2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[wbrocks67]

When are we expecting any official draft maps?

[Devils30]

With both Doyle and Lamb out, its almost guaranteed that the Pittsburgh region will maintain it's current alignment with 1 D-leaning swing and one safe - or get better for Dems. No incumbents anymore to worry about, so only statewide partisan concerns need matter.

Cartwright is the one the Dems should throw under. Ask the court to make PA-7 Biden +10, PA-17 more like Biden +8-12 and try to get a swingy Biden won PA-10 around Harrisburg. It's almost impossible to make both 7 and 8 safe D without an extremely ugly map.

[Stuart98]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/politics/house-democrat-retirements.html

Doyle expects something very similar to my map in Pittsburgh it seems.

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

PA finally has 2020 data! 

https://twitter.com/davesredist/status/1462107744421367809?s=20

https://twitter.com/davesredist/status/1462109863312461827?s=20

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Here's my slight GOP mander for PA with 2020 Prez data. Outside of Philly, only one or two towns might have been split unintentionally.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/84bb518c-8137-45cd-a6b8-8e2747b53cb5

They're 9 Trump districts - 8 Biden seats

PA-1: Biden +5.7
PA-2: Biden +43.4
PA-3: Biden +79.8
PA-4: Biden +26.7
PA-5: Biden +29.7
PA-6: Biden +6.6
PA-7: Biden +4
PA-8: Trump +8.4
PA-9: Trump +32.4
PA-10: Trump +10.1
PA-11: Trump +15.3
PA-12: Trump +35.3
PA-13: Trump +44.6
PA-14: Trump +22.6
PA-15: Trump +25.7
PA-16: Trump +13.4
PA-17: Biden +36.3

[Devils30]

Here's my new fair map for PA with 2020 Prez data. Outside of Philly, only one or two towns might have been split unintentionally.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/84bb518c-8137-45cd-a6b8-8e2747b53cb5

They're 9 Trump districts - 8 Biden seats

PA-1: Biden +5.7
PA-2: Biden +43.4
PA-3: Biden +79.8
PA-4: Biden +26.7
PA-5: Biden +29.7
PA-6: Biden +6.6
PA-7: Biden +4
PA-8: Trump +8.4
PA-9: Trump +32.4
PA-10: Trump +10.1
PA-11: Trump +15.3
PA-12: Trump +35.3
PA-13: Trump +44.6
PA-14: Trump +22.6
PA-15: Trump +25.7
PA-16: Trump +13.4
PA-17: Biden +36.3

This isn't a fair map, it's a GOP gerrymander. 16 has to be a narrow Biden seat and 10 should be more in its current form to be fair.

[GALeftist]

Here's a map I made. I think it's pretty fair from a partisan perspective, but I don't know much about Pennsylvania, so it's definitely possible I've committed some cardinal sin here.

[Nyvin]

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

[sting in the rafters]

Here's a map I made. I think it's pretty fair from a partisan perspective, but I don't know much about Pennsylvania, so it's definitely possible I've committed some cardinal sin here.

The only real issues are including Reading and its surrounding environs with the ultraconservative farmland and Amish communities around it. While the growth of Philly metro will eventually spread along US route 30 towards Lancaster, it is to swap the two cities as Lancaster's sphere of influence has much more in common with the Susquehanna Valley district with Harrisburg/York. Also am biased as a WC native but I'd also put the townships east of 202 in Chesco with the rest of the county as opposed to the aforementioned agrarian communities of the Appalachian valley. Otherwise decent enough, I do like how you have NE Philly in the BucksCo district as its population density, demographics, and love of perogies fits better.


 You took an interesting approach to solving the Lehigh Valley and Scranton district quandary. Putting all of Jim Thorpe's forests+fishing creeks in the northern district pretty much kills the Ds chances there except in a wave, yet it does shore up Wild given the trends in Lehigh Valley. It's been a while since I last drew one but I managed to create 2 D-leaning districts in NEPA via splitting Carbon and giving Cartwright the Democratic resort towns in the Poconos in Monroe, however the commission may be less forgiven and point to growth of the NYC metro reaching Monroe/Pike/Wayne as sufficient to keep the district competitive long-term.

[CookieDamage]

Dem favoring map

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1463574137419571208?s=20

[Boss_Rahm]

Here is my proposed State Senate map. I allowed for a +/- 5% population deviation if it meant avoiding a county split, and the only split municipalities are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In both the 2020 Presidential and AG elections, 25 districts each voted to the left and to the right of the statewide vote.

