New PA Maps In Effect

[Oryxslayer]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

I'm more interested in how they drowned Chester with Berks for the 6th.

I fail to see how the Wolf and the Court would accept this - I reiterate that this maps job appears to be to go out there and die.

[LimoLiberal]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

If this became the map: (pickups in bold)

PA-1: Safe D
PA-2 Safe D
PA-3 Safe R
PA-4: Safe R
PA-5: Safe R
PA-6: Lean R (This is like Dave Brat's district)
PA-7: Likely D
PA-8: Lean R
PA-9: Safe R
PA-10: Safe R
PA-11: Likely R (Holden runs?)
PA-12: Lean R (Downballot Dem strength)
PA-13: Safe D
PA-14: Safe D
PA-15: Tossup
PA-16: Safe R (It's Lancaster County...)
PA-17: Likely R (Trump vs. Clinton #s are useless here)
PA-18: Safe R (in the general election)

So a Dem-Rep-Tossup split of 5-12-1

[Orser67]

So essentially, Republicans are taking this opportunity to draw a mid-cycle gerrymandered map that has a few more restrictions on compactness. I'll be glad to see this map vetoed.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

If this became the map: (pickups in bold)

PA-1: Safe D
PA-2 Safe D
PA-3 Safe R
PA-4: Safe R
PA-5: Safe R
PA-6: Lean R (This is like Dave Brat's district)
PA-7: Likely D
PA-8: Lean R
PA-9: Safe R
PA-10: Safe R
PA-11: Likely R (Holden runs?)
PA-12: Lean R (Downballot Dem strength)
PA-13: Safe D
PA-14: Safe D
PA-15: Tossup
PA-16: Safe R (It's Lancaster County...)
PA-17: Likely R (Trump vs. Clinton #s are useless here)
PA-18: Safe R (in the general election)

So a Dem-Rep-Tossup split of 5-12-1

That's why Wolf is going to veto it. It still clearly favors the GOP.

[Gass3268]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

If this became the map: (pickups in bold)

PA-1: Safe D
PA-2 Safe D
PA-3 Safe R
PA-4: Safe R
PA-5: Safe R
PA-6: Lean R (This is like Dave Brat's district)
PA-7: Likely D
PA-8: Lean R
PA-9: Safe R
PA-10: Safe R
PA-11: Likely R (Holden runs?)
PA-12: Lean R (Downballot Dem strength)
PA-13: Safe D
PA-14: Safe D
PA-15: Tossup
PA-16: Safe R (It's Lancaster County...)
PA-17: Likely R (Trump vs. Clinton #s are useless here)
PA-18: Safe R (in the general election)

So a Dem-Rep-Tossup split of 5-12-1

Also the 17th is not Likely-R, this is 4 points more Democratic than the current district and Cartwright doesn't even have anything close to a strong challenger right now. Likely/Safe D

[Nyvin]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

In other words,  they basically gave up PA-7 to draw a gerrymander pretty much everywhere else.

6. 11, 16, and 17 all maximize the use of Republican voters in their areas.   District 4 is the only Republican vote sink east of Harrisburg. 

[LimoLiberal]

Nate Cohen got the 2016 results:



Source

If this became the map: (pickups in bold)

PA-1: Safe D
PA-2 Safe D
PA-3 Safe R
PA-4: Safe R
PA-5: Safe R
PA-6: Lean R (This is like Dave Brat's district)
PA-7: Likely D
PA-8: Lean R
PA-9: Safe R
PA-10: Safe R
PA-11: Likely R (Holden runs?)
PA-12: Lean R (Downballot Dem strength)
PA-13: Safe D
PA-14: Safe D
PA-15: Tossup
PA-16: Safe R (It's Lancaster County...)
PA-17: Likely R (Trump vs. Clinton #s are useless here)
PA-18: Safe R (in the general election)

So a Dem-Rep-Tossup split of 5-12-1

Also the 17th is not Likely-R, this is 4 points more Democratic than the current district and Cartwright doesn't even have anything close to a strong challenger right now. Likely/Safe D

Crap, it should be likely D. Hence my parenthetical comments.

[krazen1211]

It will take creative mapping for the Democrat party to maintain districts where 2 whites from Philadelphia have a solid chance to win Congressional districts. This is a great map to achieve that objective.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

With Dems coming inches away in PA 18 of winning that district, I think Dems will win 3 seats in PA in a neutral friendly map.

