.

[Torie]

Here is the map. Yes, it is 13R-5D map (well 12R-6D for so long as Altmire survives). Basically, PA-17 becomes a CD taking in the most Dem parts of the old PA-11 and PA-15. I did not realize just how Dem PA 11 and 15 actually were. They needed rather massive surgery. So PA 15 is shorn of heavily Dem Bethlehem, Easton, and most of Allentown (it is convenient that Dent lives in the most GOP precinct in Allentown on its west end), while PA-11 drops Monroe County, and most of Scranton (Scranton has a 3 way chop, as PA-17 and PA-10 pick off the bulk of the most heavily Dem precincts), with the new PA-11 and PA 15 heading on West, picking up basically all of the GOP parts of the old PA-17.  The only thing PA-17 has left is the most Dem part of  Schuylkill County, including Holden's home in St. Clair.

So all the incumbent Pubbies are safe, with PA-12, the Critz-Shuster seat, at 56% McCain, the most GOP in the state (so Critz is finished). The second most GOP  is the Altmire CD, PA-4, ironically (55% McCain). Under this map, the main issue is whether Holden will resign from the blue dog caucus, given that his CD is now 62% Obama.  

Yes, the map is ugly, but it is the only way to draw it, if all the Pubbie incumbents have their home in their CD, and all are to be made safe, even if the CD becomes open at some point (the most marginal being PA-08, but even that seat should under most conditions be held by the Pubbies even if Fitzpatrick retires). If fact, all the incumbents in the state have their home in their CD's, with Critz and Shuster in the same CD, PA-12.

I suspect that this is the map that will become law, or something very close to it, unless Pitts in PA-16 can be induced to move his residence.

[Torie]

The map is fascinating but very risky. I wonder whether, after eventually getting burned by their own handiwork last time round*, the PA Republicans have the stomach for trying something like that again? Mind you, I suspect that your map is much more competent than what was drawn for 2002, but this issue is one reason why the process of gerrymandering can be so interesting.

*They would have done about as well in 2010 with a sane looking map as with the actual one, so it isn't as though it ever came good for them.

How is the map risky? As I noted somewhere, the GOP made the big mistake of thinking PA-13 could be made competitive last time. I did not make that mistake obviously this time, and neither will the Pubbies. This time, it just wanders around, sucking up every 55% and over Obama precinct within reach, and manages to get most of them.

 In any event, it is the best one can do, if one does not wish to make one of the Pubbie incumbents walk the plank. And there is so much marginal territory around Philly, that tossing a Pubbie really is not going to make the GOP CD's that remain all that much more Republican. With most of the 55% and over Obama precincts  locked up in the Dem pack CD's, what remains is fairly monochromatic.

I am quite confident that this is the map that will be drawn, since Holden (PA-17) has made very clear that he cannot be defeated (he won 56% this time, in a 51% McCain CD), and is not going anywhere, so why not unlock the bulk of his Pubbies and put them to better use elsewhere,  while locking in a bunch of Dems in northeastern PA?  In that sense, the map almost draws itself. I was also very careful to make sure that Holden would not be tempted to run in PA-15, which takes in a lot of his old territory. He lost the areas in his existing CD that are now in CD-15 by 52-48, and he would be slaughtered in Lehigh County, Dent's home base (with Dent being a very competent politician to boot), which has been shorn of most of its Dem precincts. (You also might notice that I neutralized the heavily Dem City of Harrisburg by putting it in PA-05, which is certainly not a district that Holden would choose to run in.) Plus I left Holden's core area in Schuylkill County in his new CD.

So far, for all three states that I have drawn, in the end, given all of the considerations, there is really only one map to draw that makes much sense.

[Torie]

I wouldn't be too confident that Holden is unbeatable.  One thing that hasn't been tried yet is chopping up Schuylkill County so that he only has a third of it.  As that is the only county in which he seriously outperforms the Obama vote share (by about 40% if memory serves - he outperforms Obama elsewhere but not by nearly as much), Holden without most of Schuylkill might be like Samson without his hair.  

In addition, as I mentioned before, I suspect local tradition dictates that York and Lancaster counties stay mostly whole (and separate, but that would happen in any GOP gerrymander anyway).  Maybe  Phil would like to weigh in on that point?  He's probably lived in the state longer than I have.  

Holden carried his CD in 2010, a GOP wave year, even if you exclude Schuylkill - by 10,000 votes. The real jewel in his crown, when you are talking about raw numbers, is the City of Harrisburg.

