US House Redistricting: Iowa

[Oryxslayer]

i doubt anyone can beat this (much less without insane shapes) https://twitter.com/corymccartan/status/1426562111447212032?s=21

Someone used a least-deviation algorithm to get this map, and since we don't have any 0-0-0-0 style maps yet it's hard to imagine it not coming up as one of the solutions by the official board. OTOH, I doubt the GOP goes for it cause that is a reliably 2-2 map with a Ames-Des Moines seat and a Cedar Rapids-Iowa City seat.

[Oryxslayer]

Republicans might just go for it, the IA-3 is gonna be a republican district given trends soon. It even voted against greenfield.

Do you mean 2022 or future? Cause about 80% of people live in Dallas, Polk, and Warren who are zooming left. Trump won this IA-03 by 2 points in 2016, now its Biden by a hair.

But yeah, the GOP are Probably going to tell the computer to give them a map with a lower deviation cause they dislike this one. Try to get a better result like they have done previously. Of course the computer could just spit out the 2-2 drawn by Dave Wasserman's contestant winner with a div of <10.

[Oryxslayer]

Miller-Meeks is going to be superbly pissed off if this map passes, lol

They're basically conceding IA-2 with this.

She actually lives in Ottumwa, so her district is pretty safe. It's actually Hinson who gets screwed, since she lives in Linn County.

Yeah, notice the numbers of 1 and 2 got flipped. I think thats cause the incumbents live in opposite seats here.

[Oryxslayer]

Also, here are some other plans the computer program made, but were rejected for compactness/pop div/other reases. All have 1 Biden seat to a considerable degree. Some have 2. GOP probably wanted something like some of these ideally.

[Oryxslayer]

I am expecting something like this to be drawn.

As said before, one of the conditions of rejection is that you have to ask the mappers to produce a lower pop div than the previous proposal. So the Polk-Iowa City map is never going to get spit out by the algorithm, excluding the fact that the compactness also is a stated criteria. A map like this could only work if the leg rejects the three commission maps, and it is unclear if the court would give extra time for gerrymandering after rejecting 3 hypothetical proposals, or more likely simply say three strikes your out.

[Oryxslayer]

I am expecting something like this to be drawn.

As said before, one of the conditions of rejection is that you have to ask the mappers to produce a lower pop div than the previous proposal. So the Polk-Iowa City map is never going to get spit out by the algorithm, excluding the fact that the compactness also is a stated criteria. A map like this could only work if the leg rejects the three commission maps, and it is unclear if the court would give extra time for gerrymandering after rejecting 3 hypothetical proposals, or more likely simply say three strikes your out.

Wouldn't the deviations on this map be too high too, I thought you need lesser deviation each time, and that also applies to the legislature-drawn maps, no?

Yes, you do. The de jure justification for rejection is too high div, of course there are other de facto concerns. This is why Polk-Iowa City become impossible, cause there is not way to get the div lower than proposal 1 for that district, excluding the fact it would get removed from possible consideration by the algorithm on compactness grounds.

[Oryxslayer]

This is what a good 3R-1D map would look like.
DRA link

Yep, and it has too high deviation, which is why you move down the GOP checklist to next best thing: 4-0.