Michigan, 2006

[muon2]

and more Republicans elected to the US House than Dems. 

Only because of the gerrymander

Not entirely true. The gerrymander created 10 Rep districts, but Stupak hold one of those for the Dems. In response to jfern's similar comment about MI, I did a purely rules-based geographic split of some states including MI here.

I found that an unbiased division still produces more Rep districts by an 8-7 margin. This is due to the dense concentration of Democratic voters in Detroit that get packed into two districts. It takes a more radical gerrymander to attach pieces of Detroit to outer suburbs and exurbs and create a Dem-majority map.

Even with the gerrymander, Dems could still take a majority. Stupak wins in a district that went for Bush by a 7.8% margin. There are three CDs that had smaller margins for Bush held by Republicans (MI-6, MI-9, MI-11). It's easy to blame the gerrymander but there are other factors here.

[muon2]

all things considered, Michgans districts aren't all that horribly gerrymangled.  Check out AZ-2 or some others in Illinois.  We may have them moved around a bit in favor of one party or another, but we dont have nightmarish squiggles as districts.

It's true that MI did a reasonably good job at maintaining relatively compact districts. As my study points out, the GOP was able to gain one or two districts by consolidating the areas in southern Macomb and Oakland into a single district (MI 12), and by placing Flint, Saginaw, and Bay City into one district (MI 5).

Gerrymanders don't have to be as bizarre as the IL or GA (2002) maps.  The strange shapes come from creating a (usually Democrat) district by linking a number of separated communities by thin lines. IL 17 is a good example of that.