Obviously an exercise, inspired by the flood of 8-0 Democratic Marylands. Originally I had attempted to make five Republican seats in Maryland, but while it was possible to make five seats won by McCain it would have been a huge overreach and Republicans would have been unlikely to hold all five seats in even a neutral year (possibly none in a Democratic wave). Given that, the exercise became a matter of shoring up four seats as much as possible. While Maryland is quite a blue state these years the Democratic voting base is heavily concentrated so forcing it into four ultra Democratic seats was entirely possible. The remaining four Republican seats all ended up with a 44-54 Obama/McCain lean.
CD1 (Blue): W85 B10, O44 M54 Much of Anne Arundel county, coastal Baltimore county and smallish bits of Harford and Prince George’s. PVI R+9
CD2 (Green): W31 B63 O87 M12 Most of Baltimore city with tiny amounts of Baltimore county. PVI D+34
CD3 (Dark Magenta): W80 B16 O44 M54 The entire Eastern Shore, all of Calvert and St. Mary’s, and parts of Charles and St George’s in south Maryland, and a piece of Harford in the north. PVI R+9
CD4 (Red): W21 B69 O91 M9 Mostly Prince George’s, with a little of northern Charles D+38
CD5 (Gold): W47 B36 O77 M21 Northern Prince George’s with a tendril stretching to Annapolis (the Severn river does maintain contiguity) and toward (though not into) Baltimore city. D+24
CD6 (Teal): W87 B7 O44 M54 Mostly Baltimore county but spilling over into adjacent counties. PVI R+9
CD7 (Dark Grey): W58 B15 A12 H12 O73 M25 The most Democratic parts of Montgomery county. D+17
CD8 (Slate Blue): W88 B6 O44 M54 Western Maryland and the less Democratic parts of Montgomery county. PVI R+9
Democrats are at a natural disadvantage in Maryland redistricting as many of their voters are packed into super-Democratic areas in Baltimore and the DC suburbs, whereas Republican strongholds like Anne Arundel or Frederick counties are less packed. I think that’s partly what makes this map possible.
Given that a McCain seat is already about R+5, it’s by no means a “huge overreach”. At least not by the standards of this site, where some people thought their 55% Obama districts made for “Likely D” seats.
Heck, if five McCain seats are possible, are six R+0 seats possible?
With all the gerrymanders of Maryland, I started to wonder what it would look like if they had a fair districts commission there. I don’t want to flood the diary list with yet another MD, so here it is.
MD-01: (Harris) Eastern Shore, 43-57, R+11
MD-02: (Ruppersberger) Baltimore County, 59-41, D+6
MD-03: (Open) Howard and Anne Arundel, 55-45, D+2
MD-04: (Edwards) Inside the Beltway, 89-10, D+36, 51.4% AA
MD-05: (Hoyer) Outer PG and Southern MD, 69-31, D+16, 47% White
MD-06: (Bartlett) West and part of BaltCo, 42-58, R+12
MD-07: (Cummings) Baltimore City and a little Anne Arundel, 81-18, D+28 57% AA
MD-08: (Van Hollen) Montgomery outside Beltway, 71-29, D+18
Either 6-2 or 5-2-1, depending on what you call the 3rd. Sarbanes lives in the 7th but would probably run in the 3rd.
We’ve seen a lot of Dem gerrymanders, where the western district spans from Garrett to Montgomery and Montgomery dominates. Well this is the other side of the coin.
Montgomery County went 72% Obama – 27% McCain, but your MD-07, comprised of “the most Democratic parts of Montgomery county,” was only 73% Obama – 25% McCain.
I can’t imagine that your cherry-picking of precincts would yield so little results.