(Election buttons at Committee of Seventy | Photo: Jon Geeting)

With the 2018 midterms coming up next Tuesday, November 6th, the time is ripe for serving up some piping hot election predictions. Here are four wild guesses about what's going to happen. 

(Photo credit: Jennifer O'Mara on Twitter)

Philadelphia doesn't have very many competitive general election races on the ballot this November 6th, other than at the very top of the ticket, so many local activists have been interested in going to canvass in the southeast PA suburbs instead on these final weekends before Election Day, where some extra voter turnout could help swing competitive races in Congress and the state legislature. 

(Joe Scarnati | Image: State Impact Pennsylvania)

In the wake of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision striking down PA's most-gerrymandered-in-the-nation Congressional maps, the redistricting news is flying fast and furious, so we've been rounding up a weekly digest of the top stories for those trying to drink from this firehose. Follow us below the fold for this week's news:

(Photo credit: Congressman Bob Brady)

In a meeting with Democratic City Committee on Wednesday afternoon, Congressman Bob Brady confirmed the rumor that had been swirling in local political circles for months: he won't be running for reelection. 

(One possible non-partisan Congressional map, courtesy of Daily Kos Elections)

In a major last-minute shake-up for Pennsylvania's 2018 elections, the state Supreme Court ruled this week that our current Congressional map is unconstitutional under the state constitution, and gave the legislature a short window to draw a new one. Here's what we know so far.

The PA Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in the League of Women Voters case we wrote about recently, and Liz Navratil reports that things are not looking great for Pennsylvania's current Congressional map, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the most extreme cases of partisan gerrymandering in the country. 

(IMAGE: The Washington Post)

Pennsylvania's Congressional maps are arguably the most extreme recent example of partisan gerrymandering in the country, so it's not surprising that there are now three different lawsuits targeting them, one state and two federal. One of the federal lawsuits had a setback in federal court yesterday, but that's not the last word on the issue, as there seem to be decent odds that the state Supreme Court will throw out PA's maps in a few weeks.

(Malcolm Kenyatta | Photo: City & State PA)

Next year's state representative primaries are shaping up to be more exciting than usual, with lots of intra-party competition that could help fuel off-year turnout in both the ward elections and a potentially contested 1st District Congressional primary next May.