Redistricting: Who's Been Helped or Hurt

Redistricting is nearly finished, with only about 10 states left to go. So it's a good time to look district by district to see which congressmen will benefit the most and which are in the most trouble.

The chart below only has districts that either were competitive or may be competitive as a result of redistricting. If a district goes from 73% Obama to 80% or to 65% it won't be competitive. So it won't help or hurt either party. The Before and After are the percentage of vote Barack Obama got in 2008. I've excluded all the Texas districts except one, because different things happen to the districts in each. In both the Republican plan and the court plan, there's a new Corpus Christi district for Black Farenthold.

Farenthold looks like the biggest winner, but almost all of the Republicans helped go from competitive to non-competitive. Going down so far is just overkill. Republicans have been helped more than Democrats have been and hurt less than Democrats. If the Republican helped list went down to +2 it'd add a lot more districts.

There is, without a doubt, a few doozies on the Republicans hurt list, although they are almost exclusively in Illinois and California. Those two states figure big into the Democrats' plans. To get the majority back and be +25 they'll have to take all of these districts.

The Democrats hurt is almost exclusively North Carolina and California. There are actually 4 additional Democratic districts (CA-27, 32, 33, and 53) that could be on this list, but they are all still at Obama 61% or higher. That's a little out of reach for the GOP. Maybe later in the decade. There remains 4 vulnerable Democratic districts on this list.

You may see sites that say Democrats will pick up a few seats due to redistricting. They likely will. What you won't see is that Republicans have moved a number of districts off the endangered list.