US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[muon2]

It looks like PA may end up with GOP control of the map, so I looked at how well the GOP could do after the reduction to 18 districts.

Edit: There is some additional discussion at this thread which switched quickly from polling to maps.

I drew districts to be within 10 persons of the ideal and there are two majority-black districts (CD 1 and 2). I did not look at incumbent residences so some members may find themselves out of their normal district. I was able to get 12 of the districts such that they would have voted for McCain in 2008.



Here's the detail:

CD 1: 51% black, 84% Obama
CD 2: 51% black, 91% Obama
CD 3: 51% McCain
CD 4: 51% McCain
CD 5: 54% McCain
CD 6: 51% McCain
CD 7: 60% Obama
CD 8: 50% McCain
CD 9: 57% McCain
CD 10: 51% McCain
CD 11: 50% McCain
CD 12: 54% McCain
CD 13: 61% Obama
CD 14: 68% Obama
CD 15: 59% Obama
CD 16: 51% McCain
CD 17: 55% McCain
CD 18: 52% McCain

The western end doesn't require any strange county splits to reach my goal. SE PA is not so pretty, but I think it's actually less pretty than the current map.

[muon2]

I dont think Republicans would draw a map to make it almost impossible for Dent or Meehan to win.   They would also be making Altmire much safer, but that is something they will probably have to do.  

Also, Tim Holden would likely run in the new PA-11 and win based on his strength in Schuylkill county and the fact that the other counties in the district are Democratic leaning.
[/quote]

The area probably hinges on Dent's district. The half of Lehigh with Dent could be attached to the Buck and Montco parts shown as CD 8 to make an R-leaning district, or Lehigh could be attached to parts of Berks and Schuylkill to bring the numbers up. In either case Northampton would have to be separated or the district stays D. Perhaps the D part could connect to Kanjorski's area in Luzerne.

[muon2]

Not only would Altmire and Holden be pretty safe in that map, Carney shouldn't have much trouble winning the 10th there even if he does this year. Kanjorski probably goes down this year but that idiot mayor who'll beat him would likely lose to Tim Holden as mentioned. 12 wouldn't be entirely unwinnable either (Critz could move there and run against Murphy), and Dent might have trouble in the 15th. Ironically this Republican gerrymander could result in 3 Republican districts in NE PA going to 3 Democratic districts.

Obviously there are always some secure incumbents who could hold just about any seat. Given that 2008 was as good a vote as the Dems have seen in a generation, how GOP must a PA seat be to elect one in an open seat and against an incumbent.

I expect I'll revise the map after I see which members might be subject to special treatment. BTW, no one has yet opined as to how Dent would want to strengthen his district. I would think that losing all or part of Northampton would be desirable, but which way would he prefer to go to replace population lost?

[muon2]

Not only would Altmire and Holden be pretty safe in that map, Carney shouldn't have much trouble winning the 10th there even if he does this year. Kanjorski probably goes down this year but that idiot mayor who'll beat him would likely lose to Tim Holden as mentioned. 12 wouldn't be entirely unwinnable either (Critz could move there and run against Murphy), and Dent might have trouble in the 15th. Ironically this Republican gerrymander could result in 3 Republican districts in NE PA going to 3 Democratic districts.

Obviously there are always some secure incumbents who could hold just about any seat. Given that 2008 was as good a vote as the Dems have seen in a generation, how GOP must a PA seat be to elect one in an open seat and against an incumbent.

I expect I'll revise the map after I see which members might be subject to special treatment. BTW, no one has yet opined as to how Dent would want to strengthen his district. I would think that losing all or part of Northampton would be desirable, but which way would he prefer to go to replace population lost?

Dent would probably want Republican parts of Berks or Republican upper Bucks but doing that would make PA-08 very difficult for any Republican to win.

So why not move him into a new 8 that combines upper Bucks with Lehigh? Put lower Bucks with CD 13 as my map suggests. That would leave a heavy Dem Northampton to Wilkes-Barre district.

[muon2]

Not only would Altmire and Holden be pretty safe in that map, Carney shouldn't have much trouble winning the 10th there even if he does this year. Kanjorski probably goes down this year but that idiot mayor who'll beat him would likely lose to Tim Holden as mentioned. 12 wouldn't be entirely unwinnable either (Critz could move there and run against Murphy), and Dent might have trouble in the 15th. Ironically this Republican gerrymander could result in 3 Republican districts in NE PA going to 3 Democratic districts.

