Part of an Illinois 13-3 Gerrymander. Here's the Downstate seats. 3R-2D. I didn't draw the rest of Chicagoland cuz I'm lazy, but I've seen it done in other maps and it complies with DRA. The other 11 Chicagoland districts would obviously be safe D. The two D seats in this map are 59% Obama 2008 (successor to Bustos's seat). It probably went for Clinton by about 8 points, and I made a point for it to capture every major city that she carried in the area. The other one is the Metro East-Springfield-Decatur-Champaign-Bloomington seat Obama 2008 carried with 60% that Clinton carried by about 11 points.
Edited to use the large map.
The practical problem in Chicagoland is that the PVIs don't accurately predict congressional results. Obama was a popular favorite son and overperformed traditional averages, which skews the PVI. This was clearly seen in the 2010 and 2014 off-year results. Trump was an unusually poor fit as well and that continues the skew.
In 2011 the Dem map was guided by DCCC trying to maximize seats, but still they drew D+7 or better. That left them with two Pub sinks: IL-6 and 14. In 2021 Dems might be able to reduce one of those, but it is unlikely they can reduce both without risking a Dummymander in the 2022 off year.
Yeah I agree - don't see a way for dems to get out of at least 1 R seat in Chicagoland that is a exurban pack with tentacles grabbing right-leaning to fortify the Blue seats. If such a seat were to be cut, the map up there would have to get real messy and spread the city Black vote across the suburbs as the 2020 map probably won't require 3 BVAP seats. Of course, this ignores that fact that the AA incumbents will lobby hard for a seat that is still safe for themselves, even though it lacks a AA majority.
Disagree however on the skew Yes, Obama over-preformed in 2008 and IL data sucks because of it. Obama in 2008 generally over-preformed across the state, and this still happened in 2012 to a lesser extent. However, Clinton didn't over-preform in the Rep areas. The thing about 2016 and 2017 is that in other states, the areas where Trump was disliked are staying Democratic and rejecting a return to the right. Most people, for example, expect 2016 to be the last year were IL-10 rejected its PVI since the Kirk-Dold machine has lost its candidates. I don't see Il-06 surviving 2020 as a republican seat, though IL-14 most certainly will.
