Census Report Predicts Losses And Gains For States-- But NOT For Political Parties

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal’s Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg reported that “new state population totals released Monday offer fresh signs that political power is poised to continue its shift from the North and Midwest to the South and Southwest in ways that could help states that have voted Republican in recent years.” The Census Bureau released estimates that indicate that California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia are set to lose one seat each and that Texas will pick up two seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon will gain one seat each.

Other projections differ slightly, with Texas gaining three seats and Florida 2 while Alabama and Ohio make it into the losing column, minus one seat each. It’s hard to say which party will gain or lose seats. Some of the states have non-partisan commissions drawing boundaries, rather than legislatures. Other states with heavily partisan perspectives on drawing boundaries-- like Texas for the GOP and Illinois for the Democrats are already so grotesquely gerrymandered that it would be hard to make it favorable for their own parties. And several states with p;redatorily partisan legislatures, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana and North Carolina, have Democratic governors as a check on their excesses. At this point no one can predict accurately what’s going to happen.

Meanwhile Hansi Lo Wang, reporting for NPR, noted that Latinos and Asians were uncomfortable with the now-blocked citizenship question in the census. She wrote that including the question (in an experiment) resulted in statistically significant dips in the self-response rates particularly in the Western states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In areas of that region where at least a fifth of homes have a Spanish-speaking adult who does not speak English very well, the bureau found the citizenship question led to a difference as high as 2.4% in self-response rates.” Exactly what Trump wanted-- and thankfully, the courts blocked.