2012: Pennsylvania

Senate: Casey (D)
Legislature: Republicans +13 (+6%)
State Senate: Republicans No change
House: Democrats 7 Republicans 12
Redistricting: Republicans

The 2012 Presidential and congressional elections will likely hinge on a group of 6 states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa) that Obama won in 2008. Democrats won all 8 of the Senate seats that were up in these states in 2006 and 2008. This year Republicans took 5 of the 6 governor races and went from controlling 3 of the 12 legislative house to controlling 11. Democrats narrowly held the Iowa state senate. If Obama loses 3 of these states in 2012 he likely won't win the Presidency.

Bob Casey won the Senatorial race by 17 points, the largest margin of victory for any seat the Democrats took from the Republicans. This year the Republicans had a candidate with questionable across state appeal, while the Democrats had a charismatic former admiral. The GOP won by 2 points. Tom Corbett won the governor's mansion by 9 points. No Republican has expressed an interest in challenging Casey yet, but after 2010 I guess there will be several lining up.

Redistricting is controlled by the Republicans again. In 2002 their controlled shifted the congressional delegation from 11-10 Republicans to 12-7 Republicans. By 2008 Democrats had reversed that to a 12-7 advantage. After the November 2 election Republicans once again held 12 of the 19 seats. Outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a number of mid-size cities that skew Democratic and rural areas that skew Republican.

The GOP could gerrymander the state so that they'd have a 14-4 Republican delegation in a good Republican year. In a strong Democratic year, the state could swing to a 12-6 or 13-5 Democratic advantage regardless of how the Republicans try to gerrymander the state. If it falls somewhere in the middle the Republicans could see their 12-7 advantage reduced to 10-8. There's no way to protect incumbents in many of the districts.