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Exactly.

And in that capacity he could serve Clinton well: His plans could be the threat, her plans the compromise. Republican Congressmen would go along with her just because he looms large over them.

Their Democratic constituents are not going to dismiss his ideas, when he almost won the primaries. That's a lot of people out there that could decide to defeat them. And if they all came out to vote, they could topple any incumbent. Their "safe" districts are not all that safe because their gerrymandering math only puts a small majority of Republicans into as many districts as they can. An abnormally large Democratic turnout could defeat that.

Gerrymandering has made it so that the popular vote can(and will) heavily favor Democrats in the House elections. But Republicans will still win. This is a dynamic that even a vast Democratic turnout cannot defeat. Even if the Senate flips, Clinton will still have to make deals with House Speaker Paul Ryan or his successor and this is the bottleneck that will prevent most of Clinton's progressive agenda from becoming reality.

Maybe, maybe not. Successful gerrymandering tries to put at least 55% Republicans in as many districts as you can and to put as many Democrats in few districts. It assumes a normal turnout.

But what if the Republican Party vote is depressed by the Never Trump voters staying home and the Trump voters punishing the traitor Congressmen and voting for Libertarians? This is a unique election because Trump has already split the Republican vote.

All of those marginally safe districts could flip to Democrats and only the really safe districts remain Republican. And there are a LOT of marginally safe districts, because they wanted as many districts as possible so they spread their majority pretty thin.

aren't precinct boundaries created after the census? i.e. whoever would have to wait until they knew the demographics before changing any lines.

Courts can actually order changes to weird gerrymandered districts any time they like. Doesn't need to wait for 10 year census.

There is a chance that un-gerrymandering will become a "thing" before 2020, especially with Eric Holder and President Obama pursuing it. That is the best hope for a Democratic House. But... there is still the reality that our constitutional structure gives rural conservatives a built-in advantage. Hence the swath of red in the middle of the country.

It gives low-population and very small states two senators just like big states, but how does it give rural conservatives an advantage in The House?

Two things: first, because every State also gets a Representative, even though that population is smaller than what an urban district's is; second, geography - rural districts take up much more space. When reapportionment occurs, low-density States get Representatives at a higher ratio than high-density States (I can't reproduce the formula, but it exists). Montana appears to be the exception, as its Representative represents 950,000 people, while the average is 770,000. Rhode Island has the least populated districts at 526,000, but illustrates the point. My Congressional District - Census I admit the impact is small, but when the margins are close, significant.

The impact of this misrepresentation was most recently felt in the selection of George Bush, who won the Electoral College, but not the popular vote. Also, filibusters can be maintained by Senators representing less than a third of the population, so the effect is not immaterial.