DRA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/ec96884a-b79f-44fa-9778-8d6cecd6cc30

[Nyvin]

Here's one I made that attempt to keep statewide proportionality and respected borders as much as possible.   Generally if a county is large enough for it's own district it got one, and I used whole counties as much as feasible.





https://davesredistricting.org/join/07223592-ee0e-4f4f-8105-115eb11be238

4 AA majority seats in Philly, a seat in Delaware that's functional to elect an AA candidate of choice, along with a Hispanic opportunity seat in Philly.  

21 safe seats for each party, along with 8 highly competitive seats.

[Biden his time]

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?

[kwabbit]

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.

[Tekken_Guy]

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.

[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?

[Nyvin]

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.

[Skill and Chance]

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.

There's absolutely no prospect of Dems holding the House while losing the PV with their current coalition, so they might as well swing for the fences every time. 

[sting in the rafters]

New drop.



Big s/o to the little green men for the final design of a Joey district for Lamb that's >85% white and doesn't crack a single municipality, let alone Pittsburgh. Someone tell Wolf I'll take a chilled case or 10 of Victory sour monkeys directly to my Amazon storage locker and we'll call it even for saving his party's a--. And yes, that is one ugly quad-cut of Berks but it's better than the alternative of making it a 2D/1R county via stuffing all of the farmland closer to Hawk Mountain into the Lancaster district.

In all seriousness 6D/5 swing/6R. Swing districts being lower Susquehanna, Pittsburgh burbs, Lehigh, NE Coal Region, and Bucks Co once Fitzpatrick either retires or gets smoked by trendz.

[Oryxslayer]

I am once again asking people to recognize that with both Lamb and Doyle out, there is no longer any need to preserve the ugly current PA-17 Pittsburgh reach-around. Just grab all of the Penn hills region to the west of the city and use the rivers as guidelines for district borders. This near-guarantees a Biden seat, one that could even be more Democratic than the nation if you know what you are aiming for.

[sting in the rafters]

I am once again asking people to recognize that with both Lamb and Doyle out, there is no longer any need to preserve the ugly current PA-17 Pittsburgh reach-around. Just grab all of the Penn hills region to the west of the city and use the rivers as guidelines for district borders. This near-guarantees a Biden seat, one that could even be more Democratic than the nation if you know what you are aiming for.

Problem is Rs controlling the state legislature would have a collective stroke if Allegheny is drawn too unfavorably to them.

[Oryxslayer]

I am once again asking people to recognize that with both Lamb and Doyle out, there is no longer any need to preserve the ugly current PA-17 Pittsburgh reach-around. Just grab all of the Penn hills region to the west of the city and use the rivers as guidelines for district borders. This near-guarantees a Biden seat, one that could even be more Democratic than the nation if you know what you are aiming for.

Problem is Rs controlling the state legislature would have a collective stroke if Allegheny is drawn too unfavorably to them.

We know the map is either going to the D courts or end up a D-favoring compromise (that'll leave their seats intact and favorable) because the D's used said court as leverage and got a map they liked, so why do they matter? In the latter scenario the R's would care more about securing their own then spending little capital on offense, and the courts in the former clearly wanted to do it in 2018 except Lamb lived in Mt. Lebanon and Doyle had a base in the Swissvale area.

[sting in the rafters]

I am once again asking people to recognize that with both Lamb and Doyle out, there is no longer any need to preserve the ugly current PA-17 Pittsburgh reach-around. Just grab all of the Penn hills region to the west of the city and use the rivers as guidelines for district borders. This near-guarantees a Biden seat, one that could even be more Democratic than the nation if you know what you are aiming for.

Problem is Rs controlling the state legislature would have a collective stroke if Allegheny is drawn too unfavorably to them.

We know the map is either going to the D courts or end up a D-favoring compromise (that'll leave their seats intact and favorable) because the D's used said court as leverage and got a map they liked, so why do they matter? In the latter scenario the R's would care more about securing their own then spending little capital on offense, and the courts in the former clearly wanted to do it in 2018 except Lamb lived in Mt. Lebanon and Doyle had a base in the Swissvale area.

Didn't they draw the 6D/5 swing/7 R map before the special election Lamb won or am I misremembering? Either way as hard as it is to believe 6D/5 swing/6R is D-leaning considering how f---ed the geography of the state is (inb4 "land doesn't vote!" Sorry, we've already decided property >>>> life in this country.) Any more and Rs prolly strip the 5-2 Court of the authority to appoint the tie-breaker to the commission at the first opportunity.

Granted, knowing the um... authoritarian the PAGOP has taken they'll prolly do that anyway whenever they take back the governor's mansion so maybe you're right after all.

[Tekken_Guy]

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.