Dent May be Threatened When 15th is Redrawn

The new Census numbers came out this week for Pennsylvania, and the political scene has been abuzz with talk of political redistricting. 

For those just tuning in, since every Congressional district must contain a roughly equal number of people, political districts for US House and state legislatures are redrawn every 10 years to reflect population changes after the Census.

In most states, an independent commission is responsible for redistricting, but in Pennsylvania, the process is politicized, with the Governor and the two houses of the legislative branch controlling the process. 

Since Republicans control all three, they will have free rein to draw the districts to try to maximize the number of Republicans elected. Pennsylvania , and since the Census revealed that Western PA's population decreased and Eastern PA's population increased, a consensus appears to be emerging that the 12th District (represented by Democrat Mark Critz) will be eliminated. 

But that doesn't mean it's good news for all Republicans. 

The Lehigh Valley's Congressman Charlie Dent in particular has some good reasons to worry about how the new political map will impact his reelection chances. 

Dent's 15th district was one of the Eastern districts that grew the most.
The District's population grew by 17.9% and now contains 721,828 people, up from 612,265 in 2000.

The population target for the new Congressional districts is 707,495, so the 15th District will have to be redrawn to shed 14,333 voters.

What part of the district are those voters going to come from?

Not the cities! Allentown added 11,400 residents and Bethlehem added 3,600. That's 15,000 new people in the two largest cities - both heavily Democratic areas.

What's more, Allentown's Hispanic population almost doubled, from 26,048 in 2000 to 50,461 in 2010. So not only have the top-line numbers increased, but the demographic composition of the city has undergone an even more dramatic shift toward a heavily-Democratic voting bloc. 

It's not possible to draw Allentown and Bethlehem out of the 15th District, so the loss is going to have to come almost entirely from Dent's base voters at the periphery, where the district juts out into Montgomery and Berks counties.

The District as currently drawn already leans toward the Democrats by 2 points compared to the national average.

It's hard to come up with any plausible redistricting scenario where the 15th District doesn't become considerably more Democratic in 2012.