Obviously there are always some secure incumbents who could hold just about any seat. Given that 2008 was as good a vote as the Dems have seen in a generation, how GOP must a PA seat be to elect one in an open seat and against an incumbent.

I expect I'll revise the map after I see which members might be subject to special treatment. BTW, no one has yet opined as to how Dent would want to strengthen his district. I would think that losing all or part of Northampton would be desirable, but which way would he prefer to go to replace population lost?

Dent would probably want Republican parts of Berks or Republican upper Bucks but doing that would make PA-08 very difficult for any Republican to win.

So why not move him into a new 8 that combines upper Bucks with Lehigh? Put lower Bucks with CD 13 as my map suggests. That would leave a heavy Dem Northampton to Wilkes-Barre district.

And put him into a primary with Mike Fitzpatrick?

Ah yes. That's why I made my earlier statement about my next map coming after the election. I think that Fitzpatrick actually ended up in my CD 13, but barely, since he lives in Levitttown.

The big problem for the GOP will be if they win throughout eastern PA. As noted, the best maps for them leave Dems concentrated in the VRA districts in Philly, two suburban districts (7 and 13 on my map, and one other in NE PA. The current 538 ratings have only 4 Dems surviving in the east (1, 2, 13, 17). I assume that a district that voted for McCain in 2008 would be enough to hold an incumbent in 2012, but a soft Obama win (less than 53%) would be a swing district. To protect all incumbents in that case will require that at least one of the the R districts I drew will have to be watered down into a swing district so that one of the 5 D districts also becomes a swing district. It might require two R districts to shift more to swing.

[muon2]

If it makes it easier, Fitzpatrick lives in Middletown Twp (one of the 4 townships comprising the postal area, thats all it is, known as levittown)....You could split that off and leave the rest of Levittown (which is more democratic than the middletown part) in the other district.

An upper Bucks, upper Montgomery, Berks, and Chester district would be a good one for Fitzpatrick.  It would almost certainly save him from a repeat Murphy challenge in 2012. 

So basically what I drew on my map. I note that northern Chester may have to all be in CD 6 to suit Gerlach, however, which would require more of Berks for CD 8.

[muon2]

So, only 1/3 of the districts are "obama" in a state that he won by 10 points. Typical.

Well, to be honest, after drawing the two African-American Majority districts around Philly, the state becomes 51-48 Obama.  Throw in a Pittsburgh District and a suburban Philly one and it becomes 48-51 Obama.  You could theoretically draw a 14-4 map

There are too many Democrats in the Scranton-NE area not to have at least one Obama district there.  And there are too many Democrats in the Philly suburbs not to have at least two Obama districts there.  This map is pretty much the best that can be done for Republicans and that would probably still be 10-8 in favor of Republicans because it shores up Altmire and Holden. 

I think I have figured out what to do about the Holden district if the GOP runs the map and all seats that are projected for the GOP do go that way. Platts can add Harrisburg and points west from CD 17 and be called CD 17 (since 19 has to go away anyway). Gerlach takes Lebanon and southern Dauphin, while CD8 (presumably Fitzpatrick) takes northern Berks from CD 17.  Dent adds most of Schuylkill and northern Dauphin which shifts CD 15 about 2% more R though it still would have voted Obama. Central Schuylkill which has the D-leaning areas including Holden's home is attached to CD 5, but it remains a strong R district (54% McCain). There would be a new D-district (new CD 12) primarily in Montco that Holden could move to and maintain a place in Congress.



(yeah, I said I would wait, but I was curious to solve the puzzle )

CD 1: 85% Obama, 51% black
CD 2: 91% Obama, 51% black
CD 3: 52% McCain
CD 4: 51% McCain
CD 5: 54% McCain
CD 6: 50% McCain
CD 7: 52% McCain
CD 8: 50% McCain
CD 9: 55% McCain
CD 10: 49.5% McCain (49.3% Obama)
CD 11: 51% Obama (56% in 2008)
CD 12: 61% Obama
CD 13: 60% Obama
CD 14: 68% Obama
CD 15: 53% Obama (55% in 2008)
CD 16: 52% McCain
CD 17: 53% McCain
CD 18: 56% McCain

[muon2]

Again, Holden would run against Dent and likely win in 2012.  He would swamp Dent in the Schuylkill and Dauphin portions and probably hold Dent to 55% or less everywhere else.   And you are cutting PA-10 and PA-11 awfully thin for Republicans. 

