With the VRA gone and VA's maps blocked, the GOP is cruising to total gerrymandering victory
For quite a while Tangle's "my takes" were positing that Republicans might lose the gerrymandering war despite winning a few battles, or that it might be fought to a draw. While they weren't "predictions" per se they certainly ended up aging like milk. Isaac's optimism, if you could call it that, was totally unfounded.
When the GOP unleashed this tactic, Trump (or let's be real, his staff) expected that the VRA would be gone, and his demands were made well in advance to prime the pump. His side quest to destroy R holdouts in Indiana made an example of any Republicans having second thoughts, and now there are none. Republican voters maybe didn't punish the Indiana holdouts, but they definitely didn't reward them.
This strategy is leading towards a nearly complete Republican victory. They can gerrymander the deep south with impunity, because those courts are stacked. Democratic states like VA, that were historically competitive, will be blocked by mixed courts that still have Republicans on them.
CA's counter-gerrymander is the only front on which Trump's team appears to have "lost."
Sometimes it seems like nobody in this administration knows what they're doing, but when it comes to disenfranchising voters, the results are now clear: they are good at this. This is total dominance.