US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[Torie]

Torie, it would be helpful if you'd post the partisan breakdown of the districts in your maps. I can't just look at a map and say "well, that'd be great for the Republicans".

My numbers are all in a matrix chart on the previous page. The map on this page is just switching around voters between PA-16 and PA-09 (well not anymore, I switched out that map (thank God for the "modify" button on this site) for a map that I think is close to final form, but it does not move the numbers all that much, and affects only PA-06, 07, 09, 15 and 16, with each of those listed  CD's getting a higher Pubbie percentage, except PA-15, which drops 3 points to 51-49 Obama). The main benefit of the map, other than giving a booster shot to the map drawer, Congressman Pitts, and his PA-16, is that both Pitts and Platts in PA-09 get much more of their previous voters, and the map "looks" prettier (I put "looks" in quotes, because there is nothing "pretty" in the end about a vicious gerrymander, and that is precisely what I have done, I think).

All of the Pubbie incumbents are quite safe in my map, with Fitzpatrick in PA-08 perhaps on the edge of slipping into a potentially marginal CD, but it is the best one can do, after sweating out each and every precinct, given its geographic location (it is more marginal because it just doesn't have the snap back potential from that Pubbie disaster known as 2008, the way PA-06 and PA-07 do and did).

My trick was to convert PA-17 into a heavy Dem district, from a comfortable Pubbie one, inasmuch as Holden has demonstrated he cannot be defeated with an "efficient" number of Pubbies. It solves a lot of problems at once. The rest was more about squeezing out 1-2 points of PVI where I could, and in this game, I to 2 points means a lot.

And potentially even more than that is at stake, if for the Dem pack in the 3 Philly CD's, you don't work each precinct at the edges hard, one by one. There is no other way. And sometimes by doing that you bag something fairly important, like my cut out of South Philly into PA-07. That one cut out was worth perhaps as two Pubbie points, all of which were desperately needed to pump into PA 06, 07 and 08. So the cut out was huge.

[Torie]

Here is the map I think that is nearing the point of being presentable  enough to ship off to Pitts' office, and whomever other powers that be. I will send off all my final form maps to the powers that be. That is part of the fun of it all. And if the map they pick varies, it will be interesting to see as to why, and if the purpose(s) is(are) self serving, well then the public square will have a chance to call them on it. And that is what makes this really fun.  Get to be as good or better than they are (e.g., and then when they see the map, they say hey, this guy really knows what he is doing, and maybe we should take him seriously. Just go for it; isn't that what makes life worth living?  If you don't go for it, one thing is for sure; nothing will happen, unless stasis, in some existential sense, is in and of itself a "happening."

Although for some CD's it is hard to see (for example PA-16's impingement into York County is new territory), I have with this map shown by shade variation, where the new CD's picked up new territory, and lost old territory.  I did this to emphasize that one important factor to consider is trying to minimize just how many new voters Pubbie incumbents have to deal with. The more new voters, the more voters the incumbent will have to romance from scratch, although it would be of considerable help if the new territory were in the same media market. That is the main reason why I reconfigured PA-16 and PA-09, in order to reduce the amount of new territory each Pubbie incumbent acquired.

I will put up the new stats matrix chart when I have processed the exact numbers on my spread sheet. But I quite happy with them. [Addendum; stats now added.]

[Torie]

I wonder why this housing tract, not far from Phil's pad in NE Philly, voted 2-1 for McCain, making it a Philly precinct that is way off at the end of the Pubbie side of the tail of Philly's partisan bell curve of its precincts - way at the end. It does not look that different from some other precincts in the area, which like this one are all single family houses of about this SES niche.  Is it because it is right next to a Catholic Church and school, and these folks like to go to church a lot, and send their kids to Catholic school, which tends to be a  Pubbie parameter these days?

[Torie]

Well as expected, with better intra county Allegheny County population figures now available, PA-14 needed about 23,000 more people, so its NW tentacle continued another fifty miles NNW to pick up about 10 mostly 70% plus precincts in New Castle, helping PA-18, which was further helped by making up its loss of the New Castle Obama precincts with some marginally to comfortable McCain precincts in Allegheny from PA-04.  PA-03 had to drop most of one Butler County township,making it a tad more Dem.