[krazen1211]

Lol, so they actually packed more Democrats into PA01 and PA02?

No, not really. At least not based on the 2010 baseline or even the 2011 baseline.

In 2011, Democrat Bob Brady looked at the demographics of his own district and squealed because there were too many blacks. So he commanded that his district be 'bleached', as it was put at the time, which artificially reduced the performance of the district. The benchmark district was 88% Democrat and redrawn district after population growth and bleaching was 79% based on the results of the 2008 Presidential election.

[Mike Thick]

It will take creative mapping for the Democrat party to maintain districts where 2 whites from Philadelphia have a solid chance to win Congressional districts. This is a great map to achieve that objective.

This is the only reason I think the map stands a chance.

[Sestak]

The only reason this map stands a chance is because the PA Dems suck.

No wonder they tried to take down Sestak.

[Oryxslayer]

The only reason this map stands a chance is because the PA Dems suck.

No wonder they tried to take down Sestak.

This map only stands a chance at getting past the veto because dems suck. From there, the court needs to approve it and spoiler, they won't approve these lines. So I say again for what -  the third time, this maps job appears to be just die. But we still don't know why the Pubs drew up a map that was going to fail, when they had two good options of standing their ground and denying legitimacy, or drawing a fair but right-leaning map that the court was forced to accept.

[Gass3268]

The only reason this map stands a chance is because the PA Dems suck.

No wonder they tried to take down Sestak.

This map only stands a chance at getting past the veto because dems suck. From there, the court needs to approve it and spoiler, they won't approve these lines. So I say again for what -  the third time, this maps job appears to be just die. But we still don't know why the Pubs drew up a map that was going to fail, when they had two good options of standing their ground and denying legitimacy, or drawing a fair but right-leaning map that the court was forced to accept.

I actually don't think there will be time. The PASC gave the legislature until 2/15 to figure things out. Wolf could drag it out to 2/15, veto it, then the clock runs out and it gets sent to the PASC.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

It will take creative mapping for the Democrat party to maintain districts where 2 whites from Philadelphia have a solid chance to win Congressional districts. This is a great map to achieve that objective.

One need only glance at your posts on RRH to see that you don't even believe any of this garbage yourself. 

[Gass3268]

Exhibit B that this is a brutal Republican Gerrymander, the 2016 Senate race was 14-4:

[King Lear]

Nate Cohn just sent out a tweet saying he miscalculated the congressional districts and that Clinton actually won PA-08 by .7, he also shows that Clinton won PA-07 by 10 points instead of 14 points, and most of the other margins are different but not by significant margins (less then 2-3 points at most). Basically, the map preserves the 12-6 split of Trump to Clinton districts, but strengthens the Democratic lean of PA-07, and exchanges PA-06 for PA-08. Taking all this into consideration, I don’t get why Democrats shouldn’t adopt this map, it gives them a free seat in PA-07, and significantly improves their outlook in PA-08 and PA-15, if they thought they where going to get a map that gives them 9 seats, they should know that’s basically impossible due to Urban Clustering.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Nate Cohn just sent out a tweet saying he miscalculated the congressional districts and that Clinton actually won PA-08 by .7, he also shows that Clinton won PA-07 by 10 points instead of 14 points, and most of the other margins are different but not by significant margins (less then 2-3 points at most). Basically, the map preserves the 12-6 split of Trump to Clinton districts, but strengthens the Democratic lean of PA-07, and exchanges PA-06 for PA-08. Taking all this into consideration, I don’t get why Democrats shouldn’t adopt this map, it gives them a free seat in PA-07, and significantly improves their outlook in PA-08 and PA-15, if they thought they where going to get a map that gives them 9 seats, they should know that’s basically impossible due to Urban Clustering.