It would probably be better to just concede the Democrats a Safe district for Holden in Central PA.  Draw one from Harrisburg to Schuylkill to Scranton and Reading.  You can make one that's about 65% Obama, and by doing so you make the 11th, 15th, and 6th much safer for Republicans.

But that forces either the 7th or 8th into heavily Dem areas. Republicans can win the current swing suburban districts like 7 and 8 in a year like this, but will have a difficult time holding them as 2006 and 2008 showed. I presume that the PA legislature will want to protect the R incumbents, so there will need to be enough districts to accommodate all of them. It's harder to make a map with only 1 suburban D seat than to make one with no solid D seat in NE PA.

[muon2]

There are too many Democrats in the Scranton-NE area not to have at least one Obama district there.  And there are too many Democrats in the Philly suburbs not to have at least two Obama districts there.  This map is pretty much the best that can be done for Republicans and that would probably still be 10-8 in favor of Republicans because it shores up Altmire and Holden.  

I think I have figured out what to do about the Holden district if the GOP runs the map and all seats that are projected for the GOP do go that way. Platts can add Harrisburg and points west from CD 17 and be called CD 17 (since 19 has to go away anyway). Gerlach takes Lebanon and southern Dauphin, while CD8 (presumably Fitzpatrick) takes northern Berks from CD 17.  Dent adds most of Schuylkill and northern Dauphin which shifts CD 15 about 2% more R though it still would have voted Obama. Central Schuylkill which has the D-leaning areas including Holden's home is attached to CD 5, but it remains a strong R district (54% McCain). There would be a new D-district (new CD 12) primarily in Montco that Holden could move to and maintain a place in Congress.



CD 6: 50% McCain
CD 10: 49.5% McCain (49.3% Obama)
CD 11: 51% Obama (56% in 2008)
CD 15: 53% Obama (55% in 2008)
CD 17: 53% McCain

Again, Holden would run against Dent and likely win in 2012.  He would swamp Dent in the Schuylkill and Dauphin portions and probably hold Dent to 55% or less everywhere else.   And you are cutting PA-10 and PA-11 awfully thin for Republicans. 

I drew the map to reduce the ability of Holden to run against Dent. The Schuylkill and Duaphin parts I moved are 17% more R than the state as a whole (those areas went 61-38 for McCain) and they only represent 1/6 of the district. I also took out Easton from CD 15 which votes about 75% Dem and its removal should help Dent. Holden probably does better against Gerlach since the CD 6 I drew has much more of Holden's area than Gerlach's.

I boosted the R performance in CD 11 by 5% which should be enough to allow an incumbent to hold it in all but the worst years. I did lower CD 10's performance by 4% so if Carney wins it's a better district for him. It is still roughly R+4 so it should lean R in a neutral year open seat contest, and I shifted it substantially west where Marino comes from.

[muon2]

There are too many Democrats in the Scranton-NE area not to have at least one Obama district there.  And there are too many Democrats in the Philly suburbs not to have at least two Obama districts there.  This map is pretty much the best that can be done for Republicans and that would probably still be 10-8 in favor of Republicans because it shores up Altmire and Holden.  

I think I have figured out what to do about the Holden district if the GOP runs the map and all seats that are projected for the GOP do go that way. Platts can add Harrisburg and points west from CD 17 and be called CD 17 (since 19 has to go away anyway). Gerlach takes Lebanon and southern Dauphin, while CD8 (presumably Fitzpatrick) takes northern Berks from CD 17.  Dent adds most of Schuylkill and northern Dauphin which shifts CD 15 about 2% more R though it still would have voted Obama. Central Schuylkill which has the D-leaning areas including Holden's home is attached to CD 5, but it remains a strong R district (54% McCain). There would be a new D-district (new CD 12) primarily in Montco that Holden could move to and maintain a place in Congress.



