HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's state Supreme Court will consider a new map of congressional districts recommended Monday by a lower court judge who picked a proposal favored by top Republican lawmakers but opposed by Democrats in a presidential battleground state.

The map recommended by Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, a Republican, came from a pool of more than a dozen submitted to the court and sides with Republicans on prominent areas of disagreement between partisans.

The map passed the Republican-controlled Legislature last month without support from a single Democratic lawmaker. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed it.

Democrats view it as a partisan map, producing 10 Republican seats, and maybe up to 12, in a state where Pennsylvania's delegation is currently split evenly, nine Democrats and nine Republicans, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 4 million to 3.4 million.

A political scientist who testified on the plan for Republicans projected that it had nine Democratic-leaning districts and eight GOP-leaning districts based on all statewide election results from 2012-20.

The question of redrawing the state's congressional districts has gone to the courts after Wolf and the Republican-controlled Legislature deadlocked.

McCullough held three days of hearings on proposals and had a choice of maps submitted by Republican lawmakers, Wolf, Democratic lawmakers, partisans on both sides and good-government groups.

It is strictly a recommendation on which the state Supreme Court — with a 5-2 Democratic majority — will make the ultimate decision. In 1992, when a similar process played out over six weeks, the high court went along with the lower court judge's recommendation.

The high court will hold hearings on Feb. 18.

McCullough, in her 222-page report, wrote that she chose the proposal from Republican lawmakers because it lacked "any cognizable legal or constitutional objection" by Wolf and suggested that she felt she should give extra weight to a map because it passed the Legislature.

It is a "profound depiction" of what voters want, "through the representative model of our republic and democratic form of government," compared to Wolf or any other parties who submitted maps, McCullough wrote.

In his veto message last month, Wolf argued the proposed map "fails the test of fundamental fairness."

Pennsylvania, like most other states, must redraw its congressional district boundaries to account for a decade of demographic shifts. The new districts must take effect in this year's election, to last until 2032's election.

Complicating the process is Pennsylvania's loss of a seat, from 18 to 17, as the Census showed the nation growing more quickly in population over the past decade than Pennsylvania.

The primary election is May 17.

The process of redrawing congressional districts is running up against the three-week period beginning Feb. 15 when candidates can circulate petitions to get on primary election ballots.

To deal with that, McCullough suggested keeping the primary date intact, but delaying the petition period by two weeks so that it starts March 1 and lasts two weeks until March 15.

The map picked by McCullough creates seven districts with solid Republican registration advantages, and five seats would have a strong Democratic registration advantage. The registration is closer in five seats, but the Republican map generally gives those swing districts more registered Republican voters than does the current boundaries.

Three of those solidly Republican districts split up the growing Harrisburg region, spreading out its Democratic voters.

It keeps Pittsburgh in one single district, packing all of its Democratic voters into one heavily Democratic district. It also strengthens Republican registration in a suburban Pittsburgh district now represented by three-term Democrat Conor Lamb, who is instead running for U.S. Senate.

It ensures that no Republican incumbent is in the same district as another GOP incumbent.

But it gives Republicans a matchup they wanted in northeastern Pennsylvania, pitting second-term Republican Dan Meuser against fifth-term Democrat Matt Cartwright in a Republican-leaning district.

Meanwhile, Cartwright's district, as well as Democratic-held swing seats based in Chester County and Allentown, would get more registered Republican voters. A Republican-held swing seat based in Bucks County is viewed as a tossup, although its registration would continue to lean Democratic.

In some maps, Democrats had proposed splitting Pittsburgh to create two Democratic-leaning seats and keeping bluer areas around Harrisburg in one district with York or Lancaster, making it somewhat competitive.

In addition, Democrats' maps had preferred to pair two Republican incumbents together into one district, arguing that whiter, less populated counties represented by Republicans were predominantly the places where population growth was stagnant.