Back in May, a diarist at SwingStateProject revisited Tom DeLay’s infamous mid-decade gerrymandering of Texas. Using Dave’s Redistricting App (an excellent “do it yourself” redistricting tool that didn’t exist publically in 2001) to produce maps, demographic data, and presidential election results in each district, the diarist produced an excellent study of what might have happened without DeLay’s hijinks.

The diarist makes a different argument than we would, but what most have forgotten (and what the data strikingly reveals) is how many of the long-time Democratic members of congress targeted by DeLay and the Republicans came from staunchly Republican districts even before the 2003 gerrymander. Targeted Democrats in the 17th, 11th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st districts all represented constituents who gave either George Bush or John McCain (or both) at least two-thirds of the vote.

All of these Democrats won elections in 2002, and some of them won nearly 60% of the vote themselves in that year, which was certainly not a strong one for Democrats. It stands to reason that many of the Texas Democrats who lost in 2004 did so not because they found themselves in more conservative districts, but because so many voters in their new districts were unfamiliar. These news voters had never seen the incumbent congressperson on a ballot and (if they lived in an unfamiliar media market) may never have seen the incumbent’s campaign ads in previous years.

So the threat of Republican gerrymandering goes beyond the risk of Democratic incumbents being drawn into more conservative districts. It’s also easy to target Democrats who already represent tough districts – particularly in states where Democrats have gained recently despite an already GOP-friendly map.

If we can prevent the GOP from having complete control over redistricting in key states, they won’t be able to target Democrats with the impunity they showed in Texas.

And that’s just one more reason why this election is the most important we’ll see for the next ten years.