CD 6: 50% McCain
CD 10: 49.5% McCain (49.3% Obama)
CD 11: 51% Obama (56% in 2008)
CD 15: 53% Obama (55% in 2008)
CD 17: 53% McCain

Again, Holden would run against Dent and likely win in 2012.  He would swamp Dent in the Schuylkill and Dauphin portions and probably hold Dent to 55% or less everywhere else.   And you are cutting PA-10 and PA-11 awfully thin for Republicans. 

I drew the map to reduce the ability of Holden to run against Dent. The Schuylkill and Duaphin parts I moved are 17% more R than the state as a whole (those areas went 61-38 for McCain) and they only represent 1/6 of the district. I also took out Easton from CD 15 which votes about 75% Dem and its removal should help Dent. Holden probably does better against Gerlach since the CD 6 I drew has much more of Holden's area than Gerlach's.

Holden would carry those areas handily.  He always gets around 70% and Schuylkill.

I agree that he wins those areas against a typical underfunded challenger. However, those areas I put in CD 15 are very hard R, and though he might win them against Dent I don't see large margins there. He would miss his home base of Pottsville, since I put that area in CD 5. Since the majority of that district is Dent's home base of Lehigh, I don't see a clear win for Holden if the incumbents were head to head.

[muon2]

The best way to get rid of Holden would be to divide Schuylkill among three or four districts.

Then he would just choose to run in whatever district connected to Schuykill is the most Democratic and run there. 

So perhaps the best choice for the GOP is to connect central Schuylkill through Reading to Montco. Holden can run safely there, and the Montco suburbs were a problem for any of the GOP reps in the area.

[muon2]

First, you don't have to worry about who lives where; the representative has to only live in the state, not the district.

I understand that, but I was responding to other posts that suggested that Holden would go to whichever district included parts of Schuylkill and had the best Dem lean. That's why I suggested he could most easily run in the open, heavily D, Montco district I drew (new CD-12).

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That normally serves to help the incumbent, since they generally start with a cash advantage. If the GOP is trying to protect its gains, that actually might be a good strategy.

Now, can you divide PA-13 between PA 1, 2, 6, 8 and 15?  Basically slice Montco like a loaf of bread?

I could, but the result is a number of districts that would flip Dem in a year like 2008. To avoid this one has to create at least one hard-D district in the Philly suburbs. The safest course is to create 4 D districts in eastern PA - three in Philly and inner suburbs (basically PA 1, 2, and 13), and another either in the Montco suburbs or in Scranton/Wilkes Barre/Bethlehem. My map is example of the former, but latter is also possible. The best option may depend on what the political trends forecast for the coming decade.
 

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I assume that the current PA-12 is the district to be cut since the population changes favor a lost district in the west and that's easier to slice up that PA-4. PA-4 could be made more GOP, or it could be left as a target should it become an open seat. There's a danger to try to get both Critz and Altmire, since both have shown their ability to win in an R-leaning district. I made PA 9 and 18 my strongest R districts to concentrate on eliminating PA 12.

To directly answer your question, I think the answer is yes, though I haven't tried it. PA 18 would wrap around the north side of Pittsburgh, PA 9 would move even more into Westmoreland than my map shows, PA 5 gets Blair, PA 4 would pick up Butler, and PA 3 would go into Clarion and Armstrong.

[muon2]

Now, can you divide PA-13 between PA 1, 2, 6, 8 and 15?  Basically slice Montco like a loaf of bread?

Can you, without gutting PA-18, make either PA 4 or 12 a Republican (or more Republican) district?

The situation in the SW is delicate. I would leave PA-04 alone, just move with the flow for population and changes in other districts. The key to the SW in getting rid of Critz is Westmoreland and Southern Allegheny. Fayette and Greene counties are dangerous WV style territory. Westmoreland is probably the most Republican (I mean Toomey at 61%). So I think that if you can give as much of Westmoreland to Murphy as possible and shove the mining and WV country into the 9th with Shuster, you can probably prevent Critz from winning either.

That was exactly my strategy in the SW.

