With a 7.4% increase since 2010, the United States now has 331.5 million people, the Census Bureau said (US Census Bureau), according to the last ten-year census, carried out last year.
During the last decade, the American population has experienced its second smallest increase since the beginning of the censuses, in 1790. This demographic slowdown, the most important after that between 1930 and 1940, is explained by a fall in the birth rate and lower immigration.
State demographics, details of which will be released later this year, will affect the hundreds of billions the federal government is providing for areas like education, hospitals and housing.
The Trump administration, which wanted to add a question on citizenship to the census form and thus exclude irregular immigrants, had to step back after a setback in the Supreme Court.
The portrait obtained will also have an impact on the political weight of the states in Washington. Political power will thus continue to shift south for the next decade. Thus, states in the Midwest and Northeast that have historically supported the Democrats will lose seats.
The number of representatives in the House – 435 – remains fixed, but its distribution in the states varies every 10 years, according to the census. The Electoral College retains its 538 members, a total corresponding to the 435 elected members of the House of Representatives and the 100 senators, to which are added the 3 electors of the District of Columbia.
Six winners, seven losers
Six states will emerge winners from the new electoral boundaries that will result from this most recent census and seven will lose, according to the outline made public.
Consequently, the states that will benefit from it will have a larger delegation in the House of Representatives and will at the same time see an increase in their number of electors, who elect the president. Conversely, losers will see their weight decrease.
However, the transfer of seats will be less significant than expected. Some assessments predicted that a total of 10 seats would change states.
With its two additional seats and as many electors, Texas, which has not elected a Democratic presidential candidate since 1980, is the state that will gain the most from the exercise.
North Carolina, which is more Republican, and Florida, which is more and more Republican, will gain one representative each as well as a major voter. Oregon and Colorado, which have leaned more towards the Democratic Party in recent years, as well as Montana, which is experiencing an opposite political movement, are in the same situation. Montana had so far only one representative, it will have two.
Gains from Texas and Florida will be more modest than expected. According to some estimates, they were both expected to get one more seat than they will get. And Arizona failed to win one, pointing to a lower-than-estimated number of Hispanic Americans, said analyst David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.
California – the most populous state and a Democratic stronghold – will take a setback for the first time after seeing its population growth slow.
Another very populous state, New York, as well as other traditionally Democratic states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois will lose one seat and one major voter each.
The other losers are Ohio and West Virginia, both more Republican.
Observers further expected Alabama, Minnesota and Rhode Island to also lose ground.
Of note, New York City was only 89 residents away from retaining all of its seats.
If the 2020 presidential election had taken place according to this new distribution, Democratic President Joe Biden would have a handful of fewer electors, but would still have won the Electoral College hands down.
He would thus have obtained 303 electors instead of 306and Donald Trump would have had 235 instead of 232.
Another Republican advantage for the 2022 electoral horizon
The next division of the electoral map will take place in 2021, following the 2020 census. The new map will thus be used for the first time in the 2022 mid-term elections.
The redistribution of seats coupled with the new redistricting could help Republicans, for whom winning back the House is within reach. The Democrats are in the majority, but narrowly. They have 218 representatives against 212 for the Republicans, with 5 vacant seats.
Some states entrust the drawing up of districts to commissions, but the majority of states entrust this responsibility to their legislators and grant the governor a right of veto.
However, Republicans will control the district boundary process in many more states than Democrats, due to their greater success at the polls in the states in the last election.
Studies show that Republicans are more likely than their rivals to manipulate district boundaries to maximize the number of ridings they can win, a practice dubbed the gerrymandering
.
Maryland’s Third District is a good example of this creative division.