US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Somewhere, Perzel is jealous.


That probably screws Dent over and Meehan.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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. 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.

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

Didn't I say Perzel was jealous.

Can ask you experts a question? When I play around with the app, the partisan data for the entire distirct I draw becomes unreadable as the number of minorities is increased (the partisan data is shooved off the end of the info bar with all the district's demographic numbers). Expanding the page doesn't fix it either. How can I fix this?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

As I said, I had trouble reading the party data when the districts got diverse, probably a browser error.

I wiped out the 12th. Not sure if Critz ended up in Murphy or Shuster's district but I would want him to be in the district with Shuster. I stretched both PA 10 and PA 11 Westward in the wake of Thompson's which shifts all the way down to Westmoreland county now. Pitts, Platts, and Shuster shift Westward slightly as well. Shuster includes Northern Cambria, including Johnstown. The new Tim Murphy seat includes all of Washington and Green Counties, northern Alleghenny, The Western third of Westmoreland, and a sliver of Fayette (the rest is in Shuster's). The 10th includes more then half of Tioga, and Lycoming, and all of Union and Snyder. The 11th goes all the way to Southern Northumberland, Columbia and Montour as well as including parts of Schuylkill, Carbon and Monroe. Again, can't read the data but I would assume its more Republican then it is now, not sure if its enough to keep Barletta secure. I did keep Scranton out of the 10th so the 10th shouldn't be much different politically.

If the 12th is the district that is removed, does stretching those two Westward in the wake of that help solve the problem of keeping three GOP seats in NE PA? I hope Barletta votes like Fred Upton. If this worked like I think it did, then keeping the three (should Dent, Barletta and Marino win) isn't as impossible as Mr Phips said it would be. However, as I can't read the cummulatvie partisan data of the completed districts (is that a browser issue, maybe?). I think the 10th has 115,000 Obama Votes and the 11th 135,000 in the map I drew.. That's as much as I can read on them. My new Dent district is 127,000 obama votes.

The Philly districts are messed up. The seventh is probably two Democratic (215,000 Obama votes, and the Bucks district is at 196,000). The Philly area is above my pay grade. Of course simultaneously trying to gerrymander the state and renumber in and east-west makes it kind of confusing.


Here's the screenshots of the map I made
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2523/pa18districteast.png
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/7256/pa18districtwest.png

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

As I said, I had trouble reading the party data when the districts got diverse, probably a browser error.

I wiped out the 12th. Not sure if Critz ended up in Murphy or Shuster's district but I would want him to be in the district with Shuster. I stretched both PA 10 and PA 11 Westward in the wake of Thompson's which shifts all the way down to Westmoreland county now. Pitts, Platts, and Shuster shift Westward slightly as well. Shuster includes Northern Cambria, including Johnstown. The new Tim Murphy seat includes all of Washington and Green Counties, northern Alleghenny, The Western third of Westmoreland, and a sliver of Fayette (the rest is in Shuster's). The 10th includes more then half of Tioga, and Lycoming, and all of Union and Snyder. The 11th goes all the way to Southern Northumberland, Columbia and Montour as well as including parts of Schuylkill, Carbon and Monroe. Again, can't read the data but I would assume its more Republican then it is now, not sure if its enough to keep Barletta secure. I did keep Scranton out of the 10th so the 10th shouldn't be much different politically.

If the 12th is the district that is removed, does stretching those two Westward in the wake of that help solve the problem of keeping three GOP seats in NE PA? I hope Barletta votes like Fred Upton. If this worked like I think it did, then keeping the three (should Dent, Barletta and Marino win) isn't as impossible as Mr Phips said it would be. However, as I can't read the cummulatvie partisan data of the completed districts (is that a browser issue, maybe?). I think the 10th has 115,000 Obama Votes and the 11th 135,000 in the map I drew.. That's as much as I can read on them. My new Dent district is 127,000 obama votes.

The Philly districts are messed up. The seventh is probably two Democratic (215,000 Obama votes, and the Bucks district is at 196,000). The Philly area is above my pay grade. Of course simultaneously trying to gerrymander the state and renumber in and east-west makes it kind of confusing.


Here's the screenshots of the map I made
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2523/pa18districteast.png
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/7256/pa18districtwest.png

The PA-11 you drew would still be about 55%-45% Obama and 51%-49% Kerry, enough to sink Barletta against someone like Pat Casey in 2012.  

Republicans are going to have to conceed a Scranton based district to Democrats unless they want a map where Democrats could potentially gain all three NE seats in the next good Dem year.  

Your PA-15 actual is identical to the district that Republicans destroyed in 2001 to get rid of Democrat Frank Mascara.  It voted for Gore and only barely went for Bush in 2004, although it probably went for McCain by a slightly larger margin.  Critz might just move there and run, since it is historically very Democratic and Murphy isnt well known in the Greene or Fayette county parts(which are represented by Critz as well as parts of Washington county).