In Indiana, the old city of Indianapolis suffered some rather major population losses, so IN-07 now takes in almost all of Monroe County, booting IN-08 from it entirely. The Indiana map underwent rather substantial changes. I will put that up on the Indiana thread later.

[Torie]

There is plenty of interesting gossip in this discussion, much of it different from speculation we've made before.

http://www.politicspa.com/exclusive-pa%E2%80%99s-gop-congessional-delegation-coming-to-harrisburg-to-discuss-redistricting-scenarios/22138/

Critz is protected because neighboring Republicans don't want more Dem voters... but Altmire's district could be made more Republican without being dismantled. (So how do they account for lost population in the west?)

Merging Schwartz and Fattah is discussed. Maybe this is what KP was alluding to?

No Republican votes wasted on shoring up Barletta. He sinks or swims on his own.  

Per reading the article, it doesn't make the slightest sense to me, and the numbers don't work. They must be on crack. And how do you make Critz safe, even if you wanted to? They must be on crack, or the reporter is being fed a line of disinformation. And combine Fattah and Swartz, while protecting all the Philly area Pubbies?  Ya right. As I said, they are on crack. The idea of endangering (well it can't be done but whatever) PA's only black congressperson is itself very curious - and probably illegal.

[Torie]

And how do you make Critz safe, even if you wanted to?

It doesn't say they want to make Critz safe, only that they're not really going after him and thinking of putting Altmire's Dem voters into either Doyle's or his district. Doyle would be the more geographically natural choice, but playing around on the app you can create an even weirder PA-12 that drops non-river-valley Greene and Fayette and gets another tentacle up to New Castle, and it's about 49-49 like now while getting rid of Altmire.

I don't think it's crazy for the GOP to be cautious and not go after both Altmire and Critz. For Pittsburgh suburbia+rural ex-coal & steel to be a safe seat you have to rely on the continuation of the current situation where class politics are simultaneously important enough that Pittsburgh suburbia hasn't gone the way of Philly suburbia but still unimportant enough that ex-coal & steel is at historically low levels for the Dems. A delicate balance.

As far as your actual quoted question goes, it would be pretty easy to bring Critz up the Monongohela to places like Clairton, Braddock and eastern Pittsburgh and split the difference with Doyle at about D+9, but this is obviously purely hypothetical with the Dems not in control.

Having actually drawn the map, given the population shifts, Critz is gone period (it lost population big time and is surrounded by uber GOP territory, and Altmire already has a heavily GOP district. I put all the Dems I could into the Doyle district, reaching about 100 miles in one instance up a river picking up Democrats living in little old houses on the rivers next to cold steel mills. There really are not very many Democratic precincts left to pack into PA-14. Altmire has a few marginal precincts, but the rest are GOP to varying proportions. And by the way if Critz is kept in some alternative universe, what happens to Shuster?  I mean, basically 3/4 of a CD was lost in West PA. Somebody has to go. If not Critz, who?

In short, if you actually do the map, you then know just how nonsensical this all is. The one thing that caught my eye, was leaving Barletta with a pretty heavily blue collar and Dem white CD, suggesting that Holden in PA-17 would still have a pretty GOP district, which makes some sense, but Holden won't be beat, so it will just keep him a blue dog, and probably flip to the GOP if he gets another job someday. I will play with an alternative map doing that. It is not what I would do, but it is a reasonable alternative. None of the rest is reasonable - at all.

[Torie]

Well psephology fans, here is a redraw, designed to screw Barletta in PA-11 and make Holden's life in PA-17 more difficult, which also substantially affects PA-15. It uses non final population numbers, but the basic outline should hold even with some population adjustments, which should be pretty minor, since the county splits involving these three CD's are rather limited vis a vis the population subject to being moved from one CD to another.

