I drew this map upon release of the new Census data for Iowa.  I paid no attention to partisanship and tried to correlate each district with a geographical area of the state.  Starting with Des Moines, I drew a district around it, then drew a district for the southeast, northeast and western Iowa.  My goal was to have each district within 1,000 persons of the ideal district population.  Amazingly, my configuration worked out on my very first try (which means there’s probably many possible combinations to how the state can be drawn).  Nevertheless, I kind of like the map here because I think it does a good job in keeping the different regions of the state together (in that respect, I think it’s better than, for example, the 1990’s Iowa map which had one district run from Des Moines to  the western border).

You can find an updated map reflecting the 2008 results at www.iowahouse.org – but I've also posted it below for your viewing pleasure….In particular, notice the gains in the northeast corner of the state.  I think anyone looking at competing for the 4th Congressional district seat currently occupied by Tom Latham has to run strong in the northeast corner of the state & Warren County.  I can't imagine two areas more different….