Had an 1861 proposal come to fruition, much of Virginia would have become Maryland, much of Maryland would have become Delaware, and West Virginia would have simply remained Virginia. Here’s what their demographics would look like today if all that had happened, and a look at what that might have meant for the 2012 presidential election.

First, a look at these states’ boundaries today:

Images by the author.

This includes the population totals and some demographic information from the 2010 Census, as well as the electoral votes allocated based on that census.

What’s below shows the “new” states, along with the current state boundaries.

With a population of over 11 million, New Maryland would be the 8th most populous state in the 2010 Census. Despite having a couple of hundred thousand less people than #7 Ohio, it would have the same 18 electoral votes as the Buckeye State. New Delaware’s extra population would add an electoral vote to what Delaware has, and New Virginia would have two more electoral votes than West Virginia.

Even if the 23rd Amendment didn’t limit DC (and presumably New DC!) to no more electors than the least population state, the almost-million residents in New DC would not be enough to get it an additional elector.

When it comes to race, Delaware and New Delaware (as well as West Virginia and New Virginia) have very similar compositions, and New Maryland’s numbers are similar to Maryland. Clearly, Virginia’s eastern population is racially similar to Maryland. With the addition of Arlington and Alexandria, New DC’s racial population percentages are almost exactly swapped. (Although not shown here, New DC’s Hispanic population would be double that of DC.)

Here’s how I made the new map

I used current county/city jurisdictional boundaries when creating the new states. While these boundaries may be different from those in 1861, the general analysis presented here would be relatively unaffected. (The most noticeable boundary difference would be modern Alexandria, which has expanded beyond the original DC “diamond.”)

The post that inspired mine states that the Blue Ridge Mountains would be the boundary between New Virginia and New Maryland. I georeferenced the 1861 map onto a current and geographically accurate map to determine which current jurisdictions would fall into each state.

Alexandria and Arlington would return (or “be retro-retroceded”??) to New DC. New Delaware would inherit all of the Delmarva Peninsula. And, the three counties in the panhandle of Maryland would move to New Virginia.

I re-calculated the electoral votes for each “new” state based on the populations shown in the second image (and assuming there are only 49 states since West Virginia is no more). Overall, the proposed multi-state area would lose two electoral votes, as there is one fewer state in the calculation.

2012 election would have been different, but not that different

I also decided to take a look at how the reconfiguration of the region may have impacted a recent election. The image below shows the 2012 election results (by county/city), along with the aggregated totals (and electoral votes) of the new states.

In the actual election, Obama took 29 electoral votes in the region and Romney took West Virginia’s five votes. Under the new configuration, Obama would have received 25 electoral votes while Romney would have garnered New Virginia’s 7 votes.

This very brief analysis doesn’t show any earth-shattering differences between the current state configuration and the proposed one. It doesn’t touch on economic issues like Gross State Product, employment, personal net worth, salaries, etc. Redrawing state boundaries would not have changed the result of the 2012 election, but can you think of an election where it might have made a difference?

Another point of interest: An overwhelming majority of Metro stations would be in New DC, so would New DC even bother trying to participate a multi-jurisdictional hydrid commuter-subway system like Metro, or would it have just decided to create a District-only system and had New Maryland feed commuters into the Metro via a New Maryland MARC?

What else do you think could be different, for better or worse, if these were our state borders?