Trying to eliminate Schwartz would likely backfire in a Dem year.  It would take away how much help you could give to the 6th, 7th and 8th.   If anything I think it would make sense for the GOP to make the 13th a bit more Democratic, push the 1st a bit further into Delaware County take some more Democratic areas from the 7th, and trying to sure up the 6th and 8th a bit more to give them more cushion to withstand a wave.   If they try to eliminate Schwartz they lesson how much they could help out the 6th, 7th and 8th and could get lose all three of them in a wave.  Hell if the GOP nominates Palin, the SE is a bloodbath.

I tend to agree. In my map I moved CD 1 as you suggest, and the best way to make CD 13 more Dem is to give it southern Bucks as I have done. The problem is the rest of Montco. There really are enough people for four solid D districts in SE in an average year, let alone a year like 2008. Trying to divide them up risks losing two or three seats that don't have to swing when a strong D year occurs.

I've lived in PA for 4 years now - one thing to keep in mind is that Lancaster and York counties have very strong senses of county identities, and a pretty long-standing rivalry (the names are a giveaway).  I have Lancaster County friends and they always say that York - not to mention Harrisburg - is a whole other world.  They have traditionally each had a seat to themselves; any map that splits either county is probably a no-go.  (These are Republican counties, so their preferences have to be taken into account.) 

I have the impression that Bucks is sort of the same way - that one always talks about "the" Bucks County district.  Maybe the Lehigh Valley as well.  But I'm less sure of these. 

With all the seats they've won, and the bluish tilt of the area, the GOP can't make everyone in southeast PA safe.  Best you can do is make them all slightly safer while keeping them with swing areas that have voted for them before - which implies that you can't mess with the current districts all that much.  Out west, put Critz and Altmire together in an R-leaning district and make sure PA3 stays red.  Can't do all that AND guarantee that Holden loses, although moving his district farther north and/or west is inevitable. 

I started by keeping Lancaster and York separate and intact. The problem is that there are now three GOP reps in Delco and Chester, and the R votes are in the counties to the west. Linking the districts in strips to the west is the only way to secure the districts. The PA GOP will have to decide between incumbent safety and maintaining traditional district areas.

[muon2]

CD16 - dark teal (Pitts): Probably the Rep. least happy with this map, Pitts is down to 51-48 McCain due to taking in all of Reading.  Oh well, them's the breaks.  (I'm not sure McCain won by that much more than this in the old district, though.) 

I would expect him to be doubly unhappy since he lives nowhere near this district. His home is in southern Chester Co near your border between CD 6 and 7.

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Would the PA GOP be more likely to concede a district to Holden in this case? You could swap Harrisburg and Williamsport and maybe give Holden either Wilkes Barre or Reading as well.

[muon2]

I still think that the PA GOP would be wiser to concede a fourth seat in SE PA and lock in all other gains. The JL map has more swing districts that rely on strong incumbents in that area than partisans should be comfortable with.

[muon2]

Yup, Reading was cut into three or so pieces in 2000. Since they might create part of a D-leaning district if they were made whole, they're cut up and only serve to make Republican districts slightly less Republican.

We really need a nonpartisan redistricting commission a la Arizona or Florida.

AZ isn't looking so nonpartisan this year.

[muon2]

NePa Fajita!

Ah, they did split Schuylkill County. Good job boys. PA-10 seems short 90,000 folks, nowhere to be found, since other than in Cumberland, the perimeter of the 3 CD's is just county lines (maybe PA-10 goes farther west and the map is just in error on that), but here are the partisan data.

If I assume that whole counties are correct, but splits are inaccurate in the press sketch, then here's how I make the districts whole:

Take enough of Cumberland into 11 to bring the three districts up to the correct total (all but the SE corner).

Put more of Monroe and a lot more of Northumberland into 10.

Put the north central part of Schuylkill into 17 and all or almost all of Carbon in 17, too.

I get three districts with 10 @ 54.7% McCain, 11 @ 52.8% McCain, 17 @ 56.1% Obama.

[muon2]

I don't know if this was noticed before, but the seven SE counties are almost exactly the size of 7 CDs. In fact those seven counties exceed 7/18 of the state's population by only 67 persons. That sort of minimal deviation to preserve the county boundaries would be easily defensible in court. That seems like a natural place to start the design of a fair map.

Using the precincts in DRA I divided the area up to minimize county splits. Within a split county no two districts split more than one township or Philly ward between them. The maximum deviation is kept under 100 for any of these districts. CD 1 is now the black majority district with 51.0% BVAP and is entirely within Philly.

