EXCLUSIVE ANALYSIS: New Congressional Map Gives Democrats An Edge

Elections have consequences.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party realized this in 2010, when they swept the Gubernatorial and legislative races, giving them absolute power to draw the new district maps after the census was complete.

Their only problem was that five years later they forgot how they got to the top and let their guard down. Democrats came out of election night 2015 with three new State Supreme Court Justices that tipped the balance of the scales and gave them the majority.

Now, after a long and intense legal battle, the state Supreme Court has redrawn Pennsylvania’s Congressional map. The 2010 version was considered by many to be an extreme example of Republican gerrymandering. On the other hand, experts unanimously categorize this new map as highly advantageous to Democrats.

This shift extends to PA-8, or should I say PA-1. While the new Congressional District retains all of Bucks County, it’s the Montgomery County portion that could change everything. The simplest way to illustrate this is to look at the Montco results map from the 2016 presidential election.

The old PA-8 contained a part of Upper Hanover as well as Franconia, Green Lane, Lower Frederick, Lower Salford, Marlborough, Salford, Souderton, Telford, Upper Frederick and Upper Salford. The sole Dem portion was Hatfield and its borough.

PA-1 retains Telford, Souderton, a slice of Franconia alongside Hatfield and Hatfield Borough. It adds Lansdale, Montgomery and a bit of Horsham.

The New York Times produced some fantastic maps of the old and new district lines and how they change the political composition.

According to them, this moves the district from basically even in the 2016 presidential contest to +2 Clinton. Meanwhile, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman pointed out that their PVI (partisan voter index) shifted from R+2 to R+0.5. Brian Amos produced perhaps the best breakdown of the new seat by compiling results from each 2016 race.

https://twitter.com/BrianAmos/status/965684490986278912

These differences may seem trivial, but incumbent Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick undoubtedly remembers just how important a few percentage points can be.

For instance, when Brian’s older brother Mike held the seat he won four out of five contests. The one exception came in 2006 when Patrick Murphy bested the elder Fitzpatrick by just 1,518 votes. Mike actually carried Bucks by 1,024 votes, but Murphy’s margins in the Northeast Philly and Montco sections of district that were drawn after the 2000 Census gave him the victory.

So add that lesson alongside the maxim that elections have consequences: every vote counts.