Redrawn 1st District won’t change results

Unsurprisingly, the national political fad of redrawing congressional districts five years before the next census to favor one political party in the 2026 mid-term elections could spread to Maryland, with Democratic Gov. Wes Moore saying he is open to the idea of remaking the First District.

Moore, of course, is responding to the Texas redistricting gambit that aims to add five Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives by putting Democratic candidates and House members in districts they probably can’t win.

Ironically, Republican Congressman Andy Harris, who would be the target of a re-drawn First District, complained this week that any reconfiguration of his district to give Democrats an upper hand would be unfair … unlike, one supposes, what’s going on in Texas.

But redrawing a Democrat-friendly First District wouldn’t be easy, even though the possible candidacies next fall of Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall and former Salisbury mayor and Secretary of Housing and Community Development Jake Day might suggest some optimism.

Although Maryland Democrats have shown they know how to gerrymander districts until they look like inkblots on a psych evaluation, there’s nowhere the First District can go that won’t leave it predominantly conservative.

Over the years, the nine counties of the Eastern Shore have been joined with portions of counties on the other side of the bay and to the north, and it has remained conservative.

All its representatives in Congress going back at least to the 1950s have been conservative or moderately conservative Republicans and Democrats.

Moore and the Democrats can cut the First District seven ways to Sunday, and Maryland will still have a conservative district, of which the Eastern Shore, or some section of it, will be a substantial part. Candidates and would be candidates should bear that in mind as they explore their options.