New PA Maps In Effect

[Oryxslayer]

Something I didn't think of originally, but is relevant, is the fact that PA-17 is now a reincarnated PA-04 from the Bush-Obama era lines, only now much more left-leaning. The old district backed Bush 54-45 in 2004, and McCain 54.7-45 in 2008. Yet is still elected Altmire in 2006, 2008, and most importantly in 2010 against Rothfus 51-49 despite the Republican wave and the districts R lean. Yes, Altmire was a unique candidate, but he had a harsher seat. With it now only R+3, it should be easier for a dem to defeat Rothfus.

Also Eugene DePasquale is being recruited heavily for the new PA-10.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

Any chance Mike Kelly's district (former 3rd, now 16th) could be competitive? Cook moved it to Likely R and it now contains all of Erie, but is still a healthy R+8. It did go Democratic in 2008...

[Tintrlvr]

Any chance Mike Kelly's district (former 3rd, now 16th) could be competitive? Cook moved it to Likely R and it now contains all of Erie, but is still a healthy R+8. It did go Democratic in 2008...

It's certainly possible. Is Kathy Dahlkemper still around? Wikipedia says she's now the County Executive of Erie County, though not sure how current that is.

[Boobs]

Any chance Mike Kelly's district (former 3rd, now 16th) could be competitive? Cook moved it to Likely R and it now contains all of Erie, but is still a healthy R+8. It did go Democratic in 2008...

It's certainly possible. Is Kathy Dahlkemper still around?

She's Erie County Executive, but barely skated by for reelection.

[GeorgiaModerate]

PA Department of State in the process of implementing the new maps: http://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/State-Details.aspx?newsid=263

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Ehh the fact that PA-10 (new) is now a R+5.5 seat that cuts two counties is a pretty clear soft D gerrymander - a hard D gerry in this region would also include State College. the rest of the map is fair.

The new map is certainly better, but there were two other soft gerrymanders I noticed.

District 1 is basically the old district 8, widely regarded as the only fair district in the Philly suburbs before. They could easily have kept its borders the same or included the northeast corner of Philly, or the southeast corner of Montco and it would have stayed tilt R. Instead, they took away northeast Montco and substituted in deep blue precincts from east-central Montco. It's still a tossup, but that could easily prove decisive.

The new PA 17 looks similar to a district I drew, with one crucial change. It crosses the Allegheny River, picking up some of the most solidly democrat precincts in the region. If, instead of taking in one random black neighborhood in East Pittsburgh, they had followed the river and made up the population difference by smoothing out the border in Pittsburgh's western suburbs, the district would not only look nicer and better follow geography, it would also be more reliably republican.

[Badger]

DePasquale to decide by Monday. Would be a huge recruiting success to land him on such short notice.

No word yet from Lamb, but he still has time to subtly file for PA-17 and make the case to the constituents of the current district that he's not carpet bagging at all.

Can he wait until after the special to file in PA 17?

[windjammer]

DePasquale to decide by Monday. Would be a huge recruiting success to land him on such short notice.

No word yet from Lamb, but he still has time to subtly file for PA-17 and make the case to the constituents of the current district that he's not carpet bagging at all.

Can he wait until after the special to file in PA 17?

Apparently he would have 1 week to collect 2,000 signatures if he's waiting for PA17 resutls

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Not to pile on my own party, but hell, I am passionately anti gerrymandering, in the Pennsylvania GOP deserves all the criticism it gets on this front. It's also worth adding that this 13 to 5 split came from repeated approximate 50 50 splits in the actual votes for the state's Congressional Delegation.

Anyone who wishes to try arguing that Republican gerrymandering is somehow "natural" do too concentrated Democratic strength in relatively compact urban areas need only look at map drawing abortions like the prior p a 7 and pa17 among others to see there is an EXTREMELY concerted and decidedly unnatural manipulation of District Lines to get that result.

Republicans brought this on themselves, undoubtably. That said, democrats are packed into Philly by virtue of geography. That's just a fact. Republicans could have easily drawn a 11-7 (or even 12-6) map with compact borders and few county splits (assuming that Fitzpatrick and Dent would win the roughly even PVI Bucks and Lehigh Valley based districts). Instead, they got greedy and drew monstrosities like PA-7, which is why it got thrown out.

I think Ohio (pro R) and Maryland (pro D) are the two most gerrymandered states left now. Any chances of those maps being thrown out?

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

And I was the one who thought of DePasquale for Senate before all of you, but I am always ignored here, bandwagoners...

[Badger]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Ehh the fact that PA-10 (new) is now a R+5.5 seat that cuts two counties is a pretty clear soft D gerrymander - a hard D gerry in this region would also include State College. the rest of the map is fair.

The new map is certainly better, but there were two other soft gerrymanders I noticed.

District 1 is basically the old district 8, widely regarded as the only fair district in the Philly suburbs before. They could easily have kept its borders the same or included the northeast corner of Philly, or the southeast corner of Montco and it would have stayed tilt R. Instead, they took away northeast Montco and substituted in deep blue precincts from east-central Montco. It's still a tossup, but that could easily prove decisive.

