A book I'm reading right now called "Ratf**ked" which chronicles the very purposeful tactic of the Republican party via SLCS in 2008, after Obama and Dems. swept the country."Leftists" lost the Senate? In 2008, Obama had a majority in both houses, so might want to recheck your "facts". 

Thats when Karl Rove and some others made a plan, REDMAP, to attack 25 vulnerable state houses with extreme outside money to take those state houses at any cost so they could get the levers of redistricting. They did in 2010, and redistricted in such a gerrymandered way as had never been seen before using a computer program called Maptitude. 

The lines they made for congressional districts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina flipped those states from Democrat congressional majorities to Rep. by a huge ratio. The funny thing was, even though the Dems. took most of the total votes in those states, R's took a much higher ratio of congressmen. This is not democracy.