On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau released updated population data from the 2020 Census. This data determines how many seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and consequently, how many electoral votes each state will have beginning with the next Congress. Fox News reports:
Texas will gain two seats, the most out of any U.S. state. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one seat. . .
On the other hand, seven states, including California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, were set to lose one seat in the chamber each.
As The American Redistricting Project points out, the 2020 numbers continue a "trend of congressional representation shifting south and west."
What does this shift south and west indicate? Americans are leaving liberal states like California for "redder" areas which could potentially effect the balance of power in the U.S. House during the upcoming midterm elections. In other words, the reapportionment by census data favors Republicans. The Federalist's Jordan Davidson notes:
While the political shift is the smallest in reapportionment history, census numbers show that Americans are increasingly eager to leave large progressive states such as California in exchange for redder areas in the South and West. Data also suggests that the nation’s population grew at the “second-slowest pace in history.”
“The first numbers to come out of the 2020 Census show the U.S. population on April 1, 2020 — Census Day — was 331.5 million people, an increase of just 7.4 percent between 2010 and 2020. It is the second most sluggish rate of expansion since the government began taking a census in 1790. In the 1930s, the slowest-growth decade, the rate was 7.3 percent,” The Washington Post wrote.
Congressional maps won’t be redrawn until later this year at the earliest, but the shift in which states hold seats could have an effect on the 2022 midterm elections and give Republicans a chance to regain control of the Democrat-led House of Representatives.
No doubt, this will only increase the Democrats' motivation to make Washington D.C. a state. Recently, the House passed a bill to admit D.C. as the "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth." As Fox News reports, Republican leadership called the Democrats out on this partisan power grab:
"This is a part of the progressive pathway to reshape America into a socialist utopia that the squad talks about," declared Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the top GOPer on the House Oversight Committee. That’s why Republicans view the D.C. statehood bill as a chess piece in a broader, Democratic political game.
"It’s a pure power grab to give two Democrat senators to the District of Columbia," alleged Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
To learn more about the impact of the 2020 Census numbers, join RNLA for a webinar this Friday at 2 p.m. ET entitled: "How the New Census Data and DC Statehood Could Impact the Next Congress." Register here today!