One state that hasn't received much fantasy redistricting attention is Indiana, with ndrwmls's visually pleasing 4-4-1 map, jncca's 5-3-1 map and redistricting master Wolf's 5-4 and 5-3-1 maps being the only real gerrymander attempts, and the last of which is unnecessarily incongruous.
In jncca's words,
I know that you can't quite make a 6-3 in Indiana, no matter how hard you try
False!
It is mathematically possible to create 5 61.8% districts, 6 58.6% districts or 7 55.6% districts. While Indiana's Republican areas are somewhat disjointed (thus, difficult to join), I wanted to try something new, so I went with the six district plan. Given that the average of our six districts is 57.8%, a 0.8% drop, I think I did a pretty good job here. The trick for this is to split both the north and Indy three ways, with one northern district staying out of Lake (Gary) and neighboring Porter Counties. I ended up with six D+4 to D+6 districts. As all are more Democratic (by 2008 numbers, though Obama overperformed here) than Gary Miller's district, I'm confident in our ability to consistently hold these districts. Also, while southern Indiana has more a Democratic history than the rest of the state, I don't believe that relying on historical tendencies is wise, given recent evidence in KY-06 and IL-13, not to mention IN-08 and IN-09, where Crooks and Yoder underperformed Obama's 2008 marks by 5 and 2 points. However, with this in mind, I made the northern districts slightly better than the southern ones.
State:
Indy:
Gary:
1: 57.4% Obama
This Illinois border district is made possible by Terre Haute, skirts some Indy burbs and takes in some of the more moderate parts of Indy. In order to keep districts contiguous, this district has to keep clear of Lafayette.
2: 36.5% Obama
This district takes in the most conservative parts of the southwest along with the notorious Indy burbs, the one thing keeping Indiana medium red.
3: 57.3% Obama
Similarly to the first district, this one is a combo of Evansville and some of the more moderate parts of Indy.
4: 57.4% Obama
This is the district that sees improvement from other iterations. The Louisville burbs are fairly Democratic, but outside of that, there are few Democratic areas outside of Marion County. Thus, this district takes in the most of the very liberal parts of Indy; for that reason, this is possibly the most vulnerable district, with the most consistent conservative turnout and least consistent Democratic turnout. However, this is a necessity in a 6-3 map, as there are too many 42%-53% precincts in the otherwise blood-red southeast to ignore.
5: 36.9% Obama
This sprawling district takes in most rural areas (it has zero decent-sized towns) from the southeast to northwest. I have to say that a district stretching from the Louisville burbs to the Gary burbs is a pretty novel concept, but it's very important in order to keep contiguity, as it totally splits the northern and southern districts.
6: 58.5% Obama
This district, the most Democratic in the state (barely), takes in Lafayette, parts of Gary and Gary's moderate burbs.
7: 58.4% Obama
This district relies on Gary, Muncie and a few small cities to counter a lot of moderately conservative areas.
8: 35.7% Obama
This district takes in the insanely conservative parts of the northeast, as well as most of the 41%+ precincts that didn't make it into the Democratic districts, with a population center in the Fort Wayne burbs.
9: 57.9% Obama
Drawing on the strength of South Bend and La Porte and the large population of moderately conservative Fort Wayne, this may be the most surprising district on the map, avoiding the two major Democratic centers of the state. Also, this competes with the 4th for most vulnerable, as this district has the least consistent Democratic history (Fort Wayne has had 16 mayoral party transitions since 1910; its current Dem mayor is the only one to buck the trend electorally.)