Minnesota’s new congressional district maps were released Tuesday, and Minnesota’s First and Second Congressional Districts are trading some territory.

According to the maps drawn by a five-judge panel appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Second District, represented now by Rep. Angie Craig, will cede Goodhue and Wabasha counties on the east to the First District, while the First District, represented by Rep. Jim Hagedorn, will give LeSueur County to the second.

The change will add more population to the First District, which has seen rural population declining. The two major cities in Goodhue and Wabasha counties are Red Wing and Wabasha, both towns along the Mississippi River.

How will this change the political leanings of the First District?

Voters in both counties went for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, as did most of the counties in the First District. The large population centers of Mankato, Rochester and Winona gave Biden the edge in Nicollet, Blue Earth, Olmsted and Winona counties.

Rep. Hagedorn won re-election by a narrow margin in the First District. Craig won by a narrow margin in the Second. Wabasha and Goodhue counties largely voted Republican in the congressional election, so we suspect the changes will solidify both incumbents’ chances, adding conservative voters to the First District and concentrating the Democrats in the Second District.

In the local legislative districts, Senate District 16, represented by Sen. Gary Dahms (R-Redwood Falls), is now Senate District 15. It extends farther east to beyond Lake Crystal, though the border goes up and around Lake Crystal, and on the western end it extends south to the southern border of Redwood County, and extends past Tracy nearly to Tyler.

Rep. Paul Torkelson’s old District 16B will become 15B, and will follow the same border as the Senate district, adding Lamberton, Revere and Walnut Grove to the Hanska Republican’s district and extending it to the east.

This is roughly the same territory for the two Republicans, though it does extend their borders a bit.

The court-appointed judges, at least in this area, have been drawing with fairly straight lines in redistricting. There don’t seem to be the convoluted borders that mark a gerrymandered redistricting.