You pack and you crack.
You either try and pack as many opposition voters into as few districts is possible, or you crack opposition districts and spread their voters to districts you think have enough favorable demographics for you to still win.
But they did all this math based on voter data from the last presidential election, and those demographics have now swung wildly in the other direction, at least according to more recent elections.
So they created a whole bunch of GOP districts that only had a few points of advantage, but that advantage was based off Trump 2024 results.
Is this copium? Maybe, maybe not.
They really did make these decisions based off that voter data, and subsequent election results raise the possibility that they're really fucking up here, but only time will tell if those trends hold.
You find it hard to believe that MAGA operatives and aligned politicians would do something stupid and counterproductive?
You can go double check, but I'm pretty sure with this go around, they opted to crack their previously packed districts, and they used 2024 Trump voter data to do so.