Actually, No. While it's conceviable that the court wouldn't accept this depending on how it defines compact, here's a pretty clean map I drew up that can easily go 10-8 D:

1. 90-10 Obama, 89-11 DRA Average, D+40, 55% Black Population, 51% Black VAP (Safe D)
2. 80-20 Obama, 79-21 DRA Average, D+31, Plurality White (Safe D)
3. 54-45 Obama, 53-47 DRA Average, EVEN (Leans D)
4. 58-41 Obama, 54-46 DRA Average, D+5 (Safe D)
5. 61-38 Obama, 58-42 DRA Average, D+11 (Safe D)
6. 53-46 Obama, 52-48 Republican DRA Average, EVEN (Toss-Up)
7. 52-47 McCain, 57-43 DRA Average, R+10 (Safe R)
8. 56-43 Obama, 54-46 DRA Average, R+1 (Leans D)
9. 53-45 McCain, 58-42 DRA Average, R+12 (Safe R)
10. 57-42 McCain, 62-38 DRA Average, R+14 (Safe R)
11. 56-43 McCain, 59-41 DRA Average, R+15 (Safe R)
12. 56-43 Obama, 55-45 DRA Average, R+2 (Leans D with Cartwright, otherwise Lean R based on how this area is trending)
13. 54-45 McCain, 57-43 DRA Average, R+16 (Safe R)
14. 51-48 Obama, 51-49 DRA Average, R+7 (Likely R)
15. 58-41 Obama, 61-39 DRA Average, D+7 (Safe D)
16. 51-48 Obama, 53-47 DRA Average, R+1 (Toss-Up)
17. 54-45 McCain, 51-49 Democratic DRA Average, R+13 (Safe R)
18. 57-42 McCain, 53-47 DRA Average, R+20 (Safe R)

Aside from the 6th and the 17th, the DRA Average winner was the same party as the 2008 presidential winner. All County splits done for population reasons.

Overall: 8 Seats Advantage D (Assuming Cartwright runs again),  8 seats Advantage R, 2 Toss-Ups. Seems pretty fair.

[King Lear]

Can someone please post Nate Cohns updated analysis of the 2016 presidential results for this redistricting plan?

[King Lear]

Here it is https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/962491912673464321/photo/1

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Some other thoughts about the GOP map:

- PA-1: This wouldn't have flown even if Brady was sticking around as you can easily draw him a clean, non-gerrymandered, sufficiently white (for his purposes), and safely Democratic 100% of DelCo + some parts of Philly district while still keeping three Philly Dems in office (assuming Boyle doesn't retire before 2022).  Last time, Brady's calculus was "the choice is either the crumbs of a Republican gerrymander [a shot at electing three Philly Dems] or literally nothing," but that wouldn't have been true this time around.  More to the point, Brady is out and the guy who seems to be next in line as boss of the Philly machine (forget his name) is also under FBI investigation IIRC and should be gone soon.  The Philly machine ain't gonna save the PA Republican Party and no amount of Republican wishful thinking will change that.  The arm into DelCo is a deal-breaker and I haven't even covered more than one district LOL.

PA-6: Another obvious deal-breaker.  There's not much to say except that this is an obvious gerrymander by Pubs attempting to give Costello a safe seat.  One really wonders sometimes whether the legislature is delusional enough to think this map would ever fly with the PASC even ignoring the fact that Wolf will obviously veto it (although he may wait a day or two to do so just so he can pretend to have given it consideration).  I mean, who was the genius who thought give Costello a safe seat would fly?  And there's no reason to slice-and-dice MontCo or even Chester County the way they do aside from partisan gerrymandering.  Plus, the idea that you'd have almost everything in Berks County except Reading is ridiculous.  Virginia's right, these people are like dope fiends who've just been told to stop shooting up.

- PA-7: This is almost comically greedy, they couldn't even bring themselves to accept that this district is gone.  I said a while back that the Pubs don't get anything for ceding this district, whether they like it or not, it's a freebee for Democrats and I'm pretty sure the PA Democrats know it. And yet the Pubs are still desperately trying to keep this competitive while satisfying all the parochial interests within the DelCo Republican Party by slicing-and-dicing the county with that ridiculous arm from one of the Philly districts.  This seat is gonna be 100% of DelCo and with a little bit of Philly tacked on, but the Pubs were too greedy to give that up and try to draw a less gerrymandered, right-leaning map that could be good for PR purposes/make Wolf look like a partisan hack if/when he vetoed it.  The current map is almost as bad as the old one and is obviously nothing more than a crudely drawn middle-finger to the idea of fair redistricting in general and the PASC in particular.  

