On Jan. 22, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court deemed the congressional map for 2011 unconstitutional because it believed the map prioritized partisan advantage. The court said the congressional districts needed to be more compact and contiguous, while containing roughly the same number of people. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and the GOP-led legislature were tasked with negotiating a compromise and seeing that no compromise could be made the courts took matters into their own hands.

On Monday, the court released the new congressional map, with new district lines guaranteeing that Democrats will pick up a few seats in the upcoming election. On the new congressional map almost, all districts have been renumbered, meaning that Pennsylvania’s political layout has changed drastically. The court’s majority wrote that the new lines draw from several map proposals submitted by the legislature, the governor and third parties. The courts stated that the new map is superior or similar to the several proposals that were submitted to them.

While understanding that it is necessary to use voter’s political affiliations as a tool to create district lines, using Trump voters as an equivalent to Republican voters is preposterous. The maps should not use Trump voters as an equivalent to Republicans since the 2016 election is incomparable to any election in history.

In 2011, congressional maps were drawn, struck down, edited, resubmitted, approved by the legislature and then approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2012. Media outlets claim that the GOP-run legislature drew the map to give their party an advantage. But if this map had truly been unconstitutional, and this dishonest strategy so clear, then why did 36 Democrats cross party lines when voting in favor of the 2011 map? Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Allegheny), Bob Brady (D-Philadelphia) and Mike Doyle (D-Allegheny County) lobbied other Democrat Rep. to support the 2011 maps.

Why did the Supreme Court decide to deem these maps unconstitutional months prior to an election? These maps have been in use for the last three election cycles. There is a time to challenge the constituency of a map, but four months prior to an election is an obvious power grab. Unlike North Carolina, Pennsylvania Supreme Court explicitly excluded reference to federal law. Since no reference was cited, Justice Samuel Alito was unable to issue a stay. The Pennsylvania Court defied their own order by dividing communities in several districts, specifically the former District 8, now District 1. It is truly obvious that this is a huge political move. It is outlandish that the court even considered splitting up this district. By removing a part of the Indian Valley and replacing it with Landsdale, this gives Democrats an unnecessary 3-5 point lead in the district. Pennsylvania constituents need to fight back against this clear power grab as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has usurped power from the legislature.

Listed below is the political analysis of the new congressional maps written by The Daily Kos.

Safe Democratic Districts: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 18th

Districts 2, 3 and 4 are equivalent to the old 1, 2 and 13, centering around Philadelphia, PA. The new 2nd District is the old 1st District, held by Bob Brady, who is retiring due to scandal-related issues. Thus, Rep. Brendan Boyle, who currently represents the 13th and whose house was drawn into this district, may jump over and decide to run for this one. The PVI switches from D+31 to D+25 which isn’t much of a change and is still safely democratic. The new 3rd District is the old 2nd, represented by Rep. Dwight Evans and it will get a tad bluer, from D+40 to D+41, still one of the bluest CD’s in the country. Expect Evans to still be representing this area next year. Then there’s the new 4th District/old 13th located in Montgomery County, which will go from D+15 to D+20. As previously mentioned, Boyle now no longer resides in this district but since it’s the most similar to his current one, he may just decide to stay here. Either way, this is safely blue.

The big change was the 5th District, which was the old 7th. The old 7th was one of the best gerrymanders out there, snaking through deep blue Delaware County and into more Republican Chester and Berks County. The goal was to cheat the Democrats out of what [LA1] should have been a safe blue seat, turning it into a swing district held by the now-disgraced Rep. Pat Meehan. Every redistricting plan, from the GOP plan to the Democratic plan, knew that the 7th was going to become safely blue in any new map and the court followed through. This new seat, renamed the 5th, is located almost entirely in Delaware County and is a lot tidier looking. Its compactness in a blue area means its PVI swings all the way from R+1 to D+13 and will be the easiest pickup anywhere in the country for the democrats this fall, especially since Meehan has been pushed out over his own creepiness.

