Thanks to some incredibly hard work by jeffmd, we now have presidential election results by congressional district for the new congressional map proposed by Pennsylvania Republicans, as well as a Google Maps version of the map itself. For a narrative run-down of the changes made to each district, please check out this post by David Jarman.
Below are the Obama-McCain numbers (full spreadsheet):
And here is our Google Maps version (
full screen):
And because Jeff is so exceptionally thorough, he caught a number of errors in the so-called "
legal description" (PDF) provided by Republican state Senate Majority Leader
Dominic Pileggi:
Allegheny; Whitehall Borough Ward 1; CDs 14 and 18 - precincts counted twice
Northumberland; Riverside Borough; CDs 10 and 11 - allocated to wrong county
Montgomery; Hatfield Twp Ward 5-2; CDs 8 and 13 - refers to blocks that aren't in precinct
Montgomery; Upper Dublin Twp Ward 5-1; CDs 7 and 13 - does not specify which blocks are in which CD
Northampton; Bethlehem City Ward 17; 15, 17 - refers to blocks that aren't in precinct
While it appears that these mistakes may not have been replicated in the proposed legislation itself, this is a pretty embarrassing screwup for the GOP. It shows a sloppiness and haste, similar to the botched effort by North Carolina Republicans earlier this year. In their rush to gerrymander the state of Pennsylvania to within an inch of its life, I'm not surprised to see Republicans mess up like this.
12:04 PM PT: Also of interest: Daniel McGlone, blogging at geography software company Azavea, has aggregate Dem and GOP performance numbers for the new map, relying on data from the Harvard Election Data Archive. He's also used his GIS tools to calculate "compactness" scores for each district and finds that the new 7th "takes the honor of having the eighth least compact congressional district in the nation. Of all the newly drawn congressional districts, it is the fifth least compact in the nation."
