US House Redistricting: Iowa

[Stuart98]

Put together a State Senate map:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/3292b655-5664-42a6-9abd-f9433c58b7dd

Seat composition:
2016: 34 Trump — 16 Clinton
2018: 31 Reynolds — 19 Hubbell

State House map:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/777a517a-251c-4e74-a547-5cb37e6b7f14

Seat composition:
2016: 66 Trump — 34 Clinton
2018: 57 Reynolds — 43 Hubbell

Can you get these maps color-coded for partisan purposes?  I have no doubt I will see a Republican sea of red (or Atlas blue) interspersed with a few tiny Democratic islands, but still.  

Are these meant to be Republican gerrymanders, or is it just the nature of geography in Iowa that Dems will win a much lower % of the seats than their PV performance reflects? Specifically looking at the share of Hubbell seats relative to his ~48% share of the popular vote.

The latter. The current map is fairly similar in the number of Clinton districts.

Iowa Geography is pretty bad for Democrats under current coalitions, though it's much better with slightly older Obama era coalitions.

[Stuart98]

Can someone explain to me why it's in the GOP's benefit to create a D "vote sink" in Des Moines rather than just keeping a map simillar to the current config. The thing is a Des Moines seat doesn't really help to shore up IA-1 and 2 at all, it just means IA-4 can get redder but that seat is already red enough for the GOP. Wouldn't it just be better to have a map simillar to the current config where IA-3 is more or less a tossup with rurals that may help cancel out some of the urban trends of Des Moines?

For example, a map like the map below follows the county rules and is reasonably compact, and would make districts 1, 2, and 3 all redder.

Iowa may be volatile in off-year elections; without Trump on the ballot, a least change map could be 3-1 D again.