[muon2]

I don't know if this was noticed before, but the seven SE counties are almost exactly the size of 7 CDs.

My (2nd and 3rd) maps on page 15 use that.

Very good. I assume that if I want to sustain the deviation greater than 1 in those districts, I need to show that I had followed a dictum to keep as many whole counties or districts within a county as possible. Hence our differences in how to split those seven counties. Other than Philly and Montco which must have splits after creating as many districts entirely within, I only split Chester.

In the meantime I've completed the rest of the state based on the principle of county integrity.

I found that six districts fit almost exactly in the western half of the state, plus Tioga and Bradford, form six districts with a deficit of only 372 persons total. Allegheny and Butler together are within 0.3% of two districts. The other four districts are each within 1.4% of the ideal population if rounded to whole counties. Other than Allegheny, only two counties are divided to bring the districts to with 100 persons. As in the SE no more than one township is divided between any two districts.

The remaining five districts in the east would be within 2.8% of the ideal size if rounded to whole counties. Three of the districts (11, 15, and 17) are within 0.9%. Three counties are divided to bring these five districts to with 100 persons, and only one county subdivision is split between any two districts. CD 10 isn't very pretty, but both CD 11 and 15 are very close to exact with the three counties that make up each district and the western division constrains the rest of CD 10.



For those interested in the political breakdown - here are the 2008 stats:

CD 1: Obama 89.9% - 9.7%
CD 2: Obama 79.7% - 19.7%
CD 3: Obama 51.0% - 47.6%
CD 4: McCain 54.9% - 44.1%
CD 5: McCain 55.1% - 43.9%
CD 6: Obama 53.5% - 45.3%
CD 7: Obama 61.4% - 37.7%
CD 8: Obama 53.7% - 45.2%
CD 9: McCain 58.6% - 40.3%
CD 10: McCain 55.7% - 43.0%
CD 11: Obama 57.6% - 41.4%
CD 12: McCain 56.2% - 42.5%
CD 13: Obama 58.8% - 40.3%
CD 14: Obama 64.0% - 35.0%
CD 15: Obama 55.2% - 44.8%
CD 16: McCain 52.1% - 47.1%
CD 17: McCain 53.3% - 45.6%
CD 18: McCain 54.0% - 44.7%

[muon2]

I liked Torie's observation that four districts fit neatly into the western counties. Together they have a deficit of 1,266 people from the ideal. That is within 0.5% and has been allowed by SCOTUS, so I'll use that as a basis elsewhere. I did stick to my plan to keep Butler and Allegheny as two districts since together they are less than 1% off and can be divided to keep each within 0.4% of ideal. That leaves Beaver as the only split county in the west, and should better satisfy Verily's concern.

The SE has a surplus 67 people for the seven districts. I prefer to keep as many whole districts within a large county as possible, so I left my split of Montgomery as before. I did make some minor adjustments to avoid any township split while using up to a 0.5% variation. As before only Chester is the only county under one district to be split. Philly is unchanged from my previous plan which leaves three ward splits there with CD 1 at 51.0% BVAP.

I was able to create a NE grouping of counties that were only 126 persons over the ideal size for three districts. The answer to Al is that Lackawanna and Luzerne would be too big with Carbon and Schuylkill, but match up almost perfectly with Monroe to make one district, short by only 491 persons. Carbon is just slightly too big for Lehigh and Northhampton and was split along township lines to keep CD 10 and 15 both within 0.1%.

The remaining area in the center has four districts and only 1073 extra persons. Two whole groupings of counties can be made into single districts staying less than 0.3% over the ideal size. The remaining area splits only Huntingdon to complete the map with CD 5 and 9 with 0.3% of the ideal size.

[muon2]

But Monroe doesn't fit from a community of interest perspective.

Monroe doesn't fit with much of anything from a CoI perspective.  Gotta put it somewhere...

Also, splitting up coal country is a bad idea. Schuylkill-Columbia-Montour-Northumberland is a pretty clear community of interest, while connecting Dauphin to Schuylkill is artificial and just a continuation of an old gerrymander (not that the Dems could win any nongerrymandered district containing Dauphin--this is a COI determination, not a partisan one).

