A possible Gerrymander of Massachusetts

The assumption behind this map is that Capuano runs for Senate and all other incumbents are protected.  All cities and towns are kept intact, excepting Boston.

Boston Detail:

1st district – Oliver (Blue)

Gains some Worcester suburbs and some 495 belt towns, which makes it slightly more conservative, but at D+14 it has some room to spare.

2nd District – Neal (Green)

Adds a couple Republican towns in the East and Democratic ones in the West, overall not much changed.

3rd District – McGovern (Purple)

Keeps its Worcester and Fall River anchors, in fact gaining the portion of Fall River that Frank used to have.  The district shifts slightly, losing the Northern suburbs of Worcester and gaining other towns in Norfolk and Bristol counties.  Overall, not much change in partisan composition.

4th District – Frank (Red)

Like the 3rd, this district retains it’s anchors, but shifts slightly East.

5th District – Tsongas (Gold)

This district is made safer, swapping its 495 belt towns for more liberal towns in the Metrowest area.  (Fun fact: Framingham, at 67,000 inhabitants, is the largest town in New England)

6th District – Tierney (Teal)

Embattled rep Tierney needs some shoring up, so he gets the biggest prize from Capuano’s district: Cambridge and Somerville.  While this should make him safe in the general, if Tierney’s ethics troubles get any worse, he could be vulnerable in the primary, especially since much of the territory in this district is new to him.

7th District – Markey (Gray)

This district, while picking up the Alston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston, gets slightly more conservative overall, as it trades the metrowest towns that Tsongas picked up for some more conservative ones that Tierney lost. At D+15 it still has a strong liberal inner suburb base and should be fine.

8th District – Lynch (Periwinkle)

Lynch’s district changes radically in order to preserve the majority-minority district required (maybe?) by the VRA.  Lynch may not be too happy about this, since he has the most conservative voting record of any of the delegation and will now have a very Liberal district.  He could be vulnerable to a primary challenge, perhaps from State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz.

9th District – Keating (Cyan)

This district doesn’t change much, unfortunately.  There are only so many ways to draw a district that stretches from Quincy to Cape Cod.  If O’Leary had won the primary we would have had more options.

The new 8th district is 48% non-hispanic white, which is comparable to the current 8th.  Just for fun, I tried to draw a district that would bring this number as low as possible:



40% White, 27% Black, 10% Asian, 21% Hispanic, 2% other.

29 thoughts on “A possible Gerrymander of Massachusetts”

  2. as this map seems more compact then the current one.  In the current map it appears you can be in North Quincy and take a five mile walk to Brookline and cross four congressional district lines.  Mind you I have not a clue whether you could actually walk from Quincy across South Boston to Brookline or Newton.  I don’t even know if that would be a wise decision?

    Not sure why but my spider sense tells me that Markey gets Cambridge-Tierney Somerville and as noted Lynch gets a lot of Boston.

    Not quite as much as shown as Lynch has friends on Beacon Hill.

    I also would not be shocked to see Frank get Cambridge and to see Lynch somehow take just a bit more of Boston but rather get area west or east of Brockton.

    Just a guess–

  4. The 5th and 6th need help and the 7th can stand some dilution, and this accomplishes all three admirably.

    However…I’d be a little nervous about the 3rd long-term. It’s a D+9 as it stands now but this version looks more like a swing district, adding a handful of towns where Scott Brown absolutely cleaned up a year ago that are largely out of the Worcester orbit.

    This is where respecting communities of interests can be good politics. I looked at the MA-03 results this year and noticed something…while all of the towns around Worcester voted enthusiastically for Scott Brown and most were at least carried by Charlie Baker, GOP challenger Marty Lamb didn’t even match John McCain’s 2008 strength there, but he won several towns in the district’s midsection of Boston and/or Providence exurbs.  

    I know that when I’m trying to draw these maps, I’m always trying to stick Framingham with McGovern, as a Democratic buffer in the case of a bad year and/or open seat. (Of course they’d vehemently deny they were in Central Mass, but they have shared interests in the Mass Pike, the MBTA commuter rail line that follows it, and the tech industry that is the economic engine of that part of the state.)

  5. The 9th, ugh. That’s always going to be in danger. As drawn there it’s probably even closer to being evenly split than the 10th it replaces is now PVI-wise.

    Most of the smaller towns added vote Republican regularly. The biggest add is Braintree, which is not especially good for Dems either, but at least they are urbanized and far more likely to be familiar with former Norfolk County DA Keating than they would be with a Plymouth County or Cape-based GOP challenger.

    If you could somehow figure out a way to get Randolph in there (sizable middle-class black population, in Norfolk County so familiar with Keating, and very Democratic, moreso than Brockton in fact) it would be a significant help.

    Although if for some reason we’re stuck with a 50/50 swing district down there because of a VRA issue, irritating the hell out of Stephen Lynch is a nice consolation prize.

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