In what regions/states does gerrymandering benefit Democrats?

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I'll start.
WI/MA/NV come to mind

[muon2]

IL has a PVI of D+7. That means in a 50-50 year nationally it should vote 57% Dem statewide. It has a 14-3 Congressional delegation, which is 2-3 seats more Dem than one would expect from a neutral map. The legislative map has been successfully gerrymandered to produce solid legislative supermajorities (40-19 Senate, 78-40 House, with 60% required for a supermajority in the IL constitution).

[Torie]

WI, MA are not Dem gerrymanders. NV is a soft Dem gerrymander.


Interestingly, in NYS, following the Muon2 rules, the map comes out close to strictly proportional, and across the swing spectrum (the Cervas stricture), rather than the Muon doubling formula (60% of the vote causes an expectation of 70% of the seats). That is largely due to NYC having Pub enclaves, not replicated in any other Northeastern big city except to a small extent in Philly. '

Oregon I think is Dem gerrymandered. CA is a light Dem gerrymander. Michigan is also a light Dem gerrymander, unless not following neutral line drawing metrics to effect proportionality is deemed not a gerrymander. In PA, to move towards proportionality, all the reasonable choices favored the Dems. Not sure if that qualifies as a gerrymander or not.  CT is a light Dem gerrymander. MD is a light Dem gerrymander. NM is a Dem gerrymander. NJ is a Dem gerrymander.

Truly fairly drawn states are very rare, with VA being the most outstanding example.

[Sol]

WI, MA are not Dem gerrymanders. NV is a soft Dem gerrymander.


Interestingly, in NYS, following the Muon2 rules, the map comes out close to strictly proportional, and across the swing spectrum (the Cervas stricture), rather than the Muon doubling formula (60% of the vote causes an expectation of 70% of the seats). That is largely due to NYC having Pub enclaves, not replicated in any other Northeastern big city except to a small extent in Philly. '

Oregon I think is Dem gerrymandered. CA is a light Dem gerrymander. Michigan is also a light Dem gerrymander, unless not following neutral line drawing metrics to effect proportionality is deemed not a gerrymander. In PA, to move towards proportionality, all the reasonable choices favored the Dems. Not sure if that qualifies as a gerrymander or not.  CT is a light Dem gerrymander. MD is a light Dem gerrymander. NM is a Dem gerrymander. NJ is a Dem gerrymander.

Truly fairly drawn states are very rare, with VA being the most outstanding example.

Yeah it sort of baffles me that some people don't like the Virginia map--it's basically perfect.

[Brittain33]

I'll start.
WI/MA/NV come to mind

Did you mean Wisconsin by WI? That’s surprising since it’s a notorious Republican gerrymander at all levels.

[Skill and Chance]

The Southwest and Illinois.  The former because the geography naturally favors them so they can draw borderline safe supermajorities where they win narrowly statewide and the latter because it allows them to overcome such massive geographic concentration that GOP control of the legislature would be a real threat in a bad midterm.  Regarding how dramatic the Southwest can be, it's probably possible to draw a Dem legislature that holds for the decade in Texas even with consistent R statewide wins. 

Maryland would have been on the second list before 2020, but it's near uniformly Dem in the populated areas now. 

[Nyvin]

If a state's geography favors one party and there's no obvious line drawing that increases seats, then that's not really "gerrymandering" as it is one party just having terrible geographic distribution of voters, as is the case in MA.

The only congressional maps I'd say are Dem gerrymanders:

IL (by far the worst)
NJ
OR
NM
CT (Minor)
NV (Minor)

I guess a case could be made that Carroll county should be included in MD-6 to make a second R seat in Maryland, but that's kinda stretching it calling the map a gerrymander and not just not maximizing Republican representation.