The district was drawn to be Likely D District, removing more conservative parts of Lake and Cook County,but Dold was a very good fit for it (The General Assembly drew him out after 2010). In a different configuration in a neutral year a Republican like Dold would have a decent chance at it.
The opposite, actually. Dold's strongest areas were in places like Prospect Heights, Palatine, Kenilworth (where he was from), and the Cook Suburban areas on the fringe of the district North of Evanston; these voters are Democratic in National elections but are waaay more likely to vote R for someone like Dold (classic RINO Toms).
They got chopped off into Schakowsky's District with Evanston and parts of Chicago's Northside.
They were replaced with exurban communities in Lake County around Waukegan who were more diverse and labor friendly as to drag Dold's margins.
It's a catch 22 now. Some areas in Lake county are no longer even ancestrally Republican because of increased diversity and immigration/emigration. That is unlike the fringe cook suburbs which while trended D nationally remain demographically similar to what they were when Rockefeller R's were still a thing.
Not to mention cutting into rural Lake and McHenry to make a more R leaning 10th wouldn't make much sense for Republicans as it would endanger Hultgren in the neighboring 14th because those areas make up a lot of R margins there.
An R gerrymander would have a district centered on lower North Shore, straddling the Cook-Lake county line just North of Evanston, including Palatine, and halving the Waukegan area between the 14th and the 10th.
The new 10th would still vote D nationally but would be way more likely to vote someone like Dold in at the Congressional level.
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