Pennsylvania’s New Congressional Map Is One Seat Smaller, But Otherwise Little Changed
With Republicans in control of the Pennsylvania state legislature but a Democrat in the governor’s office, it was pretty much inevitable that a court would have to step into the Keystone State’s congressional redistricting process. After the legislature and governor deadlocked, the state Supreme Court was tasked with deciding the new lines. After sifting through several submissions from advocacy groups, politicians and the general public, the court eventually chose the map below, submitted by a group of citizens:
Despite the court’s Democratic majority, this map is quite fair to both parties. It has an efficiency gap of just D+3, and its median seat is only 1 percentage point redder than the state as a whole. In total, the map creates eight Republican-leaning seats, six Democratic-leaning seats and three highly competitive seats, which is the same as the old map except one rural, solidly Republican seat has been eliminated. (Pennsylvania lost a seat in reapportionment thanks to sluggish population growth in the 2020 census.)