Here's what Utah might have looked like in 2016 without congressional gerrymandering

We're taking a look at the impact of Republican gerrymanders on the 2016 congressional elections. Read why in our introductory post, and click here for the full series.

Republicans gerrymandered Utah ahead of 2012 in an effort to defeat 4th District Rep. Jim Matheson, the lone Democrat among the state’s four-member delegation. Matheson narrowly prevailed that year in an upset, but Republicans finally captured his seat when he retired in 2014, and they easily held it in 2016. Republicans were able to win all four districts by engaging in the classic gerrymandering tactic called cracking: They divided Salt Lake City among three districts to drown out its Democratic voters with neighboring heavily Republican turf. Our nonpartisan proposal shown above would instead unify Salt Lake City and its inner suburbs into one far more compact district located entirely within Salt Lake County.

Under the existing gerrymander, Donald Trump won the 4th District 39-32, with 22 percent for conservative independent Evan McMullin, while Trump won the other seats by double digits. By contrast, the 4th District in our hypothetical map overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton 50-27 with just 16 percent for McMullin. Our nonpartisan 4th even backed Mitt Romney by just 51-46 despite his 73-25 landslide statewide, and President Obama had carried it 55-41 in 2008. Since Republican Rep. Mia Love won just 54-41 in 2016, she would have been highly likely to lose her seat without gerrymandering.

Utah has long been one of the most Republican states in the country, but gerrymandering still likely cost Democrats one relatively safe seat there in 2016.