Red states net 3 new congressional seats—thanks to growing populations of color

by CRAIG HELMSTETTER | April 27, 2021

89 people. According to numbers released by the Census Bureau yesterday, that was the difference between New York keeping all of its 27 seats or Minnesota keeping all of its eight seats. Thanks to those 89 Minnesotans, the Land of 10,000 Lakes held on to all eight and New York shrank to 26. As we say here in Minnesota: Uff da!

That was not the only drama in yesterday’s numbers, the first official release from the 2020 decennial census. Northeastern industrial states continue the trajectory of losing seats and Southern and Western states continue their path of gaining seats. One notable Western-state exception: California lost a seat for the first time in the state’s history.

Most important is what the new numbers tell us about the balance of power. That is a big part of what the constitutionally-mandated count is all about: the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the associated number of votes in the Electoral College.

This initial release of data favors Republicans. At least that is what the toplines tell us. Five more seats were apportioned to states that voted for Trump in the last election (2 in Texas, and 1 each in Florida, Montana, and North Carolina), and two were taken away from Trump states (Ohio and West Virginia). Thus, the “Trump states” netted three.

In mirror opposite, “Biden states” netted -3, by losing a seat in 5 states (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania) and gaining in only two (Colorado and Oregon).

Curiously, this “Trump state” victory appears driven by the growth in populations of color—populations which tend to favor Democrats. For example Texas gained 2 seats, in large part thanks to the 24% growth among the state’s populations of color.

The average growth among populations of color since 2010 in “Trump states” that changed apportionment was 21%. This is higher than the average growth of 16% among populations of color in the “Biden states” with changing apportionments. In both cases the non-Hispanic White population barely grew during the decade. (Note that this analysis relies on 2019 population estimates since the official 2020 decennial census data concerning race and ethnicity is not yet released.)

Exactly how these gains and losses in seats will impact the balance of power in the U.S. House is far from clear. And the political lean of the newly created (or remaining) districts is actually less much dependent on each state’s vote for former President Trump or current President Biden than it is on the current balance of power in each of the state governments. State legislatures, governors, courts and commissions will be redrawing the boundaries once the Census Bureau issues more granular data in August and September. (See articles in Politico and FiveThrityEight for more comprehensive discussion of those dynamics.)

Even the Electoral College implications are a little less clear than the simple “Trump states” vs. “Biden States” dichotomy above. The Presidential decision was made by less than 5 percentage points in 4 of these states, which might more correctly be called Purple than either Red or Blue. The future leanings of the two Purple states that went for Trump (Florida and North Carolina), and maybe even Texas which went to Trump by less than 6 percentage points, is especially in question given the rapid growth in populations of color in these states.

As shown in the table above, once the Purple states are separated out from the Red and Blue states there is a much less clear distinction between which political party “won” this first round of decennial census numbers. The next set comes out in mid-August, at that time we will learn much more about how lines will be drawn and which political party they may favor.

-Craig (On Twitter: @c_helmstetter)