Texas Gains House Seats While New York Loses in Census Count

[Jose Garcia]

Source: Bloomberg

Texas will gain the most new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives under new Census numbers released Monday, while states in the Northeast and Midwest will lose seven seats, shifting some political clout to Republican strongholds before the 2022 midterms.

The U.S. Census Bureau released its every 10 year count of state populations Monday, reshuffling the 435 House seats among the 50 states to account for population changes over the last decade.

Those changes alone could be enough to decide the balance of power: Democrats hold a narrow advantage in the House now, with a margin of less than half a dozen seats.

The states gaining seats are largely ones that former President Donald Trump won in 2020, while states President Joe Biden won -- including the so-called “Blue Wall” states of the industrial North -- are losers.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-26/texas-gains-house-seats-while-new-york-loses-in-census-count

[riversedge]

1. oh crap. not good news at all.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Just heard the breaking here but the Bloomberg characterization is not really correct

PA and 4 other states losing a seat (others were CA, MI, OH, NY).

But this -

The states gaining seats are largely ones that former President Donald Trump won in 2020

Per the article, the states gaining seats were Texas (two seats), Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon (one each).

Note that CO & OR voted for Biden and in the past, believe it or not, FL and NC had voted for Obama in 2008. If anything, NC is ripe for the taking if there is a GA-like GOTV effort. MT only had one seat previously.

I have a feeling that this will be challenged.

[MontanaFarmer]

3. Right. I get some of the angst over EVs.

However, the article, as you say, oversimplified the facts. I believe, for instance, it's likelier than not that Montana's new seat will be a blue one. I believe all WV reps are republican. So to oversimplify it the other way, we get a potential gain of a seat in that swap. Oregon is as likely as not to get another blue seat. NC, same, potentially. I don't think this is all bad, but it does change some math at the EV level.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Right

Considering that some of those states like yours and NC are "purple" and can go either way. I had actually heard the news on my local CBS affiliate radio station and the same type of simplistic characterization.

They are ignoring the fact that CO and OR and MT are not "the south" and over-focusing on TX and FL because of their bombastic 45-supporting loons while not acknowledging that they are more purple than they think.

[FBaggins]

33. How on earth will MT's new seat be blue?

Not sure where those lines could be drawn... and there's almost zero chance that NC's new seat will be blue. We'll be lucky if we don't lose three net seats here... let alone pick one up.

On edit - I gave MT a try. The bluest contiguous counties that I could come up with (using Trump vs. Biden numbers) was Beaverhead/Deer Lodge/Gallatin/Granite/Jefferson/Madison/Mineral/Missoula/Ravalli/Silver Bow. That would be a narrow Biden win of almost 3% in the new district. But that's only a tad over 1/3 of the state population and all of the neighboring counties are red. The line-drawers would be forced to include Flathead or Yellowstone in the new district... and then the game is over. You might be able to come up with an R+5 PVI in one district in exchange for R+15 in the other... but I don't think a blue seat is in the cards.

[MontanaFarmer]

34. They'll stick bozeman and helena in with Missoula,

Butte, etc in a western district, i think. Basically picture west of I-15 but rope in gallatin. Something along those lines. There's not enough red population to offset the 3 major blue towns plus butte and anaconda and the 2 major reservations. I think that gets you a pretty even population split also.

[FBaggins]

37. That's closer, but Bullock lost that theoretical district by 2-3%

And he was the best-performing Democrat.

It's also too large by about the population of Gallatin county.

And that's assuming line-drawing that intentionally favors Democrats. The commission probably leans a little blue, but there's no reason to assume that they'll draw the best possible maps for us.

[MontanaFarmer]

38. My mistake, I was given some information and

Posted it without doing my own verification. I do believe there's opportunity for us here, though, if we get the district drawn right, to have a winnable house seat in some/ most years. How does the above district look in the 2018 senate race? Anyway, my fault for not trying to back that sentiment with data, I'd have chosen my words much more carefully.

[FBaggins]

41. I'm sure that 2018 looked much better in the Senate race

Obviously, Tester won statewide... so he likely won this theoretical district by 10-15%

But not every Montana election will be someone like Tester running in a blue wave year. The first race for this new seat will be in a new president's first midterm when republicans around the country are pumped to take back the House. Lose that first time and now you have an incumbent with advantages going forward.

Not saying it isn't possible... but it's going to take a supposedly nonpartisan commission drawing some pretty partisan lines in order for it to occur.

[MontanaFarmer]

35. Also remember that trump was very strong here,

Most statewide dems ran ahead of Biden. That western+ bozeman district will start blue and trend bluer imo.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Challenged? Are you saying the census is wrong? (nt)

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Many locales challenge the census figures for undercount

and the Bureau does report on the under/overcount - e.g., for 2010 - https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb12-95.html

Analysis articles on that 2010 issue -

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2010-census-missed-15-million-minorities/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-million-children-didnt-show-up-in-the-2010-census-how-many-will-be-missing-in-2020/

They do routinely accept "challenges" to the estimates - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/about/challenge-program/results.html

This past year has been an absolute nightmare with respect to the census due to obvious COVID-19 reasons, nationwide lockdowns, getting enough census takers, some states recalling census-takers ahead of time, and delays in the mail thanks to the Dejoy purposeful screw-up of the mail processing system (designed to also mess up the mail-in ballots during the election).

[brooklynite]

39. "believe it or not, FL and NC had voted for Obama in 2008"

which has nothing to do with voting today.

[BumRushDaShow]

40. It means the potential is there

NC currently has a Democratic governor. Imagine that!