First, the map is even more butt ugly than my gerrymander, which I consider far more efficient. Second, unfortunately, by screwing Barletta, one also hurts Dent in PA-15, because PA-17 in my draw picked up a bunch of heavily Dem precincts in both PA-11 and 15, and for PA-17 to get to the Dem precincts in PA-15 it needs to go through PA-11, and so both CD's must take their Dem precincts back. So both PA-15 and PA-11 are now about 54% Obama (i.e. marginal, but safe enough probably for Dent and Barletta (but only perhaps in the latter case, if Barletta's anti illegals thing has legs), while PA-17 becomes 53% McCain, a couple of points more Pubbie than the old PA-17.  With Holden having so much new GOP territory, and losing some of his heavily GOP precincts in Schuylkill to PA-15, he might have a tough time, and his CD will go Pubbie probably if he retires).

So maybe the GOP picks up another seat (PA-17), but it will be at the expense of making two new marginal seats that were pretty safe GOP in my map, while whether or not Holden goes down, becomes a 50-50 proposition perhaps. It may be a pretty good short term bet, but may prove costly in the longer run. It all depends on your time horizon, and who retires when, and whether or not somewhat lower SES  Anglos (particularly Catholic ones outside Appalachia) remain longer term estranged from the Dems. I would not do it, but yes, it might be done.

The key may be Dent. He loses a lot of his old territory in my plan, and he might prefer more familiar ground, which he has proved more than capable of holding. His CD becomes a little more than a point more GOP than his existing CD in any event, while PA-11 becomes about 4 points more GOP from the map currently in place (PA-10 picking up those Dem precincts, and PA-11 needing quite a bit of more territory, was what gave it its still rather substantial GOP shove - an option not nearly as available for PA-15, since it is more trapped by geography).

So we give back to PA-11 and PA-15 their old territory, and then with the need for more population (with PA-11 losing a few heavily Dem precincts to PA-10, which loss I keep in place), they move west, with PA-15 in particular cherry picking the most heavily GOP precincts along north and south of the Schuylkill-Berks County line. PA-11 sort of does the same, but is forced to go to the northern edges of the available territory, but that area is all quite heavily GOP anyway.

Would anyone pick this alternative for the GOP who wanted what was best for them, in lieu of my map version on this forum?  If so, sound up, and explain why. Thanks.

[Torie]

No one is specifically saying to screw Barletta, just that the Republicans are saying he's not worth trying to shore up. Though adding one of the cities from his district to Holden's seat is an idea that I suppose could be tried.

"Not shoring up" = "screw" in Toriespeak here. It's shorter. Anyway, it turned out that the swiving he got was not so bad. He's a lucky boy that so many folks in his neck of the woods are getting the hell out of Dodge, forcing the CD into the uber GOP parts of "The T."  Scranton/Wilkes Barre just isn't where it's at these days.

[Torie]

Oh I see. Sure, you could pump up the Pubbie CD's in Western PA to astronomical levels, get rid of a GOP CD that a very moderate Dem holds, and then give Critz per the very inefficient PA-14 gerry, some heavily Dem precincts that actually belong in PA-14. 

Yes, it can be done, but it's insane from any point of view which is interested in pushing public policy towards a GOP point of view. You get rid of a smarter and more moderate Dem, for a much dumber and somewhat less moderate Dem, tied to the hip to the unions, unlike Altmire. And the Critz CD become basically a real Dem CD, pushing Critz probably into mainstream Dem territory, as opposed to a GOP CD held by a very competent and moderate Dem, who knows he is walking on eggshells, and can be useful to add bi-partisan coloration to things.

If the map is remotely like this, in short, I will vomit. Thanks for sharing! 

[Torie]

Yes, and  PA-03 without Butler becomes a marginal to lean Dem CD. That is another little problem with the mappie.

[Torie]

This is basically my map! They did give away a Pubbie point or point and a half around Pittsburg, and maybe a total of 3-4 points away in the Philly area by canning my little erosities, but other than it's all mine baby.   However, that loss of points makes PA-07 a very marginal seat; it might be hard to hold. And PA-08 slips into the lean GOP but marginal zone. In this range, every Pubbie point gained is pure gold.

