The map is what Democrats say they want. Adam Kincaid is the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. There are three good Republican seats. There are at least two good Democrat seats. Depending on the cycle, there are three to five competitive seats.
The final product was not representative of a state that is blue according to the two Democrats.
The map contains five seats that President Joe Biden would have won in 2020 but two of them would have supported him by the smallest of margins. O'Halleran's district leans Republican, while Greg Stanton's district leans Democratic.
The independent chair was excoriated by the Democrats for her decisions that they felt favored Republicans. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, accused the woman of being "derelict in her duties to the voters of Arizona" and "independent in name only."
The final session was heated between the commissioners.
Five Democrats and four Republicans have been elected to Congress in a state that has five Democrats and four Republicans. There is no excuse for drawing a map that favors one party over the other.
The changes that were made left the open Tucson seats more competitive. The two Democrats and two Republicans voted for it.
Some of the most competitive races in the country will be hosted by those two seats. Biden would have won the new Tucson district by less than a point in 2020 compared to the old lines.
The seat is open because of a retiring person. National Republicans are very excited about a former senior adviser to the governor raising over $600,000 in the last quarter.
The top Democratic candidates include a state senator and a congressman who were present during the Tucson shooting. Giffords is a Democrat from Arizona.
In the swing-seat, Schweikert, a six-term Republican who has posted anemic fundraising amid an ongoing ethics scandal, finds himself in an even more competitive turf. Biden carries the redrawn version by less than 2 points.
More could enter the race, but the Democratic candidates include a community leader and a former executive of the Phoenix Suns.
The fate of O'Halleran, a three-term Democratic moderate, who must decide whether to seek reelection in a district that became significantly more Republican, is the biggest unknown. Before he was elected to Congress, O'Halleran waffled from Republican to independent to Democrat.
His path to reelection became much more difficult when Neuberg decided against splitting Yavapai County, though the current map does divide the county between two districts. O'Halleran's massive seat, which spans much of the northeast portion of the state and includes the Navajo and Hopi nations, will take in all of Yavapai, transforming it from a seat Biden won by 2 points to one Trump would have carried by 8 points.
The new 9th District along the state's western border resembles his old seat and is more solidly Republican, but it also places the hometown of Gosar in O'Halleran's district.
O'Halleran won the 2016 race against Paul Babeu, a sheriff with a lot of legal troubles.
O'Halleran's current opponents include Ron Watkins, a notorious promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories; Walt Blackman, a state representative known for praising the Proud Boys, and Eli Crane, a Navy SEAL.
One Democratic strategist working on federal races in the state said that it was one of the craziest groups of right-wing kookery he had ever seen.
O'Halleran saw a huge drop in the Democratic performance of his district. Biden's seat in the Phoenix area dropped from 23 to 10 points. In most cycles, that's winnable for Stanton, and the Phoenix suburbs have been leaning toward Democrats.
An earlier version of the report stated that the Arizona state lawmaker was injured in the Tucson mass shooting. Giffords was wounded. He was at the event where Giffords was shot.
