2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[Oryxslayer]

Approved maps in the tweet previously posted. Slightly better for Dems than v.1. 25-25 tied senate based on 2020 Presidential election results, 103-100 Biden State House. Also interesting Pottstown-outer Montgomery-near Berks swing seat.

[Unelectable Bystander]

Doesn’t this seem almost slightly right leaning? I would think Biden should carry a bit more than 50% when winning the state with a majority? Like to the victors go the spoils. Almost like an inverse of what is going to happen in Ohio

[Boss_Rahm]

Doesn’t this seem almost slightly right leaning? I would think Biden should carry a bit more than 50% when winning the state with a majority? Like to the victors go the spoils. Almost like an inverse of what is going to happen in Ohio

Yes a fair map would have created a blue-leaning seat around Lancaster. Still this is a massive improvement over any set of maps in recent memory.

[Nyvin]

Of course they had to split State College in half on the Senate map.

[MillennialModerate]

Will these new legislative maps make it possible for Dems to take control of a chamber? Weren’t the previous ones hard republicans gerrymanders?

[Oryxslayer]

Will these new legislative maps make it possible for Dems to take control of a chamber? Weren’t the previous ones hard republicans gerrymanders?

Yes and yes, though likely not immediately.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

This is the best shot Democrats have had at retaking the state legislature in years, btw.

[wbrocks67]

This is the best shot Democrats have had at retaking the state legislature in years, btw.

Yep, I'll take it. For a while now the maps have been total R gerrymanders so this is way better than what I was expecting tbh

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Could Yudichak run into difficulties with these lines?

[sting in the rafters]

Could Yudichak run into difficulties with these lines?

He expressed his displeasure at Luzerne being quad-cut

He now lives in the 20th, which A) ingests a lot of land with ancestral Rs north of the Poconos as opposed to eastern Luzerne/Carbon where Ds are still strong down-ballot and B) pits him up against an incumbent R.

A relatively safe district is possible considering down-ballot dynamics if Ds connected the southern Wyoming Valley with Hazleton and the Poconos/Stroudsburg, though I'd imagine there's some ill will towards him disaffiliating a few years back.

[Oryxslayer]

Here is my attempt at an court-ordered equitable map of PA. Once again equitable does not mean fair, since national fair maps wouldn't need to correct for any efficiency gaps. Also, as we saw in 2018, the Court still put their thumb on the scale where it mattered at the margins.

So as we all know, PA has to lose a seat, it has to be a central Safe Republican seat, and this means the swing and Dem seats must take in new areas of population that were previously within red territory. And there isn't much territory left to add that isn't safe for the GOP, so this is making many of the swing seats on drawn plans favor the GOP.

But this is a Dem court who will be looking to preserve the work done in 2018. And there is one remaining big basket of Democratic votes outside of a Blue seat. And adding this basket to the blue seats negates the need to make any other hard decisions whatsoever. The rest of the map just draws itself in a generally least-change manner. Even PA-08 can remain competitive, even though on a fair map Cartwright would be DOA rather than just in hot water.

Of course, in this instance, I am referring to Lancaster and her environs, which can be added to PA-06 in a 'triangle' orientation. One leg is in Lancaster, one in Reading, one on the Main Line/US Route 30. Adding Lancaster into the Eastern regions seats makes perfect sense if you look at things from the perspective of preserving an equitable breakdown - with D favoring swing seats since this is the 5-2 court - and not from preserving geography.



Every other region of the map can be variated, and that is what I seek to show with this second map. Since you don't need to make any more hard decisions after the initial one, everything else is flexible.



- The first map maintains the current Pittsburgh alignment with one Safe D seat and one Biden+3.3 seat. The second map does what some Dem plans do and cuts Pittsburgh, making the northern seat Biden+10.6 and the southern Biden+17.6. Splitting Pittsburgh while maintaining the western seats would be a very Dem biased move.

- The original plan makes things in Lancaster County slightly uncompact with the non-city portion of the county configured in a C-Shape. The alternate fixes this by rotating population through my PA-12 and PA-09. The downside to this rotation is the cutting of the Susquehanna Valley multi-county COI grouping.