You cannot leave York and Lancaster whole, without leaving CD-06 and CD-07 very vulnerable to the Dems picking them up, and the GOP is just not going to stand for that. Those two CD's desperately need some heavily GOP precincts in Lancaster. In addition, since the CD that was eliminated is in the West, there is a population vacuum there, generating a demographic push for the eastern CD's to move west in any event to fill it as it were.

 I don't think PA really has any traditions, other than maximizing the partisan advantage, or keeping alive someone they consider to be a useful Dem, like Murtha (yes the Pubbies once considered him useful, before he turned into a Dem demon).

[Torie]

I know that this makes it harder to help districts 6 and 7, and if there indeed is no such tradition then I'm all for breaking Lancaster.  I was just trying to point it out.  

Incidentally you can add 5-6 points of McCain performance to both of them by pushing into Berks and Lebanon instead of Lancaster (see my map).  That gets them almost to the same levels as you have.  

Besides, I wouldn't think Gerlach and Dent need much help.  (Meehan is a different story.)

Where is your map? Of course, I would enjoy seeing it, now that I know the lay of the land, as it were. Actually, a majority of the Pubbie precincts in Berks are used in my map to help PA-06. The balance of the Pubbie precincts go to PA-15. If you use all of Berks (sans Reading), and Lebanon, to try to prop up PA-06 and PA-07, what do you do then to bail out PA-15 (and boy does it need bailing out), which is what I used those two counties for?  And then there is PA-11, which is a really sick puppy. A Pubbie is there solely because of a wave, and a flawed incumbent, just awash in negative publicity.

[Torie]

Yes, with PA-13 last time they wanted to pick up some Dem precincts in Montco to help PA-06, that were not the most Dem (if those could be put into PA-02), appending that to a once more GOP northeast Philly,  transfixed by the days when a Pubbie actually was able to win NE Philly, and thinking somehow that whomever the Montco Dems nominated would be culturally incompatible with lower middle class Catholic NE Philly. As I said, the story line was fictive, but whatever.

[Torie]

Posts 47 & 51.  

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=126739.msg2715604#msg2715604

If I did it again I'd do a better job packing the Pittsburgh district - you can probably get another point or two into the GOP districts going up the river valleys like you have it.  You're right that PA-11 is a problem; I'm not sure whether swinging it 3-4 points like I did will be enough, but it should at least give Barletta a fighting chance.  

Dent hasn't had a close election yet, and that includes some good Dem years.  There's no need to up his McCain % by 9.  

Dent only got 54% of the vote this time in a GOP wave year (yes, there was a weird 3rd party candidate this time who got quite a number of votes, which muddies the waters). Not particularly good, particularly given that Dent is so talented a politician (he and Gerlach are the congressional Pubbie Titans really in the PA delegation).  

In any event, assuming that the Pubbie incumbents in some of these marginal to lean Dem CD's will hang around for 10 years in my view is in and of itself a mistake, except at the margins (one reason why I made CD-07 (Meehan) a bit more GOP than CD-6 (Gerlach) - which was deliberate - was because of who the incumbents are, so it does have some impact). That is particularly true with talented ones, who will have opportunities to run for higher office, or get some other important job. Will Gerlach run against Casey in 2012?  How about Dent?  Of course, if the Pubbie line drawers know, that may influence matters.

I looked at your map. For starters, Fitzpatrick in CD-08 would be at least a 50-50 shot for the Dems to knock off in 2012, if Obama is competitive. And Barletta in CD-11 will more likely than not lose. His opponent won't be Kanjorski, and it probably won't be a GOP wave year. And yes, Holden would probably have a 50-50 shot against Marino, or close to it, and probably go for it.

I recall in 2001 reading a Holden interview in which he said he very carefully considered whether he would run against Gekas in CD-17, or just throw in the towel. (His CD was thrown together with Gekas's.) Bush in 2000 had won the CD by 57%. He looked at the numbers very carefully. He said that if that CD had been drawn to be but one more point GOP, then he just didn't see a window to victory, after penciling in the above partisan baseline pad that he expected to get in Schuylkill and Harrisburg (where he campaigned in front of the cameras visiting black neighborhoods that Gekas had never set foot in during his very long Congressional tenure). So Holden ran against Gekas, and guess what?  He got 51%. He knows how to do the maths, as the Brits would say. Thus I did him the honor of doing what he would do - in advance, and trying my best not to be doing it wearing rose colored Pubbie glasses.

