Most gerrymandered district

[minionofmidas]

IL-4 has actually improved over its 90s incarnation - it is now at least technically contiguous.

[minionofmidas]

If I see this correctly, Texas 15 is worse than Texas 25.

[minionofmidas]

IL-4 was created after the 1990 census to provide a supermajority hispanic district. The key was to link the Puerto Rican areas on the NW to the Mexican areas on the SW, without cutting through the swath of African-american areas due west of the Loop.

As was mentioned this originally was so gerrymandered that contiguous meant opposite corners at one intersection. It was challenged in court in the 1990's, but survived.

The redrawn 2000's district was justified as gerrymandered for incumbent protection, not for racial reasons. Thus, it too could withstand a court challenge.

Overall population 654K
Hispanic population IL-4 487K, IL-7 38K
of which Mexican IL-4 364K,. IL-7 23K
Puertorican IL-4 72K, IL-7 7K
Non-Hispanic White IL-4 120K, IL-7 179K
Non-Hispanic Black IL-4 24K, IL-7 403K
Non-Hispanic Asian IL-4 11K, IL-7 25K

[minionofmidas]

Uh, Hopis don't vote. And AZ-1 was always a lean Rep district. Renzi just did very badly in the district's first-ever election campaign, helped by a freakishly high (and freakishly united, they absolutely loved George Cordova) Navajo turnout. What you're describing is more of a return to normalcy than anything else.

[minionofmidas]

Is there any real reason for the NYC gerrymandering?  I mean, it's not as if any Republican is going to win outside of Staten Island anyway...

Racial gerrymandering, turned on its head. The 8th is a gerrymander to create another safe white district. The similarly weird 12th is a double gerrymander, as both a Hispanic opportunity seat, and a seat with sufficient Chinese voting power that noone absolutely opposed by the Chinese community can win it.