The 1st district (when the apostate Gilchrest first won it in '90) consisted of the entire Eastern Shore, half of the eastern half of Harford County, and even Charles, St. Mary's and Calvert County on the western side. For '92, Harford was put wholly into the 2nd (then Helen Bentley's district, later Ehrlich's), and the three western shore counties were put into the newly-configured 5th district (of which that gave Hoyer some trouble with nailing down after he first ran in it).
I still wonder if even with the most optimistic lines if we could squeeze 4 seats now given the drop-off in GOP support. Even Bartlett gave his 3rd worst performance (excluding his '82 run), although his advancing age probably played a part, too. Wasn't Alexander X. Mooney, a Hispanic State Senator from Frederick, supposed to be the odds-on candidate to succeed him ?
I think you could draw four CDs that gave McCain over 51% in 2008, and gave President Bush over 54% in 2004.
Alex X. Mooney is a Cuban-American (on his mother’s side) state senator from Frederick, and I believe he is still the favorite to replace Bartlett when he retires. Mooney last won reelection in 2006, albeit by a rather small margin (ina horrible GOP year, of course).
Au's proposal seems quite good to me. Or you could 3 pretty safe seats.
Barlett is old yes. Once you crack 80 I think it's time to retire.
But, of course, the Democrats control redistricting. I wonder if they’ll try to draw 7 comfortably Democrat districts,
Yikes.