Not really, in reference to all three being lost. Without Scranton, I don't see how PA-10 would be lost if it doesn't include Scranton (and Marino wins this year). It took a scandal and a wave to defeat the last Republican in that seat. Yea Marino might not be the strongest but it would still be a pretty safe seat and I doubt the Dems would even bother to challenge it in that case.

PA-11 is going to be blood bath for quite some time. The goal is not to make Barletta safe but to give him a fighting chance in that district. He can win and that's what matters. But no one is seriously talking about putting him in a McCain seat. I wouldn't want to put Scranton in the tenth. The tenth is a far more Republican district and if Carney wins we have numerous other strong candidates to throw against him in 2012 and would have much better chances then Barletta does without Scranton. Stretching the district westward to make up for population loss, adds several rural and small town areas that Barletta will be very appealing in and it dilutes the Scranton vote. I don't see it being as Democratic as it is now and even if only 1% or 2% more Republican it provides a large potential base for Barletta to rely on.  Dent survives in a Dem district that also narrowly voted for Kerry. If Barletta can't survive in a 50-50 year in that district without destroying a safe GOP seat and making it a swing district and only making his seat a few points more GOP. Then screw him and Let him lose in 2012.

The key to PA-15 I created (which you right, it is basically the old Mascara seat) is that it is getting more Republican. Obama will be atop the ticket in 2012 and I suspect that Critz would have a hard time against Murphy, considering that. Don't forget that Burns was a bad candidate on multiple levels as well, whereas Murphy isn't, as far as I know.

You are going to need to gamble somewhat. The GOP didn't expect Holden to win in 2002, but he did. There is no such thing as a "safe gerrymander". The goal is to minimize risk, but it still has to be taken.

You are also worrying about a bad year, how often do they occur? Very infrequently. So we should just give up on two or three GOPers now in case that occurs in the next decade.  

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Holden could never win a Dem primary in the new CD-12. He would run in the district that his home was put into. CD-s 6, 8 10, 11 and 15 all need to be made more GOP. Those numbers just are not going to hold up very well. Maybe the GOP needs to give up another seat in the northeast.

Ten only needs to change if it needs population. The Dems would be hard pressed to get that seat back as currently drawn. It took a wave, and a scandal to disolodge an incumbent and then by only 6%. Marino may not be a strong campaigner, but as long as the district remains as it is now, he is safe.

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.

I tried last night to draw a Lancaster and York district while maintaining my strategy every else. Talk about impossible. And it screws up Holden's district leaving it short on people which then messes up my plan for the 11th and 15th. Of course I was almost done when I realized I had used the old population data. Still, keeping the two separate is impossible without messing up both the delicate situation in the SE and NE. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

D'oh!  I just assumed that OF COURSE the Lancaster Cty rep would live in Lancaster County.  I checked almost everyone else but him.  I kind of wonder if he couldn't have been given a good fight by a strong Lancaster Cty Democrat.  I suppose such creatures might not exist in real life.  

Anyhow, it's an easy tweak to add Kennett Square and West Chester back to Pitts's district in exchange for Gerlach regaining his Reading wards.  Everything stays the same partisan balance, and Pitts has basically his exact same district, minus a few Republican areas of Chester County.  He shouldn't complain.  

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I wouldn't concede a district just because there's a strong candidate on the other side.  Shift the district by 4 points and he only wins by 3 this year, against a lackluster candidate; I think the GOP has a reasonable shot at him and there's always the chance he leaves the seat open for one reason or another.  (And Marino is stuck no matter what - he'll face Thompson in a primary if you stick Williamsport in CD5.)  

By the way, the new CD17 on my map is actually a pretty coherent district if you ignore the finger out to Luzerne County - the upper Susquehanna Valley (Union, Snyder, Northumberland, Montour, Columbia, and lower Lycoming) is generally thought of as constituting a region of sorts.  

Critz would have lost by 8-10 this year had he run in the new Somerset district.  It's 5-6 points more Republican than his district is now, plus it doesn't have his Johnstown base.  What am I missing?  

Chopping up the current tenth isn't a wise approach. Its currently a strong Republican seat and the GOP has no shortage of candidates that could hold that seat or "slightly less GOP" seat for decades. I see no reason to eliminate it and force Marino into a race with Holden.

My suggestion would be to use the 13 and have it take in as much of the heavily Dem areas in the SE as possible. My last map (I didn't post this one) had it stretching from NJ border through lower Bucks, taking in the heavily Dem areas of North philly and giving the Republcian/marginal ones to the 8th, then taking the 13th up through Montco and then running a tiny sliver of the district into lower Delco's Dem areas that I couldn't put into the first. I replaced whatever remaining population is needed for the 8th with GOP areas in Northern Montco. Bucks remains almost entirely intact, except for a line parralleling the Delaware to NJ that is in the 13th. I realize Fitz lives in Levittown but, he can 1) move, or 2) PA doesn't require Reps to live in the districts, I don't beleive. Ugly gerrymander I know, but it secures the 8th considerably and the 7th somewhat.