Well one other major and dumb difference, is they over-pubbied the south central zone by cutting out Harrisburg (which I chopped up between 3 CD's), by leaving it in OH-17 still, so that OH-17 was not able to suck up as many Dem precincts as it should in the Scranton and so forth zone. They also should have gobbled up the half of Schuylkill which is more than 60% McCain, rather than just wasting those Pubbies by leaving them in uber Dem OH-17 as redrawn. What a waste that was! Maybe they did that to try to help Holden survive a primary, and continue to be something of a blue dog. Who knows?

Oh, and they didn't do my rather brilliant cut out I think of South Philly. I need to get my map over to Wasserman ASAP.

[Torie]

I think that map is just Cook Political's prediction, not the real thing. 

But yeah, there are some clear inefficiencies, from the GOP point of view.  As mentioned before, I'd give Reading to Holden rather than Harrisburg, plus more of Monroe County.  And why not liberate some of the heavily McCain precincts in Schuylkill County, while you're at it? 

In the west, Doyle could be packed more, and CD5/12 are unnecessarily strong GOP.   

Well, the article said the map came closer to the real thing than anything they saw so far, so I guess it could be that in fact, the real thing is my map (), because well, it is the most efficient thing. It just is. And for something this marginal, as I say squeezing out that last 5 Pubbie points  pays very high dividends at the margin. It would be a shame to lose them.

[Torie]

The 3 Dem districts I drew are basically the max Dem pack*, assuming Bucks and Lancaster are inviolate.  I just manipulated the boundaries between the three Dem districts for gits and shiggles.    

(And I'm not sure what you mean by "get rid of 2 black districts".  There is one majority black district and one plurality black district in this map, just like there is now.)  

In any case, that's not really the point; I was really just trying to see what Gerlach and Meehan could get assuming that the GOP doesn't have to worry about Reading any more.  Basically, the answer is that Meehan probably won't be able to get a McCain district unless you break up Lancaster County.  

*: barring Meehan's district making a raid into south Philly via a runway-width strip through PHL airport.

Your Dem pack left about 3-4 points on the table, which the Pubbies cannot afford to lose in the Philly area. Only my map, or something close to it, can get the job done.

[Torie]

How are you calculating that, Torie?  What additional Dem areas would you add to the pack, and in exchange for what (besides the handful of 50-50 precincts in south Philly)?  (Remember that I'm assuming Bucks stays whole.)

Look at my map. Bucks will not be kept whole. That I promise you. It wasn't last time (it dipped in Philly, and Montco and Philly dipped into it, in a back and forth exchange. The lines will be erose - just the way I drew them in that neck of the woods. Otherwise, an incumbent Pubbie or two will be ripe hanging fruit, and that is just not going to happen. What you do, is shove the Dems in the Philly metro area, here and there, in what is effectively the importation of Pubbies from the hinterland, into the Philly metro area, in a game of dominoes, that starts all the way about 85 miles east of Harrisburg in Chambersville, and areas north, and moves east. It is kind of like playing dominoes.

[Torie]

Yes, you are right. I thought there was one PA-13 jut into Bucks, but alas not. There were some erose Bucks juts into Montco and Philly. But that was done for population reasons, and this ludicrous Pubbie goal of trying to make PA-13 into a competitive CD. It had nothing to do with the Bucks line being like some magic Maginot Line. Anyway, if that is your constraint so be it; go for it. But if it is a PA Pubbie constraint, than PA Pubbies are dumber than a box of rocks, and I will let the world Pubbie world know about it.

[Torie]

Here's an article about the pending redistricting in Pennsylvania. Pitts is loath to give up any of his safe district to help out Gerlach or Meehan.

I suspect that he will be forced to.  He should retire anyway.  What has he ever done to make a contribution to the public square?  Pitts strikes me as a back bencher beta in it for the lavish pension benefits.

[Torie]

The city of Lancaster is totally different in every way from the countryside.  They represent two totally different worlds. And the city is heavily Dem I might add.  So I don't consider the county "cohesive" myself. 

[Torie]

I don't see why the Democrats would care about keeping Lancaster and York counties together since it just results in a lot of wasted Democratic votes in the cities proper. See my map above. The Democrats could easily put those votes to use.

For the same reason that the GOP isn't going to dump lower Bucks into Schwartz's district, or crack the Lehigh Valley.  To answer Torie's post, demographically Lancaster city and county are now different, but economically and historically they are very much one unit. 

