Eh, I tend to grade people born in 1917 on a curve. If you were still in the Klan by 1970/80 It'll matter more to me. But maybe I'm looking down too much on West Virginia in that time period?
Illinois is the only big state to not trend as a whole in the last ten years. Beneath the surface though; the state outside of Chicago and its collar counties shifted right, the collar counties moved left, and Chicago reverted after moving left in 2016. This fucked up the Democratic Gerrymander from 2010.
The yellow strip is their attempt at a Democratic seat in South/Central Illinois; a region that swung heavily to Trump as a whole. They took the Dem vote sink around St. Louis and built a land bridge to Democratic urban centers. The C in the northwest is their attempt to salvage Cheri Bustos' NW Dem WWC seat. It's ugly but it works.
They've created three vote sinks, in the South, the Central, and the NW.
This isn't a first bite. They had enormous push back from the Democratic delegation and so they had to make changes, as well as delivering payback and bribery.
They protected the VRA Black districts and attempted to create another Latino VRA seat.
Democrats also took the opportunity to stick it to far left progressive Marie Newman. She primaried Dan Lipinski, a pro-life moderate WWC Dem. She beat him by two
points in 2020. She made a big stink, probably because she's too far left for her district and instead of shoring her up they expanded her into red territory. They attempted to draw her into one of the Latino districts while moving parts of her district into Sean Casten's (D) seat. She's already announced she will run in the new Casten seat regardless last I checked.
Never Trumper Adam Kizinger's district also got carved up. It was an odd move, but activist liberals have justified it by rationalizing that he can't win a primary ,in their opinion.
They also took the opportunity to draw in the homes of promising recruits to replace any retiring member like Bustos.