One theory could be that they had to do that initially to capture a state and have a power majority when redistricting comes up. Once its gerrymandered sufficie

One theory could be that they had to do that initially to capture a state and have a power majority when redistricting comes up. Once its gerrymandered sufficiently, there is no way that they'd ever let it be uncaptured. You can let everyone vote but their vote is useless, if you've slivered the population into chunks that stymie voting power of blue votes against a swath of red voters. Ohio is already like this in many ways, blue cities held hostage by a state captured by the GOP. You have, e.g. the 9th district that takes a sliver of Cleveland and extends over 100 miles down a strip of rural coastline (1). This is the district that Dennis Kucinich (D) used to handily win until maps were remade by republicans and it extended out from Cleveland like the tentacle of a giant squid. https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/why-ohios-congressional-map-unconstitutional https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/why-ohios-congressio...