The new PA 17 looks similar to a district I drew, with one crucial change. It crosses the Allegheny River, picking up some of the most solidly democrat precincts in the region. If, instead of taking in one random black neighborhood in East Pittsburgh, they had followed the river and made up the population difference by smoothing out the border in Pittsburgh's western suburbs, the district would not only look nicer and better follow geography, it would also be more reliably republican.

I would suggest that at most V new map undid a soft gerrymander for PA one. The map is actually more compact now than before. It was drawn to grab some reliably Republican territory and US gave it an unnatural bulge. Compact by prior map standards, which is a grossly low bar I admit, but this map cures what gerrymandering there was in the district.

Regarding PA 17 I'd have to see your map, but frankly geographical divisions like the river are just as artificial in some ways than saying there's a big difference between Penn Hills and Northeastern Pittsburgh. Sounds like it would have been a wash either way.

Overall, I have a hard time calling anything of gerrymander that leaves districts as a split pvi and plus 3 Trump respectively. I'm doubly annoyed at some people calling pa10 a soft gerrymander because it leaves  merely  a Plus 10 Trump District in place

[Gass3268]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Not to pile on my own party, but hell, I am passionately anti gerrymandering, in the Pennsylvania GOP deserves all the criticism it gets on this front. It's also worth adding that this 13 to 5 split came from repeated approximate 50 50 splits in the actual votes for the state's Congressional Delegation.

Anyone who wishes to try arguing that Republican gerrymandering is somehow "natural" do too concentrated Democratic strength in relatively compact urban areas need only look at map drawing abortions like the prior p a 7 and pa17 among others to see there is an EXTREMELY concerted and decidedly unnatural manipulation of District Lines to get that result.

Republicans brought this on themselves, undoubtably. That said, democrats are packed into Philly by virtue of geography. That's just a fact. Republicans could have easily drawn a 11-7 (or even 12-6) map with compact borders and few county splits (assuming that Fitzpatrick and Dent would win the roughly even PVI Bucks and Lehigh Valley based districts). Instead, they got greedy and drew monstrosities like PA-7, which is why it got thrown out.

I think Ohio (pro R) and Maryland (pro D) are the two most gerrymandered states left now. Any chances of those maps being thrown out?

There is currently a case against Maryland that could set the precedent that makes partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional. Hopefully it succeeds, even if I don't personally consider Maryland to be that bad. Democrats left very clean 8-0 maps on the table and a fair map would probably be 6-2. It just looks awful because you had incumbents with ridiculous demands for the areas they wanted to represented. John Sarbanes wanted his home in Towson, Annapolis, and some territory in the DMV so he could potentially run for statewide office sometime in the future. Hoyer lives Mechanicsville down in South Maryland, but he also wanted his alma mater in College Park. That's the main reason the map looks so bad.

[Gass3268]

Precedent as to why the Republican suit will go no where:

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You must be logged in to read this quote.

All of this was during the last cycle of redistricting.

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Ehh the fact that PA-10 (new) is now a R+5.5 seat that cuts two counties is a pretty clear soft D gerrymander - a hard D gerry in this region would also include State College. the rest of the map is fair.

The new map is certainly better, but there were two other soft gerrymanders I noticed.

District 1 is basically the old district 8, widely regarded as the only fair district in the Philly suburbs before. They could easily have kept its borders the same or included the northeast corner of Philly, or the southeast corner of Montco and it would have stayed tilt R. Instead, they took away northeast Montco and substituted in deep blue precincts from east-central Montco. It's still a tossup, but that could easily prove decisive.

The new PA 17 looks similar to a district I drew, with one crucial change. It crosses the Allegheny River, picking up some of the most solidly democrat precincts in the region. If, instead of taking in one random black neighborhood in East Pittsburgh, they had followed the river and made up the population difference by smoothing out the border in Pittsburgh's western suburbs, the district would not only look nicer and better follow geography, it would also be more reliably republican.

I would suggest that at most V new map undid a soft gerrymander for PA one. The map is actually more compact now than before. It was drawn to grab some reliably Republican territory and US gave it an unnatural bulge. Compact by prior map standards, which is a grossly low bar I admit, but this map cures what gerrymandering there was in the district.

Regarding PA 17 I'd have to see your map, but frankly geographical divisions like the river are just as artificial in some ways than saying there's a big difference between Penn Hills and Northeastern Pittsburgh. Sounds like it would have been a wash either way.

Overall, I have a hard time calling anything of gerrymander that leaves districts as a split pvi and plus 3 Trump respectively. I'm doubly annoyed at some people calling pa10 a soft gerrymander because it leaves  merely  a Plus 10 Trump District in place

Of course it's more compact than before. It would struggle not to be. According to 538, it ranked 5th out of 9 in compactness vs maps they had created themselves for various purposes. Better, but not great.

Rivers are no more artificial of boundaries than county lines (which in SW PA tend to follow rivers). See how the boundary of the district is curvy but smooth on the eastern edge? That's the Allegheny River, which is also the border with Westmoreland county.

