We're taking a tour of the most outrageous Republican gerrymanders in the nation. Read why in our introductory post, and click here for the full series.
Florida’s 5th Congressional District snaked down the peninsula from Jacksonville to Gainesville to Orlando, scooping up as many black voters as it could to contain them in one heavily Democratic district so that every surrounding district would lean Republican. The end result was a seat that voted 71-28 for Obama while Romney won all six of its neighbors. Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown had represented a previous version of this district since 1993 and won by 65-35 even in the 2014 Republican wave.
This district was part of a larger Republican gerrymander that gave them 17 of 27 seats in 2014. In 2015, a state court later struck down this map for illegal partisan gerrymandering and ordered that the 5th be redrawn to span from Jacksonville to Tallahassee instead to ensure it could continue to elect a black representative. Brown lost her primary to another black Democrat from Tallahassee, but the redraw also led to Democrats gaining the 7th and 10th districts in the Orlando area in 2016 from Republicans, meaning this gerrymandered district alone might have cost Democrats two more seats had it stayed in place in 2016.
Tell us what you think the district looks like in the comments!