- The original plan has PA-04 taking in the White Liberal 21st, 11th, and White parts of the 38th wards in the NW corner of the city that are similar to near Montgomery county. These additions allow  PA-01 and PA-05 to get their remaining population from just Montgomery. But the real result of these moves is in Philadelphia, where without those White areas, PA-03 is free to take in more White downtown regions and make PA-02 more diverse. Someone with better knowledge of neighborhood communities could likely have made a better selection of Wards to add to PA-02, but the important thing is the result. The original plans PA-02 is African American + Hispanic majority minority coalition by both VAP and CVAP.

The Alternate plan focuses instead on county nesting rather than diversifying PA-02, and so PA-04 remains in Montgomery. PA-01 and PA-04 take the surplus from Philadelphia - PA-04 in a manner similar to the previous district. PA-02 is Whiter.





DRA links for the first map are here, and for the alternate map are here.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1490742868008390660?s=20&t=XmuZ1nlsNIlpvl...

Unsurprisingly, the now-sidelined Conservative gives her powerless opinion in favor of the GOP maps. The PA supreme Court will now collect opinions on this map, at which point they will overrule her decision.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, I thought Persily was the special master??

[If my soul was made of stone]

On the whole these maps are pretty alright, but cutting Lancaster County more or less in half rather than drawing a compact Lancaster/environs seat and a southern Amish seat is both questionable COI and arguably a Republican gerrymander, since there's more than enough marginal turf around Lancaster (East Hempfield, Lititz, etc.) for a competitive seat.

A more compact and central York seat could also be drawn, though that wouldn't elect a Dem regardless.

[lfromnj]

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

[Roll Roons]

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.

[Oryxslayer]

Wait, I thought Persily was the special master??

This is the result of the now-sidelined lower state courts. Parties will file objections and recommend plans like last time. The court will then toss aside the GOP map. Now the court could pick a map that was submitted or, like last time after they collected maps from the parties, ignore them all and call in a special master.

It has just been a very likely assumption that Persily or a disciple would end up with the pen, cause the court has experience with him, and the maps the parties submitted to the lower courts all undid the courts past efforts in one way or another. For example, I think there was only 1 plan that kept the Harrisburg seat in a recognizable fashion, despite it effectively needing no changes because of population growth.

[lfromnj]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, I thought Persily was the special master??

This is the result of the now-sidelined lower state courts. Parties will file objections and recommend plans like last time. The court will then toss aside the GOP map. Now the court could pick a map that was submitted or, like last time after they collected maps from the parties, ignore them all and call in a special master.

It has just been a very likely assumption that Persily or a disciple would end up with the pen, cause the court has experience with him, and the maps the parties submitted to the lower courts all undid the courts past efforts in one way or another.

Ah, I see. Hopefully the charade doesn't last too long and we'll get the real map-drawing process started swiftly.

[Boss_Rahm]

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1490742868008390660?s=20&t=XmuZ1nlsNIlpvl...

Unsurprisingly, the now-sidelined Conservative gives her powerless opinion in favor of the GOP maps. The PA supreme Court will now collect opinions on this map, at which point they will overrule her decision.

It will be very easy to justify overruling this decision, as the chosen map has more county splits than necessary.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1490742868008390660?s=20&t=XmuZ1nlsNIlpvl...

Unsurprisingly, the now-sidelined Conservative gives her powerless opinion in favor of the GOP maps. The PA supreme Court will now collect opinions on this map, at which point they will overrule her decision.

It will be very easy to justify overruling this decision, as the chosen map has more county splits than necessary.

Where? I only count 17.

[Boss_Rahm]

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1490742868008390660?s=20&t=XmuZ1nlsNIlpvl...

Unsurprisingly, the now-sidelined Conservative gives her powerless opinion in favor of the GOP maps. The PA supreme Court will now collect opinions on this map, at which point they will overrule her decision.

It will be very easy to justify overruling this decision, as the chosen map has more county splits than necessary.

Where? I only count 17.

The boundary between 9 and 13 cuts through both Snyder and Union. The boundary between 10 and 13 cuts through both Dauphin and Cumberland.

[Roll Roons]

Ngl, I kind of don't want there to be a swing district in the Harrisburg area because the last thing our country needs is a certain COVID alarmist doctor in Congress.

[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)?

[lfromnj]

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)?

Democrats are clearly split on what to do based on all the Democratic plaintiff maps so the PASC . I would say they would be better off protecting Wild but it isn't certain and the overall penalty wouldn't be too great.