[FBaggins]

42. And California voted republican for 20 years

and again in gubernatorial races just four and five terms ago.

[BumRushDaShow]

43. Yup and here in PA

we have generally rotated (D) and (R) governors literally for the past 50+ years, as has New Jersey AND New York, and in fact, ALL of the Northeast/New England/MidAtlantic (which are supposedly the "traditional blue states" except for the top state official, not so much). Right now, VT, MA, and MD are have Republican governors.

It's an odd phenomena that seems to point to candidate selections and GOTV efforts at specific election times.

When you look at the (reported) registrations in FL, you have this (as of 3/2021) - https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/data-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/voter-registration-reportsxlsx/voter-registration-by-county-and-party/

TOTALS 5,185,744 (R) 5,290,465 (D) 247,108 (Minor) 3,832,070 (None)

So based on raw numbers, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the state.

You see similar with NC (reported generated today for figures as of 4/24/21) - https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegStat/Results/?date=04%2F24%2F2021

Totals 2,479,138 (D) 2,155,980 (R) 4,000 (GRN) 5,431 (CONST) 45,369 (LIB) 2,363,585 (UNAFF)

Again, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans.

Here in PA, from the report I captured from the state site here - https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/VotingElectionStatistics.aspx (where you can generate a spreadsheet) at as of 4/7/21, you had -

4,078,341 (D) 3,447,590 (R) 892,931 (NOAFF) 392,171 (ALL OTHERS)

And once again, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans.

So it seems that a "likes with likes" mentality suggests that one group (Rs) respond to sticks and the other (Ds) respond to carrots and too many times that stick-whipping manages to get their voters out more consistently. The other issue is geographically where these votes are located, with Democrats tending to congregate in urban/suburban areas and Republicans in the rural areas.

[joetheman]

4. Calm down. TX will be blue by 2024. nt

[former9thward]

6. People say say every four years.

[rpannier]

28. Remember when Howard Dean said he thought Texas would be blue by 2012

Ten years on...

[ananda]

7. With gerrymandering and serious voter suppression?

How?

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Influx of tech jobs and manufacturing, and educated minorities to fill them

[Jon King]

12. Exactly, Texas is having a large influx of tech and supporting jobs.

This are changing despite all the voter suppression. Texas never had a huge tech employee influx like they are having now. 42500 in 2019 alone. Its only a matter of time before TX finally does go blue.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

13. Is the "Tech jobs" vote Democratic true?

Most of the techbros I've met are hardcore Libertarians.

[Jon King]

18. Absolutely, they lean heavily Dem.

Many are transfers from California.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

36. Same here.

They're conspiratorial libertarian types who like weed and bitcoin.

[rpannier]

29. That's what people like myself said in the late 80's and early 90's

when all those people from the NE moved to Georgia to fill jobs there
Didn't happen then.

[regnaD kciN]

20. We've been hearing THAT siren song for at least twelve years...

...and I'm sure Abbott and the GOP-majority legislature will make sure the lines are drawn to assure both of the new seats will be solid-red districts.

[modrepub]

5. State Legislatures

And the Repubs will gerrymander as many new congressional districts as possible. That's why the Republicans have focused so much of their efforts at the state and local level. As Tip said, all politics is local.

I expect all hell to break loose when the Repubs regain control of Congress. You bet there will be retribution. More importantly, Repubs will funnel more money to their folks at the expense of blue states. Dems would have been wise to set funding backstops to prevent their tax dollars from going to red areas but this never seems to be important to them.

Bring back state matching for Federal dollars. The red areas are too cheap to raise taxes to get matching revenue. Let them leave money on the table and reward areas that want to invest their tax dollars into their own communities.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

14. Those lost seats in CA and NY will be Republican seats

Count on it

[MarcA]

15. If rethugs are allowed to gerrymander their States, Democrats

should do the same for their States. Enough of the more votes for Dems with
more reps for the rethugs. It's not just CA and NY where Dems can do this. BTW, according to one article NY lost the seat by being short by 89 people. You can count on an appeal.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

16. I read that NY's lost seat save Minnesota from losing one

Not sure that trade is worth it...

[Fiendish Thingy]

22. Many blue states require nonpartisan commissions to draw district lines

So rather than cheat like Republicans, let’s govern like Democrats and pass HR1.

[Fiendish Thingy]

23. CA has a nonpartisan commission to draw district lines, so don't bet on it. Nt

[trof]

17. SHIT

[Rizen]

19. Godfuckingdamnit!

[Fiendish Thingy]

21. Anyone need more proof of how critical HR1 is to the future of Dem majorities? Nt

[JohnSJ]

24. It isn't the future of the Democratic party, it is the survival of our democracy. There is a

very real risk that we will lose it

[Fiendish Thingy]

30. Yes indeed. Nt

[paleotn]

25. Simple solution....

In concept anyway. Expand the House. There's not Constitutional basis for it to be stuck at 435. It grew as the country grew until 1929, when it was capped by legislation. And by legislation it could easily be uncapped. Far too many people in CA, NY and TX districts.

[moose65]

27. Yes to this

I don’t know why this issue never comes up. We need more seats in the House, to account for new states and for population growth. Also, states should not lose districts unless they actually lose population. 435 members isn’t in the Constitution. That number is arbitrary and can be changed. And it should be.

[keithbvadu2]

26. Do the radical RW Texans still want to secede?

Do the radical RW Texans still want to secede?

[paleotn]

31. Please, let them. Please! Please! Please!

[Paladin]

32. Fine, as long as you don't disturb the huge number of Texas Democrats (like me).

Get back to me when you have things figured out.