A little birdie (actually a damn big one) told me that Austria and Schmidt might be in trouble (two go in, one comes out), that made no sense to me until I read your comment. Hmmm.
As for LaTourette, give him all of Portage county, so he can go from winning with 70% to winning with 65%
Portage County has too many heavily Dem parts (particularly the city of Kent, which in 2004 had 11,300 voters and gave Kerry 70%, and Ravenna city and township) to add the whole county to a marginally GOP CD without any repercussions. The problem with LaTourette isn’t his winning percentage, but the fact that his CD only gave Bush like 52% in 2004 and voted for Obama in 2008; it’s voters are by no means strongly Republican, and if the Dems run a strong candidate, LaTourette could be gone (and if LaTourette retires, the Dems could easily pick up the CD). Same thing for Tiberi in Columbus/Delaware County, by the way.
What I would love is for black leaders in Cincinnati and Columbus demand that a second black-majority CD be created, and threaten to sue if the legislature doesn’t do that, so that Republicans can say “gee, our hands are tied, we just have to stick every heavily Dem area in SW and Central OH into a single district.” BTW, I forgot to mention that such black-majority CD would also take in the most heavily Dem precincts in Clark County (which is en route from Dayton to Columbus).