There are growing concerns in the party that the political war is not going as planned — that the juice may not have been worth the squeeze and could, in a nightmare scenario, result in a net gain for Democrats.
And within broader GOP circles, misgivings about the strategy heightened last week after California voters overwhelmingly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a manner that Democrats hope will flip five House seats in their direction.
The double-edged sword of gerrymandering is that you’re building seats with a 5-10pt advantage and stacking them with the most extreme right-wing primary winners you can muster. A blue-wave election decimates these suddenly-swing districts and can even topple deep red state safe districts (the Alabama senate flip in '18 being a classic example of what a big enough wave year can do).
But two years after the wave, when voter participation normalizes, Republicans reclaim all those lost seats quick enough. And when they have the State level sandbagged even more heavily (Wisconsin can go 60-pts D and still have a Republican state legislature), the Dem response to gerrymandering becomes pandering to conservatives as a matter of party doctrine.
The only way out of this in the short term is by Dems capitalizing on state majorities (in Virginia and New Jersey, for instance, the new blue majority is ripe for its own redistricting) and permanently setting districts in their favor.
Then, on a longer timeline MAKE DC A STATE YOU ASSHOLES and then get serious about broader electoral reforms.