Judge Terry Lewis Redistricting Map Goes To Florida Supreme Court

Court-ordered Florida congressional map

Judge Terry Lewis, as the judge overseeing the end stages of Florida's long redistricting saga just recommended one of the plaintiffs' proposed congressional maps over competing plans from the Republican-controlled legislature. Now Judge Terry Lewis' recommendation will head to the state Supreme Court for further review. However, the high court previously ruled against Republicans, so there's good reason to believe the GOP won't have much luck getting anything changed in its favor.

The two sides were mainly squabbling over a handful of districts in South Florida, and fortunately for Democrats, the trial court's ruling, if it stands up on appeal, means that vulnerable freshman Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo's 26th District will not become redder as the legislature intended but will instead see Obama's margin of victory expand from six points to 11.5 percent. While Republicans in Miami-Dade County have a tendency to outperform Mitt Romney's numbers thanks in part to Cuban-American voters, that's still a tough hill for any Republican to climb these days, meaning Curbelo will be very vulnerable next year.

Elsewhere in the state, the map will likely affect several other congressional incumbents. First-term Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham's 2nd District loses much of its Democratic base in Tallahassee and, with Romney carrying the revised version by over 30 points, it would be extremely difficult for her to win re-election there. (Graham hasn't announced her plans yet but could run for Senate instead, or wait until 2018 to run for governor.)

On the other hand, the Republican-held 13th District would have voted for Obama by 10.6 points now that the entirety of the city of St. Petersburg is included within its borders. That makes it a very strong pickup shot for Democrats, especially if ex-Gov. Charlie Crist runs, as he's suggested he will.

Another big prize for Democrats is Republican Rep. Dan Webster's 10th District in Orlando, which flips from a Romney seat to one that Obama carried by 22 percent. Webster himself has acknowledge this seat would be unwinnable, so instead, he's been pursuing a bizarre campaign for speaker of the House. As a result, the neighboring 9th District, which is being vacated by Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, drops down to just a 12.7 percent Obama margin of victory, but with the Democratic trend in Central Florida, along with presidential turnout, Democrats should be favored to retain it.

No other districts change by a significant enough margin to affect the likely 2016 partisan outcome. Overall, we can expect Democrats to net two seats as a result of redistricting: There's a good chance they'll pick up FL-10, FL-13, and FL-26 while losing FL-02. If Democrats can hold on to the open 18th District (which is unaffected by this map), Florida's delegation would wind up with 15 Republican seats and 12 Democratic seats. That's still a big advantage for the GOP, considering Obama carried the state twice, but it's definitely an improvement.

You can find the court's decision here, along with the 2012 presidential results calculated by Matthew Isbell for districts 1-19 here and districts 20-27 here, under "Coalition's First Map." A detailed version of the map itself is available here, under the header "Coalition Plaintiffs Proposed Congressional Map (CP-1)."

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