The PA Congressional Map?

PoliticsPA reports that this Cook Report map is the front-running candidate to be the GOP's re-districted Pennsylvania map. The map is much more "conservative" in that it only attempts to shore up GOP seats, not create new ones. It does do a number of things though.

Some observations:

• The 15th district, based in the Lehigh Valley, will no longer include Montgomery County (a good thing), but will stretch westward into Berks County, out to the Fleetwood-Kutztown area. From a common-sense, good government standpoint, this makes sense. I'm sure it makes the district slightly more red for now, but with huge growth out in the west end of the Valley, and the addition of Kutztown University, it could make the district better for a Democrat to challenge Charlie Dent. It also probably makes the district smaller from a population standpoint, although we'll see.
• Gerlach would be the big winner in this, moving further from the city, and into more of Berks. He still would not be "safe," but he wins here.
• Meehan and Fitzpatrick get marginally better seats for the GOP, but they give up on ever beating Schwartz, or the city guys.
• Holden would now have Scranton under this proposal, which I think is destined for court, although it does appear to be good to my eye. While they think this sures up Barletta, it doesn't look so to me. It keeps the Stroudsburg-East Stroudsburg area in with Wilkes-Barre, which may burn them in a few years, if not right away.
• Don't expect a Carney or Dahlkemper comeback here. With Thompson keeping State College, the 10th is a wasteland for Dems now.
• Schuster is taking in a lot of Dems in the southwest area of his district.
• Murphy only gets a bit safer out west. He gets better than he had, but not "safe."
• Critz and Altmire would be in a primary. Both would be favored to win the general, but would have to take considerable damage first.

The map is being made to make a 12-6 GOP majority in the state more permanent. They didn't make it "permanent" from my standpoint, but they did improve their odds, at the price of giving up on 5 of the 6 Dem seats for good. It'll be interesting to see if this is the final product.