This time you are offering him up a 55% McCain district, and a very flawed incumbent, more flawed than Gekas.  And while you have shorn Holden of part of Schuylkill, unfortunately it is a very heavily GOP part of Schuylkill which Holden probably only carried by a small margin, leaving him with two thirds, including all the most Dem parts of Schuylkill, which overall he probably carried by 70% this time, and against Marino next time would probably hit 80%.  Moreover, I think he would be intrigued with the idea of thwarting the GOP's gerrymandering games  twice. That will make him legendary in the annuls of political history, and his immortality would be secured. What would you do in his shoes?  

[Torie]

You are absolutely right about PA-13 Phil, now that you spelled it out for me. That of course is an even bigger fantasy - that the registered Dem liberals in Montco at that time (and back then it was more true that only really committed Dems registered Dem in Montco rather than GOP, because they wanted a say in local office elections, or something), with a considerable number of Jews involved, would vote against [for] a Pubbie over Borski.  That seems so ludicrous to me, that I suspect that is why my faltering mind got it reversed. The reverse is more plausible to me; well both are implausible, but the reverse perhaps a bit less so.  

If I am missing some political angle here, hopefully I will pick up the buzz in due course (maybe when I manage to hook up with some insider to show him my map), since whatever it is that you know, you clearly won't tell me.

Hey, is Holden considering switching parties?  

PS: Regarding Dent, in googling him that was a story about a poll showing that if Towne, the third party candidate, were not on the ballot, his vote should have split between Dent and Callahan. FWIW anyway. Yes, that would get Dent up to 60% I admit. It still frightens me to draw a CD that only he can hold however, unless it is another very good Pubbie election cycle at the time.

[Torie]

Maybe I should draw a map assuming Holden switches parties. That will be quite interesting, since the map would have to consider how to make Holden get comfortable that he could win a GOP primary. If all of that occurred, then CD-17 could be cut down to say maybe a 48% McCain CD or so, and then I think I would weaken Marino in CD-10, doing both in order to try to get Barletta in CD-11 out of the danger zone (under this scenario, Dent is not going to get much help, if any). One would need to assess the electoral prospects of both Barletta, and Marino- carefully, because one of the two CD's needs to be viewed as a clear lean to the GOP at least if it opens up at some point, which means the other can at best be only marginal, with the incumbent Pubbie winning except in bad GOP years anyway, because he is viewed as competent. I wonder what Barletta's reputation is, in that regard.

I guess I will google Holden and switching parties, to see what pops up. If he has said no way, after the election, then I guess I will drop the whole idea. But, having done that, what popped up is that Congressman Pitts, who apparently is the point man on redistricting, has an interest in chatting with Holden about redistricting. Interesting!  Maybe that is just because Holden is the senior Dem of something, or maybe it suggests perhaps that either 1) he will switch parties, or 2) my map will be adopted, except that maybe it will be a bit more friendly to him, and in particular giving him all of Schuylkill.

[Torie]

Holden isn't switching.

It will be interesting to see how they deal with Barletta and Marino. The former is definitely more of a star within the party but the leadership might prefer the latter.

Why would the leadership prefer Marino?

[Torie]

Oh Barletta is the anti illegals guy, mayor of Hazelton. I remember now. I should have connected the dots when I found out where he lived. He probably will be pretty hard to beat perhaps, but his CD still needs a lot of help.

[Torie]

I was laughing at the scheme at the time as I recall BRTD. If they had abandoned it, they might have held PA-08 rather than lost it in due course, and they only held PA-06 because of an extremely talented candidate, Gerlach. PA-07 had different problems, and probably could not be saved as things turned south for the Pubbies in suburban Philly, no matter how it was drawn. But now with the population losses, and PA losing a seat so most of the remaining CD's need to each have more population than they have now because of that, and my trick of picking up South Philly for PA-07, it can be brought back to a pretty safe GOP status. In other words, the size of the 3 CD Dem pack can expand, and pick off most of the over 55% Obama precincts that are in Pubbie CD's - not all of them but most. All of the over 60% precincts are out however, unless needed as a connector or something, and I don't think I have any of those. Well not all; I did have to saddle Gerlach with Pottstown, and one of my goals will be to try to cut that out (making my map uglier) if he isn't going to run in PA-06 as the incumbent.

