Among the 50 U.S. states, which have the most biased gerrymandered maps?
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Executive summary
Academic and media analyses repeatedly flag a handful of states as the most egregiously gerrymandered after the 2020–2025 redistricting cycle: Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, and several Midwestern and Southern states repeatedly appear in rankings and expert report cards (Princeton Gerrymandering Project and World Population Review cited by Newsweek) [1] [2] [3]. Independent trackers and advocacy groups show Republican-favoring skews concentrated in at least 11 states and single-state examples of extreme maps (e.g., Texas 2025) top many “worst” lists produced by academics and reporters [4] [5].
1. What the experts measure — and why results vary
Groups use different metrics: Princeton’s Gerrymandering Project relies on simulation-based report cards and local expert review to grade state maps, while media lists (World Population Review, Visual Capitalist, Newsweek) synthesize court rulings and academic scores; those methodological differences explain why lists don’t identically rank the same states [1] [2] [6]. Simulation approaches compare enacted maps to thousands of neutral map alternatives to quantify partisan bias; journalistic roundups often fold in litigation outcomes and political context, producing complementary but not identical conclusions [1] [7].
2. States most frequently flagged: who shows up on multiple lists
Wisconsin is repeatedly named among the worst offenders: World Population Review and downstream reporting (Newsweek) call Wisconsin “the most gerrymandered state” in recent trackers [2] [3]. North Carolina and Texas also surface across academic and media accounts — North Carolina for maps that shifted from fair to highly biased after judicial and legislative changes, Texas for a 2025 map many analysts rank among the most extreme gerrymanders in modern times [4] [5]. Other states in the Deep South and Midwest appear frequently in Princeton and reporter compilations as exhibiting large partisan skews [1] [7].
3. Party responsibility: both sides, but patterns matter
Both parties have engaged in gerrymandering historically; Princeton and Visual Capitalist note Democratic and Republican maps have earned poor fairness scores in different states [1] [6]. But multiple advocacy and academic analyses say that, after the 2021 cycle and subsequent legal outcomes, Republican-favoring skews persisted uncorrected in numerous states while many large Democratic-favoring skews were reversed by courts — yielding a net Republican structural advantage in roughly 11 states according to the Brennan Center’s analysis of 2024 dynamics [4].
4. Litigation, courts and political change reshape rankings
Court rulings and state-level politics change where maps land on “worst” lists: North Carolina’s map swung from relatively fair to highly biased after new maps and court decisions; Texas’s 2025 map has been singled out as exceptionally extreme by scholars such as Sam Wang [4] [5]. Conversely, citizen commissions and court-drawn maps produced better grades in places like Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania on some fairness report cards [8] — demonstrating that legal and institutional design choices materially affect outcomes [8] [1].
5. What “most biased” actually implies for voters and elections
A state labeled “most gerrymandered” typically means its congressional or legislative maps produce seat shares that diverge substantially from statewide vote shares in ways that favor one party; Princeton’s simulation tools and Democracy Docket’s trackers compare expected seat shares to presidential vote percentages to reveal these skews [1] [9]. The Brennan Center emphasizes that these artificial advantages can give one party an “artificial head start” in House races across multiple cycles [4].
6. Disagreements, caveats and hidden agendas in the sources
Analysts disagree about how much of a skew stems from partisan map-drawing versus political geography (self-sorting) or Voting Rights Act compliance; No Labels and other commentators warn that population clustering can explain some apparent imbalance [8]. Watch for implicit agendas: advocacy outlets (Democracy Docket, Brennan Center) emphasize partisan harm and legal remedies, while some media pieces rely on third-party rankings (World Population Review, Newsweek) that simplify complex metrics for readers — read methodologies before taking rankings as definitive [9] [3] [2].
7. Bottom line — where to look next and limitations of this report
Current expert syntheses consistently call out Wisconsin, North Carolina and Texas among the most biased maps and identify at least 11 states with substantial Republican advantages; Princeton’s Gerrymandering Project, Brennan Center summaries and individual scholar analyses (e.g., Sam Wang) are the best available tools for state-by-state detail [1] [4] [5]. Limitations: available sources do not provide a single, unified ranked list that all experts endorse, and methodologies differ across trackers — consult the mentioned sources for state-level grades and the underlying simulation methods before drawing firm conclusions [1] [2].
If you want, I can pull the Princeton report-card grades and Brennan Center state breakdowns into a side‑by‑side list for the states you care most about (sources above).