2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
April 27, 2024, 11:56:07 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  Political Geography & Demographics (Moderators: muon2, 100% pro-life no matter what)
  2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: 2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania  (Read 42223 times)
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« on: March 05, 2020, 02:39:49 PM »

I took a quick look at the State Senate to see what a court-drawn map might look like, using the 2016 population estimates.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fa6d27d9-212b-4d48-aa36-348390abfa66

Drawn without looking at partisan data, except in Centre County where I used it as a quick way to work up which bits of the county the students were concentrated in.

I prioritised minimising county splits as much as possible (though in practice I suspect some of my groupings may be a little too large/small by 2016 given historical population trends), then keeping cities and their immediate urban areas together, then maintaining transport links, then compactness.

There are three black-majority districts in Philadelphia, plus another likely to be won by either a black or Hispanic candidate (W17 B30 H44) and a district in Delaware where the Democratic primary is likely black-majority (W 47 B40). The West Philadelphia district may not pass muster (it's 77% black) but if so that could easily be fixed by swapping territory with the Delaware opportunity district and making them both black-majority.

Somewhat to my surprise, Clinton and Trump both won 25 districts. Some of this is about the Republican vote being remarkably inefficient (outside SE PA, Trump got more than 60% in most Republican districts) and some of it is probably about a fair map making it harder to drown out the votes of major cities.

In practice, the Republicans still overperform enough in bits of suburban Philly that I suspect they would probably be favoured in an even year, at least for now. Key swing districts (defined here as neither Trump nor Clinton getting 50%) are the 8th (central Bucks), the 11th (north Montgomery), the 17th (Lancaster and environs), the 25th (Reading), the 27th (Northampton County), the 30th (Scranton) and the 50th (Erie).
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2020, 03:00:58 PM »

The same thing, but for the State House: https://davesredistricting.org/join/b3d29cd2-dd3a-4e74-9022-da13ea437fd3

Interestingly, this one works out at 116-87 Trump-Clinton, so significantly less favourable for Democrats than the Senate even though I used the same methodology for drawing it. This is probably because the size of most cities means it's much easier for Democrats to get packed into a single city, especially when a VRA district is possible.

In practice there are enough ancestrally Democratic districts that still have Democrats representing them that the chamber might still be flippable, but the median seat still went from Trump over Clinton 51.6-44.8 so it's an uphill fight.

VRA districts:

2 in Allegheny (one black-majority, one black opportunity - 53W 40B)
1 possible coalition district in York (52W 19B 24H)
2 in Lehigh (one Hispanic majority, one Hispanic opportunity - 45W H41)
1 Hispanic-majority district in Berks
1 black plurality district in Dauphin (43B 32W 16H)
1 majority-minority district in Lancaster (44W B14 H37)
3 in Allegheny (1 black majority, two just short of 50%)
1 possible coalition district in Montgomery (53W B24 H15)
16 in Philadelphia (11 black majority, 2 Hispanic majority, 1 black plurality - 23W 40B 26H 9A, and two I can't predict at all - 34W 25B 23H 15A and 35W 35B 26H)
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2020, 11:23:47 AM »

I'm currently doing a 51-seat map for Pennsylvania. With 51 seats things are not that bad for Democrats:

17 seats in SEPA, of which 16 are tilt D to safe D (by 2012/2016 PVI), one is tilt R

5 seats in Allegheny County, of which 3 are lean to safe D, while the two R-leaning ones are trending D

Scranton (D+6)
Allentown (D+4)
Erie (D+4)
Reading (D+3)
Harrisburg (D+3)
Bethlehem (tossup)
Easton, Stroudsburg (tossup)
Lancaster (R+1)
Wilkes-Barre (R+3)
State College (R+5)


19 likely to safe R
Isn't this basically a state senate map?
You're right. So I should better draw a State Senate map with 50 seats instead of 51 seats.

What this probably means is that with a ~50-seat map the Democrats' geographic disadvantage is smaller than with 17 or 18 seats. The current Pennsylvania State Senate has of course 28 Republicans and 21 Democrats (22 elected as Democrats) which would point to a R advantage.

How do the single areas compare?

SEPA has 14 Democrats which is close to the ceiling except for the 6th where Tomlinson seems to be a strong R incumbent in a D-leaning seat.

Allegheny has 4 Democrats, the 38th and the 43rd seem to be tossups, as expected (one D-held, one R-held).

Scranton is D.
Reading is D.
The Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton area has only one Democrat, due to both the Bethlehem/Easton seat being a D pack and Browne being a strong incumbent in the 16th.

Erie hasd Republican Laughlin elected in a D-leaning seat in 2016.
Harrisburg is drawn less favorably for the Democrats than is could be, Republican DiSanto gained this seat in 2016.
Lancaster is in traditionally R territory.
Wilkes-Barre elected Yudichak, but he left the Democrats.

Hence most of the Democrats' disadvantage is due to three Republicans in D-leaning seats and some is due to the map being drawn unfavorably for them (Harrisburg, Allentown).