- PA-10: It draws Tom Marino's primary challenger (who could very well upset him) and current GE opponent out of the district.  It also draws out Chris Carney whom I've heard is leaning towards running against Marino if the new map is even remotely favorable and he [Carney] isn't moved to Cartwright's district, but has been trying to keep a low profile until the maps are finalized.  I honestly think Carney could *potentially* give Marino a real run for his money and possibly even flip the seat in a big wave year.  Marino has been really badly damaged by the scandal that sunk his Trump administration nomination and while his current district is a very Republican area, I think folks are underestimating how much that hurt him locally tbh.  

- PA-11: PA-10 may be a mess, but I get why they drew it that way from a strictly partisan PoV; this monstrosity doesn't even make sense politically.  The rest of Luzerne County has no business being in this seat and the Dauphin split is weird, but ignoring that this district has serious dummymander potential given the likely political climate in 2018.  Barletta is running for Senate and if they're not gonna give Cartwright a significantly more Republican district, you'd think they'd just go the Monroe + Luzerne + Lackawanna route and try to use that to pretend they're gerrymandering acting in good-faith.  Okay, PA-11 is a gerrymandered monstrosity, but how is it a dummymander?  Well, as someone on RRH noted, let's just say Tim Holden hasn't exactly retired from PA state politics since losing his primary to Cartwright (nor did he go off to become a lobbyist the way folks like Bayh did after they left Congress)...

- PA-12: You could easily make this, as others on Atlas have shown, a very clean district with no county splits consisting entirely of Pittsburgh + almost everything north of it in Allegheny County (still safely Democratic, btw).  The PA-12 on the GOP map also has a completely pointless chop in WashCo.  This is a deal-breaker.

- PA-13: This district doesn't need nearly this much of Philly (or even very much period, tbh) in order to keep Boyle safe.  This district is simply being drawn this way to allow PA-1 to snake into DelCo (which would never happen in anything other than a blatant Republican gerrymander).

- PA-14: Putting Saccone and Reschenthaler's homes in PA-18 while sticking Lamb's home in here is an obvious deal-breaker.  See comments on PA-12 for what this district should look like.

- PA-15: Obviously, PA-15 will look this way on any map, so this isn't a concession either (it's a freebee).  Next...

- PA-16: See PA-6 comments, this district is a deal-breaking and only drawn this way to drown Reading and give Costello a safe seat.

- PA-17: No excuse for making Cartwright's district anything other than a Monroe + Luzerne + Lackawanna seat.  See PA-10 comments for details on the gerrymandering at play here.

- PA-18: This one is a deal-breaker (see comments on PA-14).  In addition to the Allegheny County nonsense, it has two more weird chops (the WashCo one in particular is quite odd and sticks out like a sore thumb).  This district should have the boundaries Oryxslayer drew on his page nine map and that'd make it both competitive and make Lamb pretty likely to win it in November even if he loses the special to Saccone (Oryxslayer really drew the ideal map on page nine and it is essentially what I expect the PASC to draw, sure Republicans will complain that it is much more Democratic-friendly than the current map, but guess what?  PA is a Democratic-leaning state and the current map is one of the worst gerrymanders in the country, no remotely acceptable map is gonna preserve the current status quo).  Btw, the PA-18 on the Pub map leads me to think that the Republicans see Lamb as having at least a 50-50 of winning the special.  They're clearly very worried about him, to say the least.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Also here is my version of a current working copy my map:

A couple minor changes to put incumbents in their seats, and a rework of the Pennsylvania Wilds seats that better accommodates road access - along with keeping Altoona and Johnstown together.

Also, does anyone know if there is a place to submit plans? I know in the Florida case there was, and in 2010 loads of states at least presented the image of a submission bar for citizen drawn maps. I would prefer not simply searching and sending emails to various plaintiffs, but I would like the report that I am compiling to be seen...

This is a great map.

[Torie]

Nate Cohn just sent out a tweet saying he miscalculated the congressional districts and that Clinton actually won PA-08 by .7, he also shows that Clinton won PA-07 by 10 points instead of 14 points, and most of the other margins are different but not by significant margins (less then 2-3 points at most). Basically, the map preserves the 12-6 split of Trump to Clinton districts, but strengthens the Democratic lean of PA-07, and exchanges PA-06 for PA-08. Taking all this into consideration, I don’t get why Democrats shouldn’t adopt this map, it gives them a free seat in PA-07, and significantly improves their outlook in PA-08 and PA-15, if they thought they where going to get a map that gives them 9 seats, they should know that’s basically impossible due to Urban Clustering.

