Ohio Population Shift

The recent election in NY made me take a quick look to see when the new Congressional districts have to be in place in Ohio (Dec. 7). When I was looking, I found this little graphic that confirms my suspicions that the five remaining Democrats will be under fire:



From what I have heard, it is almost a given that OH-10 will be blown away, most of it combined with OH-11 I would imagine. After that, it looks as though OH-9 or OH-17 will be on the chopping block. OH-13 is the only other Democrat district and that one actually increased by 18,000 people.

If it were me, I'd get rid of OH-17. It lost 30,000 people and could easily be split four ways into OH-6, OH-13, OH-14, and OH-16.

The other little bugaboo is how to reapportion the rest of Ohio. The Columbus area showed dramatic growth and could (in theory) be split into four districts (combined OH-7, OH-12, and OH-15 grew by over 225,000 people). If they take that tack, one then looks at the possibility of OH-9 being absorbed between OH-5, OH-13 and OH-16 as well. Likely, the new Columbus district would create a Democrat safe harbor at the core and surround it with three Republican strongholds, unless they can find a way to gerrymander it to a part of a heavily Republican x-urb.

As such, I would say that the only safe Democrats are Marcia Fudge (OH-11) and Betty Sutton (OH-13)