The seventh district is the rest of Delco, and parts of Chester and Montco. I am still refining this area and not being able to tell cummulative partisan data of diverse districts in the app is annoying. The sixth is 2/3's of Chester, northern Montco and Southern Berks.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Chopping up the current tenth isn't a wise approach. Its currently a strong Republican seat and the GOP has no shortage of candidates that could hold that seat or "slightly less GOP" seat for decades. I see no reason to eliminate it and force Marino into a race with Holden.

My suggestion would be to use the 13 and have it take in as much of the heavily Dem areas in the SE as possible. My last map (I didn't post this one) had it stretching from NJ border through lower Bucks, taking in the heavily Dem areas of North philly and giving the Republcian/marginal ones to the 8th, then taking the 13th up through Montco and then running a tiny sliver of the district into lower Delco's Dem areas that I couldn't put into the first. I replaced whatever remaining population is needed for the 8th with GOP areas in Northern Montco. Bucks remains almost entirely intact, except for a line parralleling the Delaware to NJ that is in the 13th. I realize Fitz lives in Levittown but, he can 1) move, or 2) PA doesn't require Reps to live in the districts, I don't beleive. Ugly gerrymander I know, but it secures the 8th considerably and the 7th somewhat.

The seventh district is the rest of Delco, and parts of Chester and Montco. I am still refining this area and not being able to tell cummulative partisan data of diverse districts in the app is annoying. The sixth is 2/3's of Chester, northern Montco and Southern Berks.

Yeah, if one were inclined to chop up Bucks then that's what you'd do.  I don't think it gains as much as one would think initially, however - every area added to the 13th has to be matched by another area going back to the 8th or 7th, and pretty much every ward in the 13th is 60+% Obama already.  Plus most the tilting-red areas of NE Philly would then be cut off and have to go in the 13th. 

Re: chopping the 10th, this is just semantics.  You could call the pink district the 10th (and it's just as strongly Republican) and then it's Holden's 17th that "disappears".  You have to put Holden *somewhere*, and better there than in Dent's or Gerlach's.  I suppose you could try shoving him into Barletta's.  Then Marino is safe but Barletta is a likely goner.  I suspect the GOP thinks of Barletta as more valuable - GOP candidates who can win the 10th are a dime a dozen, but ones who can win Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are rare. 

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre is a tough, tough district, I will grant that. A lot will depend on how Barletta votes and how entrenched he can become there.

I think it would be best to Holden where he is with his own district. Throwing him in with any Republican is asking for trouble, and most Republicans should have learned from what happened to Gekas, that it is best to just wait out Holden's retirement.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Critz would have lost by 8-10 this year had he run in the new Somerset district.  It's 5-6 points more Republican than his district is now, plus it doesn't have his Johnstown base.  What am I missing?  

Fayette, Greene, and those sections of Washington and Westmoreland Counties in the district are heavily Democratic in registration.  In even a neutral year, they will go Democratic.

You could drive PA-4 down the Monogehala and into Fayette and Green Counties and combine it with PA 12.  Think of a J on top of a T.

Murrysville, could go into PA-18, if needed.  The northern tier of Westmoreland, possibly all of Armstrong and Indian Counties would go into PA-4 and that could extend along the Comemagh River into Johnstown.

Hempfield, Unity (part) and South Huntington Townships and Greensburg (and the enclaves) would go into PA-4.  Ligonier would go into PA-9.

Most of Washington Fayette and all of Green would go into PA-4 (with the remainder in PA-14.

PA-18 would skirt Pittsburgh in the north.

(I still think it's better to slice up Montco like a loaf of bread.)

Why do you insist on messing up the quotations like that. Now it looks like I said that stuff about Somerset when a clicking on the link reveals I didn't? It was dpmapper who said that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Torie, that spot by Monroeville appears to be completely cut off from the rest of the district, can you do that?

I can do anything, because I am a lawyer, and rules are for other people.



I did notice that I trapped one precinct elsewhere by accident (erose maps are hard to see when the "fits" are so tight, kind of like really satisfying sex). I have fixed that.

Meanwhile, in other news, having now drawn one more CD, CD-12, the infamous Critz CD, that CD is now 56% McCain, even though Critz has all of his beloved Johnstown. Shuster may not like it, but then I don't like Shuster much. Bud is kind of a useless drone earmarking porker type. It will be good to make him sweat a bit.

Like father like son.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Sacrifice four Republican congressman, if not more, just to fail at getting rid of Schwartz? And why get rid of Schwartz? She is a better person to face statewide then Altmire or Critz.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He probably wanted to say "kook" for crazy.

Cock also would work for those militantly anti whoever we are discussing and with no problems using such language.

There are those who do think that everyone that disagrees with them is a "crook". I have seen various liberals do so with conservatives on here.

Cook might be a Freudian slip, perhaps he was extremely hungry when he made the post.


If they are going to mess with Schwartz, they should do so without harming the Republican held districts. Since there isn't much that realistically can be done to take her out, such a cautious approach should be followed.