"Coal country" only extends really to the southern tips of Columbia and Northumberland; most of those counties are hilly farms and Susquehanna river towns, more related to (say) Union County, I would think.  

No reason not to combine that four-county grouping with the other rural areas as well. Sort of like muon's map, except with Northumberland in the NE district and Clinton and Potter in the North-Central district.

I have some other misgivings with muon's map as well (notably, again, in the SW--I'd rather split Westmoreland than separate Greene and Fayette, as eastern and western Westmoreland have not much in common but Greene and Fayette might as well be the same county), but it does fix some of Torie's problems. I like Torie's design of PA-15 and PA-11, and also his internal split of Allegheny County, better than muon's, though.

Monroe is hard to place from a CoI standpoint. It's exurban NYC as much as anything else. I thought my PA-15 and PA-11 were essentially the same as Torie's. The slight boundary shift is due to my attempt to elevate county boundaries as a more important criteria when practical.

I would note that the northern tier of counties now has more in common with the Schuylkill coal fields than a decade ago. Bradford and Tioga are huge areas of shale gas drilling today, so the mineral industry dominates much of the PA-10 I drew.

It seemed to me that the split of Allegheny that you like also created the attachment of Beaver to Butler that you didn't like. I treated Beaver the way you suggested. I think you need an additional CD in SW PA to simultaneously meet your objectives. Unfortunately, that's where the population losses were.

[muon2]

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other. I just don't like the Pittsburgh district going all the way to the Washington and Westmoreland County lines.

So I think I understand that you would prefer a three-way split of Allegheny. The southern part of Allegheny would go with Fayette, Greene, and Washington. The northern part would go with Butler and Armstrong. You didn't seem to like Beaver with Butler; is putting it with Washington, etc. OK?

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I understand that, I was trying to understand why you thought Torie's was better, when it seemed much the same as mine.

[muon2]

Here's a version incorporating Verily's suggestions for western PA. I've also made some adjustments to SE PA.  I still like to rely on whole counties, since that is one of the defensible criteria to allow deviations in excess of one person. CoI is a nebulous criteria and exact population equality would generally be needed.

Here were my criteria and their impact on the map:

Districts are drawn to use whole counties to the extent possible and counties larger than one district have as many whole districts within as possible. The map divides three counties other than the ones that have whole districts within. Within counties no city or township is divided. Within Philly no ward is divided.

Instead of limiting the deviation, I limited the range from the smallest to largest district to be less than 1%. This is from SCOTUS decisions, and note that a 0.5% deviation limit results in a 1% range limit. The population range here is less than 1% (-0.7% to +0.3%) and the mean deviation is 884 persons.

CD 2 is designed to comply with the VRA and is 61.8% BVAP. CD 1 keeps the Hispanic wards together and is 18.8% HVAP and 18.2% BVAP. CD 1 also includes Chinatown and the Asian areas of S Philly with 7.6% AVAP.

[muon2]

Muon, I love how you took my entire Ward and put it in the 8th! It would make the district more Democratic but the other half of the NE part of the district would even it out. Plus, taking the Montco part out of the 8th would probably help the GOP enough so my Ward wouldn't matter.

And it works out that Bucks + Ward 58 + Ward 65 (which one is you?) is just 25 persons over the ideal size. How does the CD 1 / CD 2 split look to an insider like yourself?

[muon2]

Muon, I love how you took my entire Ward and put it in the 8th! It would make the district more Democratic but the other half of the NE part of the district would even it out. Plus, taking the Montco part out of the 8th would probably help the GOP enough so my Ward wouldn't matter.

And it works out that Bucks + Ward 58 + Ward 65 (which one is you?) is just 25 persons over the ideal size. How does the CD 1 / CD 2 split look to an insider like yourself?

That's a very good CD 1 / CD 2 split; Broad Street is as natural a line as any.  I was working on my own whole-counties PA plan (which is unsurprisingly more Dem-friendly than yours) but apparently I can't post it yet because I haven't been here long enough.  I'll get it up eventually.

If you have a link to your image somewhere, I'll be happy to post it. I'll also be interested to see one crafted for the Ds, since I didn't use partisan data to draw my version, it's just based on geography and minority populations.