Until this last decade, Mississippi had five districts. I decided to see what would happen if I drew a COI map where Mississippi still had five districts, followed by a clean Dem map.
This is the map.
The red district is safe for the GOP if Gene Taylor doesn't come back. It's a semi-ridiculous R+23, but would only Lean R against Taylor.
The yellow district is safe for the GOP as well, at R+13 (yet still 36% Black)
The purple district is R+15 and has lots of conservaDems, it would probably Lean R
Here's where it gets interesting.
The blue district, which I kept as close to Jackson as possible, is R+2, a swing district.
The green district, which tried to take up the NW quadrant of Mississippi, is also R+2, another swing district.
A Sanford Bishop type Democrat could win either district. However, a progressive Democrat probably wouldn't. The green district is 43% Black and the blue one is 47% (which surprised me, I thought a district centered on Jackson would have at least a few more white Obama voters than one mostly in majority-Black territory and the Memphis suburbs).
Map 2:: Black Packing
This would be an ideal Republican 5 district VRA map. It would be 4-1 for basically eternity. The blue district is 67% Black. Only one other district is less than 60% McCain, and it's still R+11 and doesn't include conservaDem Northeast Mississippi.
I was curious what this would look like
Option 3: VRA Compliant Dem Map (2-2-1?)
The blue district is 54% Black and D+4.
The green district is R+2, a toss-up.
The purple district is R+13, but contains all of the conservaDem areas of Mississippi. Most of this district has Democrats representing it in the State Senate.
The red and yellow districts are safe R (R+21 and R+22)