Notice the single significant area of dark blue within those lines? that's where it crossed the river. It would have made more sense to include the pink area southwest of the city, eliminating the claw shape of the main Pittsburgh district.

PA 10 isn't really a gerrymander, although it would make more sense to me if they had put all of Dauphin, Lebanon, and Cumberland counties in it (plus Juniata, Mifflin, et al as needed for population) instead of ripping York city from the rest of York county, ruining one of the few decent looking districts we had before. Unless Holden runs, it shouldn't affect the partisan balance though.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

PA Department of State in the process of implementing the new maps: http://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/State-Details.aspx?newsid=263

Everyone expects the Republican appeal to be DOA.

[Gass3268]

Ryan Costello just jumped the sharked:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Statements like that will hurt him regardless of the district he has to run in.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I know the appeal is DOA but wow, the GOP is really not helping their case here...

[Badger]

FiveThirtyEight's take

This article perfectly sums up what I said earlier -

The new PA map is NOT a Democratic gerrymander....it's just a plain, fair map.

People saying it's a dem gerrymander are going by the point of view that a 13R-5D delegation is "normal" and anything more beneficial must be a democratic gerrymander.   It isn't!   The 13R - 5D was the Republican gerrymander they were spoiled with this whole time.

Ehh the fact that PA-10 (new) is now a R+5.5 seat that cuts two counties is a pretty clear soft D gerrymander - a hard D gerry in this region would also include State College. the rest of the map is fair.

The new map is certainly better, but there were two other soft gerrymanders I noticed.

District 1 is basically the old district 8, widely regarded as the only fair district in the Philly suburbs before. They could easily have kept its borders the same or included the northeast corner of Philly, or the southeast corner of Montco and it would have stayed tilt R. Instead, they took away northeast Montco and substituted in deep blue precincts from east-central Montco. It's still a tossup, but that could easily prove decisive.

The new PA 17 looks similar to a district I drew, with one crucial change. It crosses the Allegheny River, picking up some of the most solidly democrat precincts in the region. If, instead of taking in one random black neighborhood in East Pittsburgh, they had followed the river and made up the population difference by smoothing out the border in Pittsburgh's western suburbs, the district would not only look nicer and better follow geography, it would also be more reliably republican.

I would suggest that at most V new map undid a soft gerrymander for PA one. The map is actually more compact now than before. It was drawn to grab some reliably Republican territory and US gave it an unnatural bulge. Compact by prior map standards, which is a grossly low bar I admit, but this map cures what gerrymandering there was in the district.

Regarding PA 17 I'd have to see your map, but frankly geographical divisions like the river are just as artificial in some ways than saying there's a big difference between Penn Hills and Northeastern Pittsburgh. Sounds like it would have been a wash either way.

Overall, I have a hard time calling anything of gerrymander that leaves districts as a split pvi and plus 3 Trump respectively. I'm doubly annoyed at some people calling pa10 a soft gerrymander because it leaves  merely  a Plus 10 Trump District in place

Of course it's more compact than before. It would struggle not to be. According to 538, it ranked 5th out of 9 in compactness vs maps they had created themselves for various purposes. Better, but not great.

Rivers are no more artificial of boundaries than county lines (which in SW PA tend to follow rivers). See how the boundary of the district is curvy but smooth on the eastern edge? That's the Allegheny River, which is also the border with Westmoreland county.

Notice the single significant area of dark blue within those lines? that's where it crossed the river. It would have made more sense to include the pink area southwest of the city, eliminating the claw shape of the main Pittsburgh district.

PA 10 isn't really a gerrymander, although it would make more sense to me if they had put all of Dauphin, Lebanon, and Cumberland counties in it (plus Juniata, Mifflin, et al as needed for population) instead of ripping York city from the rest of York county, ruining one of the few decent looking districts we had before. Unless Holden runs, it shouldn't affect the partisan balance though.

All decent points. I think the new pa17 map is kind of a wash from what you're describing.

[Kringla Heimsins]

Isn't PA going to lose a seat in the next reapportionment? That could make this map short-lived.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

Isn't PA going to lose a seat in the next reapportionment? That could make this map short-lived.

One of the D-leaning Pittsburgh seats will go. That area is bleeding too much population to support two Dem seats.

[publicunofficial]

Isn't PA going to lose a seat in the next reapportionment? That could make this map short-lived.

One of the D-leaning Pittsburgh seats will go. That area is bleeding too much population to support two Dem seats.

I think it's more likely the 9th and 12th get fused.

[Brittain33]

Isn't PA going to lose a seat in the next reapportionment? That could make this map short-lived.

It will be good for 4 years which is significant.

If Wolf wins reelection and has to compromise with a Republican legislature it will probably form the basis for the next decade's map.

[morgieb]

FWIW PA-7 wouldn't have gone Republican at the Presidential level since 1988 (I think). Any semi-reputable Democrat should win that seat with Dent gone.

[Gass3268]

Party registration by district:



Source

[Badger]

Forgive me if this is been posted else wearing this megathread, but does anyone have or know where one can find 2012 presidential election numbers for the new districts?