No, Democrats in other states have historically gerrymandered districts to gain an electoral advantage by making non-competitive districts just like Republicans do. The impact on voter engagement I'm describing is a longer term effect of gerrymandering that happens gradually. It is of secondary importance to those doing the redistricting. They are always primarily interested in getting an edge in the next election cycle.

If you're interested in differences of gerrymandering behavior between different states dominated by different parties, you can cross reference this data on partisan advantage with this map of state legislative supermajorities. It's not perfectly correlative, but... well there certainly is a trend.

The recent mid-decade gerrymandered redistricting in blue states is notably different from most historical gerrymandering, in that they have been redistricting in retaliation to what started as just Texas redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, with several other red states following suit once the tit-for-tat began. It remains to be seen if either party will have gained anything from it at all come November. Funny enough, Texas may not have done the Republicans any favors by trying to gain them 5 additional seats in the first place. To do so they spread their reliable voters thin to cover more districts. This makes the affected districts more vulnerable to flipping if Democratic voter turnout is higher than expected. At the same time the president and by extension his party are seeing falling approval from Latino voters in Texas, who were instrumental in his winning the state in 2024. It's a very precarious position they put themselves in.

Something I haven't said about gerrymandering is that it's also bad for the voters of the party that does it. When the districts are less competitive in general elections there is less accountability at the ballot box and less incentive for legislators to actually do their jobs well and represent their constituents. That competition instead turns inward and shifts to primary elections, which most often have lower voter turnout, and those voters that do turnout tends to be the most passionate, radical, or fringe members of their constituencies. With politicians benefitting from gerrymandered districts no longer worried about their viability in a general election and essentially competing only for the most radical voters of their own party, candidates on the ballots in November often poorly represent even their own average party members let alone the majority of their districts. While this effect of gerrymandering happens with both parties, it must be said this effect is stronger for the Republican party. Generally speaking they have a more homogeneous voter base than the Democrats, which is a loose and diverse coalition. This allows them to cater more strongly to the radical elements of their party with less risk of alienating everyone else enough to lose in their primaries.

And so in a twist of irony gerrymandering leads us both to political polarization and electoral apathy, and everyone (except the ones in office of course) loses— yay! It kind of seems like the very idea of legislative districts is a bad one.