What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State

On Nov. 23, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the state’s new congressional map into law. Currently, Democrats control 13 of the state’s 18 House seats, but this map aims to give them 14 of 17 seats — as Illinois lost one seat in reapportionment — thus adding one Democratic seat and subtracting two Republican seats. Importantly, the new map also creates a new majority-Latino district, the 3rd, a change that some politicians and activists had been pushing for.

This final version of Illinois’s congressional map further entrenches Democratic gains in the state, but not everyone is happy with the results. Freshman Rep. Marie Newman, who unseated conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski in 2020, saw the lines redrawn so that her hometown is now in the 4th District, the heavily Latino district represented by Rep. Chuy García. On Oct. 29, Newman announced that she’ll run for reelection in the new 6th District, where she currently represents 41 percent of residents; her opponent will likely be Rep. Sean Casten, who currently represents the 6th District. That decision makes sense given that she would have likely faced long odds in a primary against García.

The map also puts pressure on several incumbent Republican representatives. The hometowns of incumbent Republican Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Darin LaHood are squeezed together in the 16th District, which may have been a factor in Kinzinger’s Oct. 29 decision not to seek reelection. Incumbent Republican Reps. Mary Miller and Mike Bost also ended up in the same district.

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Rodney Davis may have challenges of his own ahead. His 13th District would go from an R+8 seat to a D+7 seat. Like Kinzinger, Davis has also been a rumored gubernatorial candidate due to the expectation that Democrats would turn his district blue, although he would also have the option of running in the neighboring, dark-red 15th District, only 28 percent of which he currently represents but where his hometown is located.