President Donald Trump got the ball rolling when he demanded that Texas adopt a new map creating five more Republican-held U.S. House seats. The U.S. Supreme Court escalated the redistricting “arms race” by blowing up what remains of the Voting Rights Act.

Since the summer of 2025, nine GOP-controlled states and two states with Democratic trifectas have either adopted new political maps or begun the redistricting process, seeking to give their party an advantage in this year’s Congressional races.

More states will likely draw new maps next year, including New York (where Democrats could net several U.S. House seats) and Indiana (where Trump-backed challengers just defeated most of the Republican legislators who declined to redistrict this cycle).

One red state that won’t join the gerrymandering stampede is Iowa, where legislators have completed their work for the year. Even if Republicans lose one or more Congressional races this November, they could not easily draw friendlier maps before 2028. And even if the majority party overhauled Iowa’s redistricting statute—which lays out the nonpartisan process—our state constitution makes it difficult to create four reliably red U.S. House districts.

“No county shall be divided in forming a congressional district”

Why does Iowa have at least a couple of competitive U.S. House races every cycle?

One of the biggest reasons can be found in Article III, Section 37 of the Iowa Constitution: “When a congressional district is composed of two or more counties it shall not be entirely separated by a county belonging to another district and no county shall be divided in forming a congressional district.” (emphasis added)

That language goes all the way back to 1857. You can’t split any Iowa county into multiple U.S. House districts. That means no “cracking” of blue areas, like how Republicans have sliced up Austin, Texas.

It also means this fever dream—which an anonymous account posted on X on May 8—would be unconstitutional, because it splits Johnson County (the Iowa City area).

I doubt Republicans would attempt to amend the state constitution to get around this obstacle. But even if they did, they couldn’t accomplish the task in time for 2028.

Iowa’s constitution is extremely resistant to change. Two separately elected legislatures would need to approve new language: once in 2027 or 2028, and again in 2029 or 2030. Then the proposed amendment would go on a statewide ballot and be added to the constitution only if a majority of voters agree (unlikely).

Could Republicans draw a more favorable map without splitting counties? That would be harder than you might guess.

“No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring a political party”

Iowa’s redistricting system (adopted after a unanimous Iowa Supreme Court struck down a map in 1972) is another reason the state is a perennial U.S. House battleground. Iowa Code Chapter 42 sets a timetable for the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency to prepare Congressional and legislative maps in each “year ending in one.” That means no mid-decade redistricting.

The Iowa House and Senate can vote up or down on the first two proposed maps, but cannot amend them. (Lawmakers can amend the third map, a scenario I worried about before the last census. It didn’t happen.)

The code also spells out redistricting standards that every state should use. Among other things:

• Counties and cities must be kept whole within legislative districts when possible (limiting the potential for cracking or packing)
• Districts must have “a population as nearly equal as practicable”
• They must be “composed of convenient contiguous territory”
• They must be “reasonably compact,” with two compactness tests outlined in code
• “No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring a political party, incumbent legislator or member of Congress, or other person or group, or for the purpose of augmenting or diluting the voting strength of a language or racial minority group.”

When maps are drawn, “no use shall be made of any of the following data”: incumbents’ addresses, voters’ party affiliations, past election results, or “Demographic information, other than population head counts.”

Here’s Iowa’s current Congressional map. It was the second prepared by the Legislative Services Agency in 2021. Republican lawmakers rejected the first proposal, which would have created a Democratic-leaning U.S. House seat in eastern Iowa.

The first and third districts are among the top-targeted races in the country, and the second district appears to be in play as well.

It’s a fair map, and a pretty good one for Republicans, who won all four seats in 2022 and again in 2024. Could the third district be made redder by stretching from Polk County to the northwest? Sure—but doing so would risk making the first or second districts bluer, by putting Story and Linn counties (or Linn and Johnson) in the same district.

Another X user tried to improve on the “Iowa War Room” concept with this map, which doesn’t split counties.

That would be illegal for at least two reasons: it would fail the compactness test, and it was obviously drawn for “the purpose of favoring a political party.”

In some states, the ruling party has tossed their existing legal frameworks in order to adopt a new map. So couldn’t Iowa Republicans change our law? Easier said than done.

Guardrails against gerrymandering

Let’s assume Democrats pick up one, two, or three U.S. House districts this November. If Rob Sand wins the governor’s race, he would veto any attempt to change the redistricting standards and any new map proposed before 2030.

In theory, Governor Kim Reynolds could call a special legislative session in November or December to change state law and rush through a new map before Sand is sworn in. Some states have used special legislative sessions to pursue gerrymandering.

Or, if a “Trump conservative” wins the governor’s race, he might try to change state law next year to allow mid-decade redistricting. The legislature could then draw new maps with partisan goals in mind.

Despite my past concerns, I don’t think Republicans would go there. GOP lawmakers including current House Majority Leader Bobby Kaufmann have loudly praised our nonpartisan process. The political backlash could be enormous. And with no way to quickly amend the Iowa constitution, they would be hard-pressed to draw four solid red districts.

Remember: Democrats won three of Iowa’s U.S. House districts in the last Trump midterm election, but Republicans regained two seats in 2020 and the other in 2022.

So if this year’s campaign ends poorly for GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) or Zach Nunn (IA-03), or for the presumptive GOP nominee Joe Mitchell in IA-02, Republicans may chalk it up to bad timing or bad candidates. Structural advantages would give the party a decent chance of winning those seats in 2028 without tampering with the map.

If Republicans have full control of state government in 2031, then Iowans will have more grounds to worry about fair maps.

As mentioned above, the current system allows the legislature to vote down the first two maps produced by the Legislative Services Agency, then amend the third map to a gerrymander. I started worrying about that scenario in 2017 (the first year of the GOP trifecta) and repeatedly tried to get key Republicans on the record promising not to amend any nonpartisan map in 2021.

Iowa’s rural counties continue to lose population, while blue-trending cities and suburbs grow. For that reason, any fair map will create new competitive districts and pit some GOP legislators against fellow incumbents. The temptation to alter the third map may be too great.

Whatever dangers lie ahead five years from now, Iowans can be grateful for the guardrails we have. Otherwise Trump might have already given the order to shore up incumbents who have his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”