Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
No, it's generally the opposite of that. Gerrymandering is designed to maximize your side's vote efficiency and minimize your opponent's vote efficiency.
This NC diagram provides a decent visualization of this: notice how of the many Republican seats, the victory margins are relatively small compared to the Democrat seats. Republicans allow the Dems to have landslide victories in three districts, while giving themselves comparatively narrow wins in 10. But all but a couple of those districts would be at risk in a wave election. Whereas a non-gerrymandered approach would give the Republicans at least 1 fewer seat right now, but also give them a couple more wave-proof seats.
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This actually argues against your point. According to the charts a huge number of democratic votes are concentrated in 3 districts so are out of play in the others. If things were more evenly distributed the margins of victory would be even smaller and some additional districts would be lost. This would make the GOP even more at risk in a wave election, not less.