First of all, this isn’t gerrymandering, at least in the original sense, because they aren’t drawing strongly irregular and amorphous shapes.
However, I get why it could construed as ‘gerrymandering’ under the political sense, because they have observed a contiguous area or voting demographic and targeted it for division.
Still, maps like that can actually backfire.
For example, if Salt Lake city is your dominant population center and it’s population votes heavily one way, you could actually try to split it up and combine it with few enough voters of the opposite party in order to get more seats out of that city.
In other words, the democrat strategy to get more seats by expanding out the influence of salt lake city could be very similar to a republican strategy to dilute salt lake city’s influence.
“For example, if Salt Lake city is your dominant population center and it’s population votes heavily one way, you could actually try to split it up and combine it with few enough voters of the opposite party in order to get more seats out of that city.
In other words, the democrat strategy to get more seats by expanding out the influence of salt lake city could be very similar to a republican strategy to dilute salt lake city’s influence.”
Yes, Republicans did this in Utah in the most recent redistricting.
As I pointed out at the time, Nevada Democrats did EXACTLY the same thing with Las Vegas. They took a city which had 1 solid Rat district and 2 marginal ones — then turned CD-1 from solid into semi-solid and pushed CD-3 and CD-4 into less marginal status. Rats have won all 3 Las Vegas districts every 2 years.
Why haven’t Republicans found a judge who would require Nevada to undo the Democrat gerrymander? Perhaps because only Democrat judges get to decide redistricting cases?
P.S. The Nevada STATE House is Democrat-gerrymandered to an even more thorough degree than the U.S. House districts and the state Senate is in that direction as well, but not as blatantly.