Gerrymandering Won't Save the Republicans in a Wave Election

Although many political analysts believe that the Republicans will lose House seats this November, more than a few are reluctant to concede that the Democrats will take the House. Why? They believe the Republicans have a lock on the House because of all too many seats are gerrymandered in their favor. That is true in a normal election year, but it is not true in a wave election.

Below you will find an example of a gerrymandered state with 10 House seats where the electorate is evenly divided. In this example the Republicans normally will win seven out of the ten seats. I would note that in the real world there are independent voters and many Democratic districts have a far lower number of voters relative to their populations. 

                                         Example of a Gerrymander
                                            (Thousands of Voters)
                                            
                                       Dems                   Reps

District 1                        350 (70%)              150 (30%)
District 2                        350 (70%)              150 (30%)
District 3                        280 (56%)              220 (44%)
District 4                        180 (36%)              320 (64%)
District 5                        200 (40%)              300 (60%)
District 6                        220 (44%)              280 (56%)
District 7                        230 (46%)              270 (54%)
District 8                        230 (46%)              270 (54%)
District 9                        230 (46%)              270 (54%)
District 10                      230 (46%)              270 (54%)

Total                          2500000 (50%)       2500000 (50%)

In the above example all it would take is for 10% of the Republican voters in Districts 7-10 to flip for the Democrats to achieve 7-3 advantage thereby completely reversing the current line-up. In the example in those four contested seats the Dems would win by 253,000 - 247,000. The other six seats would remain as they were. Simply put any seat the Republicans now hold with a 55% or less majority is at huge risk.

As a result, as of today, given the amount of open seats currently held by Republicans and the number of other contested seats, it is very easy to visualize the Dems to pick up 50-60 House seats. That would be typical of what happened during the wave elections of 2006, 2010 and 2014.