Because the Dems (and the court) will be too stupid to take your sage advice, and due to their stupidity, will end up with a map where, unlike this one, PA-06 will cease to be a reasonably safe GOP seat, and PA-07 will become a totally safe Dem seat, thereby burdening the Dems with an "excessive" number of seats in the House. I hope this helps.

[muon2]

I did read the Feb 9 Pub response to the court that jimrtex linked and I can add that there is one additional chop in Berks that is invisible of the scale of the map. There are 18 subunit chops and that is one more than the minimum, since they are proposing exact equality. They rely on a basket of expert-generated plans that were recognized by the court and shows that the new plan fits into their measures of chops and erosity of that expert basket. They also confirm my guess that they have protected the CDs of all incumbents seeking reelection with 68.3% of the Pub and 69.8% of the Dem prior population retained in the new map.

One additional note on population equality that explains the 67 person chop into Berks. The PA Pubs had to redraw their gerrymandered map in 2002 based on a 19 person deviation (Vieth II, an earlier lower court decision related to, but not the same as, the SCOTUS 2004 case). Since they can't point to a rational basis for a deviation they have to have a bunch of chops to get exact equality. I imagine that if they set a specific goal of no subdivision chops, including Philly wards, they could introduce modest deviation based on the WV case. That seems to be a risk they didn't want in their response to the court.

[jimrtex]

In a system where representation is based on geographic areas, there is no right to representation on the basis of political beliefs or race.

This would advocate for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's criteria (observe county and municipal boundaries) over those the 2010 PA legislature chose (maximize representation for voters of the same political beliefs, while disregarding geographic area) for drawing boundaries, as with PA-7.

In any case, I'm more interested in a healthy democracy where opposing views have an opportunity to have a voice in government rather than a system comparable to the Soviet Union where you have the form of elections and people can vote but those in power at a certain time (1877, 1917, 1949, or 2010) decide what the outcome is for decades to come and the leadership and policy is incapable of change except through internal party mechanisms. We saw that kind of government in southern U.S. states until the 1970s under southern Democrats including Texas; it wasn't anyone's idea of good government.

Jim, you are defending one-party government in states where at times, often frequently, a majority of the voting-age population opposes that party. I'm curious: do you think this is a good thing for that state? Do you think this is consistent with the idea that a U.S. state is a democracy? Please don't answer with another question; don't give me some variation of "the Constitution says it has to be this way"; I am asking you as someone whose political knowledge I respect, because I want to understand how you think about this situation.

I was looking at Michigan, where a partisan gerrymandering suit has been filed.

The reason that Clinton lost, was not so much Obama voters switching to Trump, but rather Obama voters staying home, and Republican voters who had stayed home in 2012 turning out for Trump.

Clinton received 98% of the vote in some Detroit house districts even though she only got 3/4 of the votes Obama did. A naive interpretation would be that Obama received 130% of the vote in those areas. NO, he only got a bit more than 98%. If 5000 more voters would have shown up, 4900 would have had to vote for Clinton simply to maintain the vote share in that district.

In 2012, Romney was said to be making a push in Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign shrugged, and revved up the turnout machine in Philadelphia. Obama won the state. But the Republicans likely picked up PA-12.

In 2012, PA-2 had the largest turnout. In 2016, it was 5th, but the Democratic candidate had pushed his percentage up to 90%.

The reason no districts have switched is that in general they have been becoming more Republican. in 2016, PA-17 was 53.8% D, and was within 0.02% of being the closest district in the state. It was closer to becoming 14R:4D than staying 13R:5D. PA-12 has gone from being a pickup in 2012, to a 62% district in 2016. The two districts where a Republican incumbent was not running in 2016, PA-8 and PA-16 were competitive.

Fredericka Wilson and Nancy Pelosi presumably represent their districts well. But if you were a Democrat in a competitive district, and heard they were coming to campaign for you, you would have your staff meet them at the airport, and take them deep sea fishing. After the motor stopped, they would picked up by a foreign ship which would take them to its next stop in Rotterdam or Shanghai.