This is what I came up with for the state senate: https://davesredistricting.org/join/f38b31b1-1fa9-4412-9221-6347e1778457

Basic assumptions were clean lines, keeping urban areas together and maximising the number of VRA seats in SE PA. Twenty-two districts have a D PVI in 2016, 28 had an R PVI. The tipping point seat is a little over R+4. That might have improved a little in 2020 given trends, but it'll still be at least a couple of points R.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2020, 01:26:06 PM »

Thanks, those are interesting tweaks - I wasn't starting out to maximise Democratic performance (except to the extent you implicitly do so if you unite Harrisburg or Lancaster with their closest suburbs), but if you were trying to do so whilst keeping cleanish lines that's definitely a good starting point.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2020, 06:29:34 AM »

It's not necessarily an either/or between keeping Bucks whole and keeping Delaware whole. This map does both, whilst containing two performing VRA districts: https://davesredistricting.org/join/6a9fa4a4-21e8-4144-b812-0d137b7c2ddd

I think the split of NE Philly is a little ugly here, and I personally think you'd have more cohesive districts if you gave it all to PA-1, hived off northern Bucks to the Berks district and adjusted the Montgomery district to fit, but it's perfectly serviceable.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2020, 09:56:07 AM »
« Edited: December 06, 2020, 10:00:21 AM by EastAnglianLefty »

I'd been playing around with a map that didn't have a SE PA + Berks combo for 6 seats, which works out very similarly to Blairite's effort:





PA-1: Bucks County plus 3 wards from NE Philly and change. Clinton 48.5-47.9. Shouldn't give Fitzgerald sleepless nights.

PA-2: North and NE Philly. 41.4% AA by CVAP, 33.5% white. Boyle wouldn't necessarily be doomed in a primary, but he certainly wouldn't welcome this map.

PA-3: South and West Philly, plus Darby township and a few other black-majority municipalities in Delaware. 49.8% AA by CVAP, 53.2% by total population.

PA-4: Montgomery County west of the Schuykill, plus Upper Merion township. Clinton 57.1-39.1.

PA-5: The bulk of Delaware County is combined with Main Line communities in Chester and Montgomery Counties. Clinton 59.3-37.3.

PA-6: Lancaster County and the south of Chester County. The tri-cut of Chester isn't lovely, but otherwise I think this is a reasonably cohesive district. Trump 53.2-42.0 and there isn't enough of Delaware County in here for this to trend towards competitiveness any time soon.

PA-7: Lehigh County, Northampton County and East Stroudsburg. Almost no changes from the current district. Clinton 48.3-48.0.

PA-8: I know Lackwanna, Luzerne, Monroe and Pike works, but I just think it makes the surrounding districts look awkward. This swaps East Stroudsburg for Wyoming, Wayne and bits of Susquehanna is accordingly significantly redder. Trump 55.0-42.0. Biden will have been a bit closer this year, but it's probably still too red for Cartwright even in an even year.

PA-9: Berks County, northern Chester, Schuykill County and Carbon County. The days when Tim Holden could hold down a district like this are long-gone, as Schuykill and Carbon are just too far gone for Democrats. Trump 56.0-39.9.

PA-10: My major problem with maps assigning 6 districts to Berks and SE PA is that it tends to lead to Harrisburg being separated from its hinterland. This map nicely avoids that and manages to create a district with the state capital at its centre. Swapping the city of York for Lebanon and Perry Counties ought to take this off the target map for Democrats. Trump 56.1-39.6

PA-11: The South-Central PA district. Monolithically Republican but lacks an incumbent.

PA-12: The North-Central PA district. The reddest on the map.

PA-13: Altoona, Johnstown and State College. Joyce and Howard both live here, so unless the former moves that means a primary contest.

PA-14: All of Fayette, Greene and Washington, most of Westmoreland and SW Allegheny. Trump 62.2-34.6.

PA-15: This is the new PA-18. It packs in Pittsburgh, all of its eastern suburbs and most of its southern suburbs. Clinton 63.8-32.7.

PA-16: Erie, most of Butler County and points in between. Outside Erie, there's too little blue turf to make this competitive. Trump 60.5-35.3.

PA-17: Compared to the current iteration, this swaps Mt. Lebanon and Penn Hills for Lawrence County and southern Butler County, the partisan consequences of which are fairly obvious. Trump 55.1-41.2, which is surely too red for Lamb.

Overall, despite having been drawn with little regard to partisan data, this is an excellent map for Republicans, since in most years it would return an 11R-D6 delegation.

EDIT: Whilst typing this up, I found I was a little unsatisfied with the orientation of my proposed PA-11, so I tweaked it a bit and accordingly rotated territory between PA-10, PA-11, PA-12, PA-13 and PA-16. I think it's a little neater, but the only significant change from an electoral standpoint is that PA-12 becomes the incumbent faceoff rather than PA-13. You can find that version here: https://davesredistricting.org/join/37e82622-727f-4e5f-bf88-1b60adf95141
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,598


« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2021, 09:47:59 AM »

also just wondering in my map there’s two minority majority seats in Philly, what do y’all think? Is it likely to happen?

It's incredibly simple to draw two Philly seats with a strong black plurality and it would probably have happened decades ago if the machine hadn't been determined to protect Bob Brady.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.047 seconds with 12 queries.