Sometime this week, Democrats may have control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the first time since 2010. And the person they may want to thank for that — more than Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sen.-elect John Fetterman, former President Donald J. Trump or any of the other leading lights in this campaign cycle — is one Mark Nordenberg.

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But however those races wind up, we’re in for a huge shift from the 113-90 majority the Republicans held going into Election Day. People on both sides of the aisle were crediting the new House map, crafted after the 2020 Census by the five-member Legislative Reapportionment Commission.

That’s where Mr. Nordenberg, the chancellor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, comes in. Mr. Nordenberg did his civic duty last year as chairman of the commission, which actually meant he was the tie-breaking vote on maps that will be used through 2030 for state House and Senate seats.

Mr. Nordenberg’s stated goal — beside the mandate to recognize population shifts over the past decade — was to create House and Senate maps that better-reflect Pennsylvania’s political and demographic makeup.