For PA-06, I am going to draw a map for the Gerlach runs for the Senate scenario (I assume he will tell the line drawers one way or the other before a decision has to be made), which pumps more Pubbies into his CD, at the expense a bit of PA-11 and PA-15, both of which while  seemingly rather close to the marginal zone in my map, apparently have strong incumbents (certainly Dent is), so they can afford to be shaved a bit, to take PA-06 more out of the danger zone if Gerlach isn't running for the seat in 2012, which I strongly suspect will be a better year for the Dems than 2010 was, even if not as good a year as 2008 (yes I know, that leaves a lot of space )

[Torie]

Well, this is what happens, when you have no rules to leash your mouse.  Just by the flow of the population numbers, and where heavy GOP precincts were convenient to pick up, notice that rather small Schuylkill County now hosts four CD's! The winner of the CD host contest however, is Montco, which has 6 CD's impinging on it. Montco is a rather complex county, even more so than its somewhat equivalent county in Michigan in some ways, Oakland, and this map reflects that complexity.

Yes, I know, CD-18 trended so strongly to McCain from Bush 2004, that assuming that the trend is to a substantial extent ephemeral (which may, or may not, be the case), that it looks a bit weak. It will move another 50 basis points or so in the GOP direction, once the intra county census splits come in, since I am confident inner city Pittsburgh had far less population growth than the suburbs, particularly the outer suburbs. So PA-14 is slated to expand some more, sucking up more Dem precincts in PA-18.

As to the rather peaked PA-08, it is trapped by geography. Sorry Congressman Fitzgerald. You will just have to work your butt off, and avoid gaffes. Good luck.

The first poster to guess in which precinct Congressman Altmire in PA-04 (D) lives in just by looking at the lines of the map along (look at the SW PA zoom at the bottom of this post) using inferential logic, gets to pick my signature on my posts for a week. As a hint, I deliberately put him in his own CD, rather than having him in PA-18, just to eliminate any temptation on his part to take a crack at running against Murphy in PA-18 (since Murphy's CD is slightly more Dem, and he had about half of Murphy's territory in the current map).

[Torie]

Wwll, this is what happens, when you have no rules to leash your mouse.  

The first poster to guess in which precinct Congressman Altmire in PA-04 (D) lives in just by looking at the lines of the map along (look at the SW PA zoom at the bottom of this post) using inferential logic, gets to pick my signature on my posts for a week. As a hint, I deliberately put him in his own CD, rather than having in PA-18, just to eliminate any temptation on his part to take a crack at running against Murphy in PA-18 (since Murphy's CD is slightly more Dem, and he had about half of Murphy's territory in the current map.

McCandless Township, Ward 1, District 4, Allegheny County?

You sir are indeed correct, and get to pick my signature for a week. Well done! 

[Torie]

Ugh, that yellow district in the SE (which is where I'd be) would be one of the worst districts ever.

PA-13 certainly has merit, but my personal favorite is PA-14. I just love my octopus, and when the final census figures come in, I look forward to extending the NNE tentacle up to New Castle in Lawrence County to help out PA-04 some more, which will just make it all the more outstanding.

You are in PA-13 eh, Phil?  You must live in a more than 55% Obama precinct then, and probably at least 57%. Everything more Pubbie in the City of Philadelphia in NE Philly is in PA-08 except for a few connecting precincts along the Delaware River heading to Bucks County, to get at the Dem precincts there.

[Torie]

Wwll, this is what happens, when you have no rules to leash your mouse.  

The first poster to guess in which precinct Congressman Altmire in PA-04 (D) lives in just by looking at the lines of the map along (look at the SW PA zoom at the bottom of this post) using inferential logic, gets to pick my signature on my posts for a week. As a hint, I deliberately put him in his own CD, rather than having in PA-18, just to eliminate any temptation on his part to take a crack at running against Murphy in PA-18 (since Murphy's CD is slightly more Dem, and he had about half of Murphy's territory in the current map.

McCandless Township, Ward 1, District 4, Allegheny County?

You sir are indeed correct, and get to pick my signature for a week. Well done! 

Normally I would pick something suitably sadistic, but under the circumstances, I think condolences to Congresswoman Giffords and everyone who was affected by the attack in Tucson would be most appropriate. Change your avatar to D-AZ for the duration.

So let it be done.

[Torie]

I think I found your precinct Phil. Suffice it to say, it is but one of 4 connector precincts in NE Philly that is less than 55% Obama in NE Philly, that is needed to be used by PA-13 to connect it to a bunch of more Dem precincts beyond the connector precinct.  Do you see what I mean by looking at the map?

Here is a question for you Phil, that if you get the answer "right," you get to select my next signature after I am finished honoring Congresswoman Giffords (per Vazdul nailing my last question).  What rather specific psephological event would specifically take PA-06 and PA-07 per my map totally out of the danger zone, while doing nothing for say PA-11 and PA-15?

Anyone else is free to play this game too, and select my next signature (within certain limits of decorum set solely by me ) by the way.