US House Redistricting: Iowa

[Skill and Chance]

Full points for necromancy.

Have there been major population shifts in Iowa since 2010?

Polk, Dallas, Story and Warren in the Des Moines metro have added 95,000 people.

Linn, Johnson, Scott and Dubuque have added 46,000 people

The rest of Iowa has lost a little over 30,000 people

So IA-03 is going to have to contract and presumably get very Dem over the decade while the rest of the state gets more and more R.  Good time to be Cindy Axne.   

[Skill and Chance]

I tried my hand at a fair 4-district map of Iowa.

Image Link

The Population Deviation is 0.77%, and it reflects 2015 - 2019 ACS Data.

--/100 on Dave's Proportionality Index
--/100 on the Compactness Index
100/100 on County Splitting (that's mandatory though)
0/100 on the Minority Representation index (lol)
--/100 on Dave's competitiveness index

For the other indices DRA isn't quite loading right for me.

The map above shows results from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Check it out here and see county and municipality boundaries.


Partisan Breakdown by Election

2016 U.S. Senate Election in Iowa: 4R

2016 U.S. Presidential Election in Iowa: 3R to 1D

2018 Iowa Attorney General Election: 4D

2018 Iowa Gubernatorial Election: 3D to 1R

2020 U.S. Senate Election in Iowa: 3R to 1D

2020 U.S. Presidential Election in Iowa: 3R to 1D


Opinions?

I think this is roughly what will happen.  Axne gets a Biden district due to the Des Moines growth and everything else comes off the table R. 

[Skill and Chance]

After last night's results with the suburbs still very strong for Dems, think maybe the GOP decides they need to shore up IA-1 and 2 and instead packs Iowa City into 3 and creates a Dem seat for Axne while making things a very safe 3-1 for the decade. I know the state is trending R but midterm turnout patterns with whites can threaten an incumbent only elected by 6 votes!

I strongly expect they will just go ahead with the commission computer-generated map as long as it doesn't spit out 2 Biden districts.

[Skill and Chance]

Wow.  I think that IA-01 is a Biden district?

[Skill and Chance]

Here is the proposed Congressional map in DRA, shaded with 2020 Pres. numbers. The first two districts (the east ones) are about 19,500 people off from the ideal population.



IA-01: Biden +7.8
IA-02: Trump + 10.4
IA-03: Biden +0.2
IA-04: Trump +31.5

I don't see this map surviving.

IA-01 well left of IA-03.  Even bigger wow.

[Skill and Chance]

Here is the proposed Congressional map in DRA, shaded with 2020 Pres. numbers. The first two districts (the east ones) are about 19,500 people off from the ideal population.



IA-01: Biden +7.8
IA-02: Trump + 10.4
IA-03: Biden +0.2
IA-04: Trump +31.5

I don't see this map surviving.

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

IDK if they are looking to concede a seat, they would probably rather have it be a Des Moines+Ames IA-03 that could trend left than have currently hard R trending IA-01 packed with colleges.  

[Skill and Chance]

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.

They probably end up with something like the top middle.

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/maxtmcc/status/1451203610193371143?t=YKgpr4B9_C2X73UtnYG4pg&...
Obviously if I was a Republican, I would much happier with this map than the previous map. But it can end up as 3-1 D in a favorable year

I don't know, I could easily see 2 districts trending D from suburban growth.

Ehhh... if Trump was still president, this would be possible in 2022.  As it stands now, the earliest a Dem wave could reasonably happen would be 2026 and Iowa could easily be off the charts R by then.  Can't really see anything other than IA-03 going Dem that late, and it's already Dem today.

[Skill and Chance]

Yeah, I think they'll just go with this one. All four incumbents live in their districts, Hinson and Miller-Meeks should be generally favored barring a blue wave (which 2022 will not be) and they'll generally have a good shot at knocking off Axne.

IDK though if it's a republican midterm Democrats could easily regain a 3-1 delegation.

Or if Iowa became a swing state again in a Presidential year.  You have three districts voting to the left of the state in this map.

The commission rules make this inevitable unless you make IA-03 Safe Dem.

[Skill and Chance]

This new map makes Miller-Meeks' district two-ish points bluer, which importantly would have been more than enough for Hart to win last year.

No, she gets 2% redder.  It's Hinson's district that gets a little bluer, but she seems to run way stronger than Generic R. 

EDIT: NVM, they switched the district numbers.  Hinson is redder and Miller-Meeks is bluer.