Likely next US districts after 2020

[Mr.Phips]

Hmmm... if I had to guess for the states that are gaining/losing:

AL: obvious -1 GOP district provided VRA 2 is still standing
AZ: +1R, state is a natural GOP pack in the western desert and Phoenix suburbs, but the current map is a soft Dem gerrymander
CO: +1D under any neutral scenario, although Dems are currently 1 state senate seat away from controlling the process and drawing 6D/2R
FL: Would be a 1/1 split under a neutral process, but FL Supreme Court control hinges on the 2018 governor's election and they are the final authority on the current Fair Districts law
IL: -1D, tough to avoid this even if they still control the process
MN: Unclear.  A court map would axe one of the rural Dem held districts but also make the MSP inner suburbs district basically unwinnable for Paulsen.  If Republicans control redistricting, 5R/2D is now easy to do.
MI:  -1 Dem, they will find a way
NC: probably +1 D, don't see a viable way to do a safe 11R/3D map.
NY: -1R, the lost seat is almost surely coming from Upstate
OH: -1D, pending 2020 results, it should be easy to break up OH-13 between the surrounding CDs and have them all vote safely for Trump
OR: +1D if Dems still have control, +1R on any neutral map (and DeFazio's seat may be gone by 2022 either way)
PA: -1R if Wolf gets reelected, -1D if he doesn't
RI: obviously -1D, but a blessing in disguise as I can't see Langevin holding on through to 2030.
TX: 2R/1D most likely.  Although unlikely to happen, a neutral map in TX would be a Dem bonanza
WV: obviously -1R, I think it will be Mooney's district that gets broken up

Note also that VA not gaining a 12th seat is a major blessing in disguise for Democrats.  While 8R/4D could have easily been drawn, it will be impossible to keep VA-10 (and VA-04 if the court order is overturned) safe on an 11 district map even if Republicans are drawing it.

Well if Dems win the governorship in Michigan in 2018, they can force a neutral map there, meaning that the lost seat would be Republican and likely at least another GOP held seat in the Detroit suburbs (probably either MI-08 or MI-11) would almost certainly become more Dem leaning.

Same if Wolf wins again in PA.  A fair map would eliminate a GOP seat (likely in the Pittsburgh area) and break the gerrymander of the Philly suburbs, making PA-06 and PA-07 much more Dem leaning.

[Mr.Phips]

IL: -1D, tough to avoid this even if they still control the process

But what if they combine 12 and 13 into a more favorable Dem seat?

Essentially one district that squiggles all around downstate to pick up Dem votes in East St. Louis, Carbondale, Champaign, and Bloomington.  I'd think that'd be a seat that even Hillary won relatively easily.

[Mr.Phips]

^ I think I found that something like this would have been about 57% Obama in 2012:

Very nice and much cleaner looking than I envisioned.

[Mr.Phips]

How is Illinois in danger of losing a Dem seat?

The populations of the non-Chicagoland districts are just barely 700k (three of them are sub-700k) while the districts in the Chicago area all fall into the range of 720k or even 730k.  

Even more if Rauner loses re-election the Dems are pretty much assured full control of redistricting, and the proportional representation mandate going through the courts wouldn't really have any affect since the Chicago districts are all still such massive vote sinks for Dems.

Also I really have a hard time seeing the NC GOP drawing an 11-3 map after the lawsuit that went through earlier this year.  

As I mentioned above, it would be very easy to eliminate a downstate GOP district and then put all of the most Dem areas of downstate into one district designed to elect a Dem.  Additionally, Dems could shore up the 10th by swapping out some more Cook precincts with the 9th and 5th.

[Mr.Phips]

Also I really have a hard time seeing the NC GOP drawing an 11-3 map after the lawsuit that went through earlier this year.  

They drew the 10-3 map in response to the lawsuit.

BTW, the SCOTUS heard the appeal of the NC case.

It was great fun to read the argument about whether NC-12 was a racial gerrymander or a political gerrymander, since the snake version doesn't exist any more, and the Democrats were arguing that the bad Republicans were packing blacks from Greensboro.

I have a hard time seeing how they could draw a completely safe 11-3 map that wouldn't run foul with the courts. To me it wit would make sense to draw 4 Dem packs in order to make the other 10 seats safe.

I'm thinking Republicans will have to conceed Dems a Greensboro-Winston-Salem seat, which would be a minority influence seat.  Additionally, this would relieve the pressure on the NC-13, which is trending towards being more competitive as currently drawn.