Dem gains in the Pennsylvania legislature are irrelevant for two reasons: (1) The GOP still controls the state senate by a 29 to 21 vote margin, and the state senate has to go along with any redistricting, so it's DOA in the Keystone State; (2) With their four seat gain in this past election the Dems have pretty much maximized their potential in Pennsylvania. Now, to be sure, they could redistrict Gerlach out of a seat, if they left themselves several quite marginal districts, but if they did redistrict Pennsylvania they would surely focus on shoring up the Altmire (PA-04), Carney (PA-10), and Holden (PA-17) districts. There are not enough Democrats to do that and also target additional GOP seats.
Beyond that, there are only five states - tops - where Dems control both chambers of the legislature and now have the governor's mansion where they might benefit from a re-redistricting. One is New Mexico. The others are:
Colorado: But again Dems have just about maximized their potential. If they re-redistrict they will look to make the Salazar (CO-03) and Perlmutter (CO-07) seats more secure long before they target the three remaining GOP seats.
Illinois: Again, they would first look to shore up Bean (IL-08) and there's really not much more they could pick up - two seats at best (one in the Chicago suburbs, by making Kirk's IL-10 more Dem and perhaps one downstate by sweeping together most of the Dems now distributed between IL-15 and IL-19). The leaders of state legislature and Governor Blagojevich have all said they aren't interested, though.
Louisiana: The Dems could give themselves a shot at a couple more seats if they really chop up the district lines, but Governor Blanco is hardly in the political position to do that and she will lose to Jindal next year.
West Virginia: The Dems could try to target Capito but they'd probably fail no matter how they redraw the map and might instead lose one of their own. And there's no sign of motivation to revisit the district lines.
And that's it. Everywhere else, the Dems either passed the current maps, or an independent commission draws lines, or there's still divided state government. So, there's really not much to worry about. Heather Wilson is it.
What about Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin?
You're probably right on the states in question.
I'm sure the NM Dems go after Wilson; it's in their blood. But that whole area has such a history of voting in an independent manner (even though mainly registered Dem), and the Dems have a history of nominating the wrong candidates, that knowing Democrats' historic luck in NM-01, it'll probably fail. I mean, I really can't see a more favorable year for NM Dems in the next 30-40 years than 2006, and they still couldn't get rid of the Republican. I'm sure they could find a better candidate, but he'll probably never get the nomination.
Besides, trading part of Valencia County for Torrance County is not that huge of a change, all told. It's not like they're trying to redistrict Wilson out of her CD or get rid of her part of Albequerque or something (which would screw with Udall's CD, which is not that Dem).
You more or less took the words right out of my mouth.
In Illinois, it's possible that Mark Kirk will run against Richard "Guantanimo Bay is a Nazi death camp" Durbin.