What reason is that again?

[Torie]

That is all a bit too abstract to me.  The idea is to defeat the opposition and maximize your influence in the public square. The two parties are at war with each other, and seem to agree on next to nothing these days.  All of this regional stuff is just so yesterday.  Surely the political class has got that memo by now I would think, unless they're totally obtuse.

[Torie]

Rumors that Republican bits of North Allegheny will go into Tim Murphy's district, making a combined PA-4/PA-12 easier for Altmire to win.

http://www.politicspa.com/redistricting-watch-pittsburgh’s-north-hills-may-not-end-up-in-the-4th-district/27501/

I wonder if his district is then going to end up even uglier than the current PA-12, going from the Ohio border to Johnstown and then back under PA-18 to the SW corner of the state.

The Pubs just don't seem to buy my idea that having a moderate Dem represent a GOP leaning (not but rock solid GOP) CD, is actually quite a useful exercise do they?    I mean, if the Dem gets too far out of the zone, then he can be replaced by a Pubbie, so the dude is leashed. The alternative is to have an unleashed Dem, by over-Pubbieing CD's of GOP incumbents. Dumb, dumb.

[Torie]

13 Dem CD's, all at least 58% Obama. I win sbane.  

And PA-16 still goes to Reading - Reading is just appended to a different landscape.   And isn't PA-13 nice and compact?  LOL. Oh, PA-03 is "only" 56.6% Obama. My bad. It could potentially be shoved up about half a point by thinning out the snakes, and elongated the one jutting towards Pittsburg to pick up a few precincts there, but that is about it. PA-11 is 59.1% Obama, so it could give up half a point. Of course, in an uber GOP wave, the Dems would lose most everything, but PA-01 and PA-02. They are the only two CD over 60% Obama (PA-01 is 62.2% Obama), with PA-02 still majority black VAP, so in a GOP tsunami, PA-02 will hold no matter what.

[Torie]

Torie, your light green Bucks county district that snakes from lower Bucks to upper Bucks is certainly interesting.  

Which number is the light blue one that makes up most of Bucks county then weaves its way through Northeast Philly into North Philly? What are the Obama-McCain numbers, too? Surely an Obama district since you picked up North Philly. That district, along with the other Bucks district, would certainly be one of the more polarized districts in the state (and the country) considering the demographics.

Phil, the numbers have not changed for the light blue (cyan), and lime green CD's, PA-08 and PA-15 respectively. The population is off a tad for PA-08 (and PA-10), but for this fun little exercise it was just too much work to fix it, since it would require minor shifts in 4 CD's to get it done. Do you like the lines in my PA-03 CD?

[Torie]

Torie, your light green Bucks county district that snakes from lower Bucks to upper Bucks is certainly interesting.  

Which number is the light blue one that makes up most of Bucks county then weaves its way through Northeast Philly into North Philly? What are the Obama-McCain numbers, too? Surely an Obama district since you picked up North Philly. That district, along with the other Bucks district, would certainly be one of the more polarized districts in the state (and the country) considering the demographics.

Phil, the numbers have not changed for the light blue (cyan), and lime green CD's, PA-08 and PA-15 respectively.

I didn't know how you were numbering them. Those numbers are brutal.

Which one is PA 3 on your map?

The Erie seat. I put up the population legend, so you can tell the numbers from the color code (except that I have two cyan CD's - Erie is the second one in addition to PA-08). The lines of PA-03 are my piece de resistance. It "should" probably jut some more into Pittsburg to up its Obama percentage a bit, while thinning the snake out to beautiful downtown Johnstown. It is still within reach of the Pubbies (barely), and we can't have that!  

[Torie]

Why are you doing such ridiculous Democratic gerrymanders? 

It was because of a little bet that I made with Sbane, that his Dem gerry was for pussies. Mine is a man chop; his is for girly men.

[Torie]

Who controlled PA's redistricting in 2000? Did either party have a trifecta or was it divided?

The Pubs controlled it. They didn't do a very good job. They screwed up PA-13 and PA-17 - for starters.