Sam, great analysis and I agree with almost all of your quantitative assessments, and you're right that FL's gerrymander has yet to deliver its full impact. I view Maryland's natural split (for a compact map) as 7-1 as there is about a half-chance of generating an R district in the extreme west and a half-chance of generating an R district on the Eastern shore. A few corrections for my state of Ohio: 1) Part of the mess is that the newly amended state constitution is unclear on what a fair split should be. Partisan symmetry and party-neutral expectations differ by nearly a full seat. 2) The Congressional map will hold for four years if the state Supreme Court (which like NC, has just moved to the right) reverses course and deems the current map constitutional. However, if the current court order is respected, in a new map is required for 2024 3) The ability of the Dems to pick up 3 competitive seats in Ohio is not a simple dummymander, but the combination of constitutional language, geography and political backlash to the Ohio legislature's original extreme proposal for 2022. In other words, IMO the mapmakers deemed it too politically risky to split Toledo, split Akron, and/or stuck with the legislature's scheme for Cincinnati, even though these could be done without violating technical no-split requirements. The creation of an excess of competitive districts became part of the cover story. Given the huge mess in legislative redistricting, a more extreme Congressional map would have surely triggered another referendum to establish an independent commission -- though that move is still being contemplated by the advocacy groups here.
Sam, great analysis and I agree with almost all of your quantitative assessments, and you're right that FL's gerrymander has yet to deliver its full impact. I view Maryland's natural split (for a compact map) as 7-1 as there is about a half-chance of generating an R district in the extreme west and a half-chance of generating an R district on the Eastern shore. A few corrections for my state of Ohio: 1) Part of the mess is that the newly amended state constitution is unclear on what a fair split should be. Partisan symmetry and party-neutral expectations differ by nearly a full seat. 2) The Congressional map will hold for four years if the state Supreme Court (which like NC, has just moved to the right) reverses course and deems the current map constitutional. However, if the current court order is respected, in a new map is required for 2024 3) The ability of the Dems to pick up 3 competitive seats in Ohio is not a simple dummymander, but the combination of constitutional language, geography and political backlash to the Ohio legislature's original extreme proposal for 2022. In other words, IMO the mapmakers deemed it too politically risky to split Toledo, split Akron, and/or stuck with the legislature's scheme for Cincinnati, even though these could be done without violating technical no-split requirements. The creation of an excess of competitive districts became part of the cover story. Given the huge mess in legislative redistricting, a more extreme Congressional map would have surely triggered another referendum to establish an independent commission -- though that move is still being contemplated by the advocacy groups here.
Maryland: In 1 million computer simulations, most outcomes gave a 5-3 or 6-2 Democratic-Republican split. https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card?planId=rectT3e34TouwaqH0
Also note that a compact map in Dave's Redistricting gives a 5-3 split: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#state::MD