What state is the most "naturally gerrymandered" for the Republicans?

[TJ in Oregon]

Which state, if a fair map was drawn, would produce a congressional delegation most favorable to the Republicans considering the overall partisan makeup of the state?

I mean this by the geography of the state alone, not the easiest to gerrymander as a partisan.

[redcommander]

Florida.

[TJ in Oregon]

I think Maryland is. I know you can get more lopsided Republican majorities elsewhere but for a solidly Democratic state like MD, it's pretty impressive you can draw a reasonably fair map and wind up with 4-4.

That might not seem like it compares to some of the 13-3 Ohio monstrosities out there, but you can end up with 4 pretty safe GOP seats.

All of these states are pretty well naturally gerrymandered to the Republicans though.

[ottermax]

Any state with a largely urbanized and extremely polarized voting pattern can be "naturally gerrymandered." That's true for places like New York where the urban areas vote extremely Democratic, while the more rural/suburban areas are less extreme. This makes it easy to cram the party's voters into one place.

I think this is a pattern in almost every state, and finding exceptions is much less likely. States like Hawaii that are rather evenly distributed with their partisanship are difficult to "naturally gerrymander." I would also argue that Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Arizona would be more difficult to "naturally gerrymander" because they have less partisan geographies, more spread out Democratic areas, or somewhat Republican urban areas.

The rest of the country seems really easy to "naturally gerrymander."

[Bacon King]

Georgia.

[BigSkyBob]

Pennsylvania. The Democrats are naturally packed in Philly its inner suburbs and Pittsburg.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's probably Michigan still, though it was moreso in like the 80s. Louisiana deserves a mention too even if it's a relatively recent occurrence.

New York despite the obvious pack if anything is moreso than the Democrats, while there lots of flukish circumstances in many cases it's still not a complete coincidence that 28/29 of its districts elected a Democrat under a bipartisan map in the last decade. The population distribution upstate really doesn't work in the GOP's favor. Also there are literally tens of thousands of Republicans stranded in utterly unwinnable NYC districts as opposed to the fact that the GOP could get literally zero votes in Detroit and the situation in the state wouldn't be too different than it is now.

[NY Jew]

in NY
a natural gerrymandered would most likely have the Republicans gaining a long island seat and making some of their other downstate seats much safer.

[Nichlemn]

It's probably Michigan still, though it was moreso in like the 80s. Louisiana deserves a mention too even if it's a relatively recent occurrence.

New York despite the obvious pack if anything is moreso than the Democrats, while there lots of flukish circumstances in many cases it's still not a complete coincidence that 28/29 of its districts elected a Democrat under a bipartisan map in the last decade. The population distribution upstate really doesn't work in the GOP's favor. Also there are literally tens of thousands of Republicans stranded in utterly unwinnable NYC districts as opposed to the fact that the GOP could get literally zero votes in Detroit and the situation in the state wouldn't be too different than it is now.

Well, at least at the state level the natural pack is partially why the NY GOP controls the State Senate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The concept of a 'natural gerrymander' is a bit odd, really. You can have a more efficient distribution of votes (either literally or in terms of percentages) and you can have boundaries drawn through a neutral process that end up functioning like gerrymanders (but generally only some of the time), but neither are quite the same thing. It's important to remember that there is never a single objective 'fair map'.

[minionofmidas]

I mean this by the geography of the state alone, not the easiest to gerrymander as a partisan.

The difference between the two is often in the eye of the beholder, making this hard to answer.

Aka what Al said.

[Miles]

The GOP maps of Michigan always seem to look clean and boxy while the Democratic maps always  look awkward.

[Torie]

It's probably Michigan still, though it was moreso in like the 80s. Louisiana deserves a mention too even if it's a relatively recent occurrence.

New York despite the obvious pack if anything is moreso than the Democrats, while there lots of flukish circumstances in many cases it's still not a complete coincidence that 28/29 of its districts elected a Democrat under a bipartisan map in the last decade. The population distribution upstate really doesn't work in the GOP's favor. Also there are literally tens of thousands of Republicans stranded in utterly unwinnable NYC districts as opposed to the fact that the GOP could get literally zero votes in Detroit and the situation in the state wouldn't be too different than it is now.

Yet I salivate for a NY court drawn map. I see several Dems vulnerable in 2012 with such a map. There were a lot of green line CD's in my little matrix chart. Heck, even Nita Lowey could be vulnerable. Her CD was only Dem +5%.