US House Redistricting: Maryland

[Dgov]

They will likely add parts of Annapolis into Harris' district.  This will net roughly an extra 30,000 Democrats into the district and they will also likely put more conservative parts of the district into Congressman Ruppersberger's district.  I spoke to many delegates and many state Senators who plan to pursue this idea.

heck, they might just drag part of his district into SE Baltimore if they want to get it closer to 50/50.  The only problem with that however is that the Democrats already have 3 incumbents in the Baltimore area, which means you'd have to draw some ugly fingering in order to make to population totals work.

[Dgov]

They will likely add parts of Annapolis into Harris' district.  This will net roughly an extra 30,000 Democrats into the district and they will also likely put more conservative parts of the district into Congressman Ruppersberger's district.  I spoke to many delegates and many state Senators who plan to pursue this idea.

heck, they might just drag part of his district into SE Baltimore if they want to get it closer to 50/50.  The only problem with that however is that the Democrats already have 3 incumbents in the Baltimore area, which means you'd have to draw some ugly fingering in order to make to population totals work.

There are some fears that may potentially weaken Democratic incumbents however.

Not really.  You can draw the 6th as a 63-64% McCain district, and that makes the rest of the state like 67% Obama or something, which leaves plenty of Democratic voters to shore up the 2nd and 3rd districts.  In fact, such a map would probably leave them considerably safer as it would drag the 3rd into the outer DC Suburbs as opposed to the Conservative Baltimore ones.

[Dgov]

You can dilute Van Hollen's seat without causing too much trouble. It's now a bit over-packed with Democrats because it was designed to oust liberal Republican Connie Morella. The old seat was like a D+10, and Van Hollen would have no problem in such a seat now.

An 8-0 map seems a bit too risky to me, even though the MD Dems would probably love to retaliate for the PA and NC GOP gerrymandering that is coming up.  There's just too big a chance of 3 or 4 of them going down in a GOP wave that hits MD.  You would put the white Dems in the Baltimore area under a lot of stress.  I am simply arguing that they would do better to get a 7th D seat from western MD than from the Eastern Shore.

Why?  The Eastern Shore is far less Republican than the Panhandle, and putting Carrol County into a Democratic-district would be a waste of Liberal Votes.  You can Draw a 1st District that takes the Eastern Shore (up to Cecil County), Annapolis, and some White parts of Baltimore and wind up with a district that's about 55% Obama and shouldn't be hard for an Eastern-Shore Democrat to hold.  Every other District is at least 64% Democrat aside from the 6th, which takes the Panhandle (minus Hagerstown and Frederick), Carrol County, the Northern part of Baltimore county, Hartford, and Cecil, and is 63% McCain.

The 7th takes most of Baltimore, along with some Northern and Eastern Suburbs, and is 58% Black, the 4th takes inner PGC, along with Charles, Calvert, and most of St. Mary's (Hoyer lives in the northern part of St. Mary's) and is 57% Black.

[Dgov]

I love how you pretend as if the 4th or the 7th aren't gerrymandered.

A fair map would probably result in a 5-2-1 map.

Actually it would probably be 4-2-2.  The Democrats would have 2 uber-safe Seats in baltimore and PGC, 2 safe seats in Montgomery and Howard County +Rest of Montgomery/PGC.  The Republicans would have 2 Safe Seats in the Eastern Shore and the Western panhandle.

There would probably be two swing seats: 1 around the Baltimore Suburbs (Republican or Democratic leaning depending on where the baltimore proper districts grabs its extra 100,000 people) and one like the current 5th but with the PGC county part cut out in favor of Central/Northern Anne Arundel county.

Its important to remember that the Democrat's strength in Maryland comes mostly from running up huge margins in Baltimore and PGC rather than a geographically wide base of support--its possible to draw a map with 5 not-really-ugly McCain districts if you pack the Democrats well enough.  A "Fair" map will be more beneficial to the Republicans than the Statewide numbers suggest.