With some bipartisan consensus, it appears Maryland finally has a final, final congressional map.
Back in December, Democrats in the Maryland state legislature used their supermajority to pass a new congressional map over the objection of the state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan.
While that map’s lines were not nearly as tortured as the ones in place for the last decade, it was still designed to keep seven safe Democratic seats and also put the state’s lone GOP congressman, the 1st District’s Andy Harris, at risk for the first time in 10 years.
However, on March 25 a state judge tossed out the new map as an “extreme partisan gerrymander.” After briefly considering an appeal, Democrats instead chose to draw a remedial map themselves, which Hogan then signed into law.
The remedial map significantly alters the partisanship of two of the state’s eight districts: the 1st and the 6th. It effectively places Harris, the last Republican standing, out of reach for Democrats, and sets 6th District Democrat David Trone up for a potentially competitive race.
In all likelihood, this map should return a 7D-1R delegation this fall, but in the event of a massive Republican wave, the delegation could revert to 6D-2R for the first time in a decade.
1st District
The most substantial effect of the change in maps is that the Eastern Shore-based 1st District will not become competitive this year after all. Originally, Democrats removed GOP-leaning Harford and Carroll counties in northern Maryland from the district, and appended to the 1st Democratic-leaning areas in Anne Arundel County north of Annapolis.
As a result, the 1st would have gone from a seat Trump carried by 20 points, 59-39 percent, to one...