I’ve always hated Maryland’s extreme gerrymander, so I wanted to try and create a map that is more compact than the current one, but still provides a 7-1 Democratic advantage.
Goals:
-Keep counties together as much as possible
-Keep two VRA districts
-Pack as many Republicans as possible into MD 6
-Maximize the Dem vote in the other 7 districts without having too many excess votes in the most Democratic ones
I did not however try to account for where the current Representatives live or where the majority of their current constituency resides, although I did keep the same general geographical location of each of the 8 districts.
1st District
The 1st District is really the target of this exercise, and becomes more Democratic by shedding territory in the northeast Baltimore suburbs and extending westward into heavily Dem eastern Prince George’s County. If I wasn’t as concerned about geographic continuity it could actually extend further west to the DC border to pick up the excess Dem vote from MD-4 and shed more territory in the NE corner of the state to MD-6. As it is, this becomes a district that would have gone 53% for Obama. Certainly not a safe Democratic seat, but definitely an improvement over the current map and one where we would have a leg up.