the reason some of the current Texas R maps are failing isn't because the state is gradually changing but also because of a sudden jolt left in swing areas that wiped out a factor Rs depended on for security

hillary clinton cut the spread between the median texas voter precinct and the state result in HALF — unprecedented in 15 years — after wendy davis' run for governor in 2014, and then just another two years later beto cut THAT spread by **two-thirds** down to just 2%

this means, overall, since mitt romney carried the state, republicans have lost 83% of their built-in geographic advantage (even more if you use median resident instead of median voter, which is arguably more important for redistricting)

Lupe Valdez, who got kinda whacked statewide and is the usual counterexample, did very slightly worse than Bill white 8 years ago, but her spread was only 1/3 as awful as his — more and more, the huge majorities of texan voters that live in R+30 precincts just don't exist anymore

this is crap for Rs bc CD 10, for example, voted for Romney by 20.3%, which should've (in magical Republican Redistricting Land) meant enduring 2018 and voting for Cruz by 7.1%, but it ended up spitting in their faces and voting for Beto because 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭 disappeared

the basis of gerrymandering is ensuring the median voter (& resident) lives in a district more R than the state itself— because they built their entire map on the existing landscape that (used to) provide that instead of reinforcing it, when the ground shifted their maps broke