Lastly we have the new 18th District, or the old 14th District which is located on the other side of the state, centered on Pittsburgh. It gets a tad redder, from D+17 to D+13, but it is still an easy democratic hold for Rep. Michael Doyle.

Safe Republican Districts: 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th

These are the big and rural districts that blanket the majority of the landmass of the state. First up is the 9th District, which is Lou Barletta’s old 11th District. Barletta is vacating it to run a bad campaign for Senate, and this open seat is getting some changes. The old district cut across a bunch of counties in the eastern half of the state and had an R+10 PVI. This new 9th is more spread out and grabs a lot of Republican areas, ceding its more democratic side to a new competitive district (to be mentioned later). As a result, its new PVI is R+14 and the nature of it as an open seat could make things very interesting (you’ll see later on).

Next is the new 11th District, which is the old 16th. Rep. Lloyd Smucker (all-time great Congressional name) is one of the only Republicans who will be really happy with this map, as his old seat was just R+5, while his new one is R+14. His old seat was a lot of rural GOP turf, along with the democratic cities of Lancaster and Reading and chunks of Chester County in a bizarre “arm flexing” shape. His new seat loses Reading and Chester County and is mostly just Lancaster and a lot of red in the surrounding parts of Lancaster County and York County. Smucker dodged having to run a tough race against a democrat and his place is more secure now.

Now we’re going to go rapid fire through a couple of these. The new 12th is largely the old 10th, encompassing parts of over 15 different counties, most of them fully, in the north-central part of PA. The PVI’s are nearly identical; R+16 vs R+17 ­– Tom Marino will have an easy hold of this region. The new 13th is the old 9th, containing a number of counties in the south-central part of Pennsylvania. Retiring Rep. Bill Shuster’s replacement will have no problem hanging onto this blood red district. The new 15th is the old 5th in northeastern PA, with 12 full counties inside of it and parts of a few others. Very empty and rural turf, the PVI goes from R+13 to R+20 as the liberal college town of State College was taken out, but regardless, a simple hold for Glenn Thompson.

Finally we come to the 14th, which I skipped over for a reason. It is the old 18th District, which has a special election going on very soon. That special election will take place with the old borders and with a PVI of R+11 it is a long shot for democrats, but surprising up-and-comer, Conor Lamb has made it a tight race. The reason it’s even competitive is that that district contains pieces of Allegheny County, a very democratic area and the home of Pittsburgh. This new iteration is redder and even more of a stretch for democrats, going from R+11 to R+14 as that suburban Allegheny area is subbed out for some blood red rural turf. But that doesn’t necessarily mean bad things for democrats, as the suburban area that was taken out was added to a different district that is way more competitive than either of these (see below) and if Lamb is to win the special election, he could run in that new district as a pseudo incumbent, since his house is geographically closer to that swing seat.

Democratic Pickup Opportunities that just got tastier: 1st, 6th, 7th

Prior to this new map, democrats had some clear pickup opportunities in southeastern PA. None were going to be easy, but all were going to be clear openings. Of the main 4, the old 6th, 7th, 8th and 15th, one became safely blue (the aforementioned new 5th/old 7th), while the other three all moved slightly, but potentially decisively, in the democratic direction. The one that remains most similar is the New 1st/Old 8th. The old 8th was unusually tidy for such a messy overall map, being almost solely in purple Bucks County and then grabbing a piece of Republican territory in northern Montgomery County. This new 1st District is very similar, still encompassing Bucks County, but instead grabbing a democratic piece of Montgomery County, which makes the PVI change ever so slightly from R+2 to R+1. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is still going to have a tough battle on his hand and now the playing field got a tiny bit tougher for him.

