Third parties pulling out bots would explain the Democrat's loss in followers, but not the Republican's increase in followers.

Sure it would. Theoretically, if you wanted to obfuscate the evidence of your botnet, you would do your best to keep account numbers at time of purchase as close as possible. Easiest way to do this is to reactivate suspended conservative accounts to compensate.

There are many people who were banned for posting wrong think (not for attacking other users) from 2020 to 2022 who have reported their accounts have been reactivated.

Mark Hamill reported he lost 8,000 followers and inadvertently revealed an approximate time frame when this theoretical change took place. It becomes even more apparent once you notice top conservative accounts saw anywhere from 2000-8000 followers added to their numbers during the exact same time frame.