Oh well. Romanoff will be back to spank Coffman in 2016 when Clinton helps the Democrats take the House back.
It's quite possible the gerrymander will fall apart once Obama gets out of office. The gerrymander is based on the political coalitions formed during his first campaign and the presidency. Gerrymanders do tend to fall apart as coalitions change and as there is movement of people within a metro area/state. That is what happened in 2006 and 2008 as the Democrats overcame Republican gerrymanders to win big.
2006 was just a transformative year as Democrats took a lot of traditional Republican-leaning districts as voters tired of George W. Bush. They were able to sustain the momentum in 2008. That, of course, changed after the Democrats sloppily passed Obamacare and there was predictable pushback in '10.
2012 brought a more favorable Republican Congressional map due to reapportionment and more gerrymandering (although the Republicans lost about 10 seats due to Obama's coattails). The Republicans will likely regain a few of those seats on the fringes in '14.
While it's possible for the Dems to retake the House before '22, their real impediment is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which forces majority-minority districts. That allows the rest of a competitive state to be sliced with Republican-leaning districts while you have some crazy D+30 districts solely designed to elect either an African-American or Latino candidate.
Most of the gerrymanders in 2000 were also in the Republicans favor. That is why there were so many Republican friendly districts back then as well. What the 2010 redistricting allowed the Republicans to do was to redraw the map to account for the changing coalitions as well as movement of people in order to solidify their gains. The map held up well in 2012 and will in 2014 as well with Obama still as president. I do believe there is a chance it could fall apart in 2016 or beyond if Hillary is able to win with a different coalition consisting of more older, white women. The democrats might be less reliant on urban minority votes in a Hillary coalition.
