Let's Play Our Game

This wonderful thing from the Des Moines Register has fast become a near obsession of mine as with the census data now officially out we can discover neat and wonderful things about ourselves, like how diverse and urban we've become over the past decade. And how despite all that, we're still losing a Congressional seat.

So, I've been playing- and this is what I came up with following some loose rules I set up in my own head-

1. I wanted to try and balance urban-rural as best I could.

2. I wanted to try and achieve some sort of a balance size wise as well.

3. Polk County is a massive pain in the ass. It's too big and too many people live there, thus spoiling my fun when attempting to re-doodle the 3rd District into something sexy that I like.

So kids, behold what Iowa would look like if The Cigar was in charge of redistricting:


Let's take it one district at a time:
The First District: A nice little, compact district that has all the earmarks of being a Democratic safe seat, yet thanks to Scott and Clinton Counties can't be counted as an automatic pick-up for the Dems. Is it urban? Yes. But Iowa City and Cedar Rapids should be balanced out by The Quad Cities and Dubuque, where urban, at least in my experience doesn't necessarily equal liberal.

The Second District: Should make Republicans very happy, because while there's Waterloo-Cedar Falls this looks to be a pretty Conservative leaning district, ripe for a pick-up for whomever wants to take on Braley in 2012

The Third District: Polk County is a massive pain in the ass when you're doing this, you know that? Too many people live there and I didn't want to make another uber-urban district, so we strung it north and hung Mason City and Clear Lake on top of the District. This is another poachable one for Republicans, but then again it has been for about a decade and a half now and Boswell just keeps winning. In a battle royale of Latham versus Boswell however- presuming neither retires or decides to take on Harkin I think it's a totally open race, with maybe the Conservative Des Moines 'burbs pushing it Latham's way. If the powers that be decide to follow my lead, it should make for an interesting race.

The Fourth District: No one lives in Western Iowa and Steve King (unfortunately) isn't going anywhere.

The way I see 2012 shaking out under this scenario:
1st: Loebsack, probably.
2nd: If it's Miller-Meeks v Braley, I think it might be third time lucky for Miller-Meeks
3rd: If it's Boswell v. Latham, I'd put this as too close to call. Might be the race to end all races, given how comfortable Iowans seem to get with their elected officials.
4th: Steve King ain't going nowhere, fool!