Then there were key changes in the other two districts. In the 6th district, which is amazingly the only one of the 18 that has the same number as last time, the partisan voting index swung four points, from R+2 all the way to D+2. In the process, it went from a Clinton +1 to a Clinton +10 district and also made it that much harder for Rep. Ryan Costello to hold. The old 6th was ugly, starting in Chester County, snaking into Montgomery County and Berks County but missing Reading, and ending up in Lebanon County. This new 6th sits calmly in Chester County and then grabs Reading out of Berks County, which was very bad news for Costello, given the blue nature of that city. Costello has a decision on his hands. Even though he lives in Chester, because he represented many parts of the new and safely red 9th district, he could probably get away with leaving the 6th open and deciding to run for the 9th instead. If he does that, or retires rather than face a battle where he’s probably an underdog, this seat would become Lean D or worse. It’s a pivotal decision, but not an easy one.

Then we have the new 7th District, also the old 15th. Both versions contain Allentown, but the old one had a long red tail coming off of it, making its PVI R+4 and it a Trump +9 district. The new 7th is much more compact, putting Lehigh and Northampton Counties together and grabbing a blue piece of Monroe County, making its new PVI D+1. With strong incumbent Charlie Dent already retiring, this is a mighty tough hold for Republicans, given that Clinton won this district by 1 point in 2016 and Obama won it by 7 in 2012. Democratic recruiting for the old 15th had been sluggish, but now that it’s that much more favorable, expect it to speed right up. This is going to be an uphill fight for the PA GOP.

One new swing district and two new fringe democratic pickup opportunities: 10th, 16th, 17th

First up in this interesting batch is the new 10th District, which is very different from the old 4th. The old 4th actually touched the Maryland border and only got parts of democratic-leaning Harrisburg. The new 10th gets all of Harrisburg, Hershey, York and Carlisle, which makes the PVI go from R+11 to R+6. The current Representative is Scott Perry and though he lives in Harrisburg, he faces a Costello-like conundrum. Does he stay in his old seat and fight a competitive battle, or does he drop down to a safer red one? His option would be to go to the 11th, but unlike in Costello’s case with the open 9th, the 11th was Smucker’s district, which we already mentioned. The 11th has pieces of the old 4th that Perry held, so again, it wouldn’t quite be carpet bagging. democrats were hoping that if a Harrisburg district was drawn it would include Schuylkill so that ex-Rep. Tim Holden could make a comeback. Even though that didn’t happen, they have another potential hope, State Auditor Eugene DePasquale (also a great name). He won a statewide race in 2016 and did well in the Harrisburg area, which is where he is from. Despite the R lean of the district, if Perry flees or DePasquale gets in, or both, this could be a dark horse democratic pickup option.

This new 16th, a version of the old 3rd, is what’s called a big time reach. Encompassing the Democratic Erie County and a bunch of red counties along the Ohio border, the old version of this was an R+11 CD, while the new one is R+8. That difference could be enough to put in play in the right environment, like say, 2018. Rep. Mike Kelly will presumably run for reelection and should be a clear favorite, but if Erie County Executive and ex-Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper gets involved, perhaps it could come into play.

Lastly we come to the new 17th, or the old 12th, currently represented by Rep. Keith Rothfus. The old version of this district was R+11 and a safe red seat. This new version is a clear swing seat, with just an R+3 PVI. Why? Well, the old version had Beaver County, parts of suburban Pittsburgh and a whole bunch of rural red turf to the east to make sure it was safe Republican. The new district is Beaver County along with suburban Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, with much of that being the part of the old 18th that was subbed out. When I mentioned that Lamb could run as a pseudo-incumbent in a swing seat, I was talking about this one. Whether or not he wins the special election in March, I’d expect Lamb to make a run at Rothfus here. He’s built a strong personal brand in a very red district and running in a much friendlier district, against an incumbent who’s never run a competitive race before, is a very enticing option for Lamb.

That one swing district that’s held by a democrat and will likely still be held by a democrat: 8th

This district was formerly the 17th, represented by Matt Cartwright. It packed democratic voters from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Coolbaugh together in a district with a long Republican tail. That made it an R+1 district. This new 8th has those same areas, but instead of a red tail, it’s just a compact wedge in the northeast corner of the state, encompassing 3 full red counties to balance it out and keep its PVI at…. R+1. Cartwright is a very strong incumbent and no one really considered him vulnerable under the old map and I don’t think anyone will consider him vulnerable under the new map, either.

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