US House Redistricting: Iowa

[dpmapper]

That looks like a pretty optimal GOP gerrymander, actually, if you assume Latham>Boswell in CD-3.  CD-1 is a fantastic Dem vote sink with Iowa City plus most of the river cities (although Braley lives outside it, I think), King should be OK in CD-4, and CD-2 would be pretty competitive for a Cedar Rapids Republican to take on Loebsack.   

[dpmapper]

GOP should like this map.  The cores of all the districts are preserved.  Hinson and MMM both go a point or so to the right, IA-3 is now a Biden district but just by 0.3%.  Populations go from +256 to -312. 

[dpmapper]

What's the range on the current proposal?

[dpmapper]

Here's one with a range of -33 to +39.  IA-1 goes a couple points right, IA-3 goes 1.5 points right, IA-2 stays constant. 

[dpmapper]

What's the range on the current proposal?

Current proposal is -36 to +63. Your proposed map would have less of a population range but it is clearly not close to being compact.

True. (Changing the boundary between the 4th and 1st to be nice wouldn't change partisanship, but I couldn't get the populations to add up without having the tail.) It does, however, have the feature that the largest 15 cities in Iowa would remain in their current district (ignoring some parts in Dallas County that get split off).  

I don't expect this to be the map, I'm just playing around.