On Monday, four days ahead of its latest target date and almost four months behind the statutory date, the Census Bureau released the national and state-level results from the Census including the apportionment numbers that determine how many representatives each get. As can be expected, there are multiple different tables summarizing the data in different ways for us number geeks.
The bottom line table shows the apportionment population (both those living in the state and those residing overseas — like military personnel — who call that state home), the number of representatives that each state is getting, and the change in representation. We will get back to the change in a minute, but the big level number is that the apportionment population is slightly over 331 million. As such, the average size (mean) of each congressional district is just under 761 thousand. Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have fewer people than the average congressional district. While the apportionment formula does not work for calculating the population needed for the first representative, even Wyoming has enough population to be entitled to three-quarters of a representative.
If, D.C. and Puerto Rico were states, Puerto Rico would be just ahead of Utah (which has four representatives) and just behind Connecticut (which has five representatives) and D.C. would be between Vermont and Alaska. Given that Puerto Rico is only slightly larger than Utah (which was not close to getting a fifth representative and far enough behind Connecticut, Puerto Rico would be due for four representatives. If both were states, the five states that would lose a representative would have been Oregon, Colorado, and Montana (all of which gained a seat), California (which lost a seat), and Minnesota (which barely avoided losing a seat). The chart of priority values that allows us to consider the impact of adding Puerto Rico and D.C. also shows that Minnesota barely held onto its last seat and New York barely lost its seat. Apparently, given the formula, Minnesota would have lost that seat if it had 24 fewer people, and New York would have kept its seat if it had 89 more people. (The disparity in numbers is caused by the fact that the two states have different number of seats.
For the bottom line news, there was a grand swing of seven seats this time — less than is normal and less than expected — impacting thirteen states. In what may the hidden story of the Census, several red states with high Latino population gained fewer seats than expected while blue states with high Latino populations lost fewer seats than expected. While, at the end of the day (when the local numbers that will actually be used to draw the lines in the states are released), the success of Republicans at scaring Latinos from participating in the Census may pay off, the immediate results indicate that, perhaps, the Republican hostility to Latinos is another example of the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot.
More significantly, some blue states (Colorado and Oregon) gained seats, and some red states (Ohio and West Virginia) lost seats. From an electoral vote perspective, the swing from reapportionment is only three electoral votes. Now, as the future posts will show, the fact that a state lost a seat does not mean that there will be one fewer member of the majority party in Congress, and the fact that a blue state gained a seat does not meant that there will be one more member of the majority party in Congress. The majority party (if there is a majority party) will also have to consider whether it would rather play defense and shore up two or three vulnerable seats by shoving supporters of the other party in swing seats into one seat (locking in a 3-1 majority rather than running the risk of what is currently 4-0 becoming 0-4). The issue in every redistricting cycle is trying to balance out maximizing potential wins vs. maximizing guaranteed wins.
We may see an example of the problems facing the Republican Party (which will have more of a role in this process due to the results in the 2018 and 2020 elections for state legislatures and governors) in the special election for the Sixth District of Texas. This district has gone from being a safe Republican seat to a lean Republican seat. (The actual results are going to be impacted by the fact that we are facing a jungle primary with a large number of candidates from both parties. The intra-party splits could lead to one party getting both slots in the run-off even if the party vs. party split is close. And the lower turnout from a special election is not necessarily an indication of the likely results in November 2022.)
But, we now have our list of winners and losers in the census. The big winners (those that gained a seat) are Texas (2 seats), Colorado (1 seat), Montana (1 seat), North Carolina (1 seat), and Oregon. The big losers (1 seat each) were California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Small wins go to Alabama and Minnesota which were both at risk of losing a seat but held to their current representation (both could easily lose their seat in 2030).
Outside of West Virginia (which currently has three mostly safe Republican seats), the local numbers may prove key as to what happens next, but we will take a crack at seeing how the redistricting may play out. We will also take a look at some states that did not change their overall numbers, but have some swing seats that might get altered by redistricting (almost certainly, we will cover Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, but if anybody else has any suggestions, please post them in the comments). Kansas and Utah are on the list because they are currently split 3 safe Republican seats and one swing seat. In both states, there will be efforts to make the swing seat more favorable to Republicans. Maine and Nebraska are on the list because they are the two states that split their electoral vote by Congressional district. Missouri is on the list because of my familiarity with the local politics and it having one “suburban” seat that could be a good example of how Republicans might pack Democrats into the one safe district in that part of the state and then crack Democrats into neighboring safe seats to make the lean Republican seat (the Second District) safer. The other states are the larger states that did not have any change in representation.
Even more so than in the states that are gaining or losing representation, in-state population shifts in these states may be key to the final maps. For the past several decades, suburban areas have been growing while rural areas have been shrinking. Since, over this decade, rural areas have become better for Republicans and suburban areas have become swing areas, the need to shift some seats from rural parts of the state to suburbs may hurt Republicans. But our first glance will assume no significant in-state population shifts and will merely consider potential ways that the lines could have been drawn different in 2011 if the parties had known how voter preferences would change over the decade.
Three last things to note. First, over the past two decades, states have begun to use different means for drawing congressional district lines. Thus, in some states, we are looking at legislatures drawing the lines in favor of the majority party. In other states, a commission of some type will be drawing the lines which should mean that factors other than partisan advantage will determine how the lines will be drawn.
Second, that rural vs. suburban vs. urban split creates a disadvantage for Democrats in terms of natural district lines. In larger cities, there tends to be an affluent pocket in which Republican votes are concentrated. That can allow the drawing of a natural urban/suburban Republican district in an area that is 75%+ Democratic if the population is large enough to support multiple districts. On the other hand, the Democratic voters in rural areas tend to be very dispersed making it very difficult to draw a Democratic district in the rural part of a state.
Third, the Voting Rights Act requires states to take steps to give minority voters an “equal” opportunity to have representatives of their choosing. The recurring issue is how far should states go to assure minority voices can be heard. The basic options are super majority minority, simple majority minority, and minority influence districts. The general consensus is that, if the voting age citizen population is more than 55% minority, the minority group should be able to elect the candidate of their choosing. A number in the 40s (especially the upper 40s) or the low 50s gives the minority group a shot at electing their preferred candidate but there is also a shot that the other voters will band together to block that candidate. But numbers above 60% (while making it even more certain that the minority group will be able to elect its preferred candidate) is essentially wasting potential votes that could impact other districts to elect candidates more sympathetic to minority concerns and that numbers below 40% are unlikely to allow the minority group to push its first choice through.
As we will see over the next several months in looking at the key states, all of these issues will have an impact on which party wins the majority in the House in 2022.
