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New Census Data Suggests Previous Report Wrong, Republican States Gaining Seats In Congress

   DailyWire.com
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019. The summit was set to discuss mental health treatment as a way to combat homelessness, violence and substance abuse.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Newly-released data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday suggested that some Republican states are set to gain seats in the U.S. House of Representatives while some Democrat states are set to lose states, according to a new analysis.

“Based on Monday’s figures, Texas is poised to gain two congressional seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon are each expected to gain one,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Eight states are likely to lose one seat: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and California. It would be California’s first such loss since it became a state in 1850.”

Based on The Wall Street Journal’s analysis, states that voted for President Donald Trump are set to gain a net total of four congressional seats while states that voted for Hillary Clinton are set to lose a net total of three seats.

Kimball Brace, president of the bipartisan political consulting firm Election Data Services, told The Wall Street Journal that he expects the changes will benefit the Republican Party.

“The big states that are very much Democratic are in a loss situation,” Brace said.

“Democrats say in Texas and Arizona, the growth of the Latino populations and new residents from other states could eventually turn them blue,” The Wall Street Journal added. “Democrats note how population movements in recent years have moved the partisan makeup of some states in their favor, including Virginia and Colorado.”

The Wall Street Journal’s report directly refutes a report from a little over a week ago from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which The Daily Wire covered at the time, that claimed that immigration was set to shift over 20 seats from pro-Trump states to pro-Clinton states.

CIS reported:

  • The presence of all immigrants (naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal aliens) and their U.S.-born minor children will redistribute 26 seats in the House in 2020.

  • To put this number in perspective, changing the party of 21 members of the current Congress would flip the majority in the U.S. House.

  • Of the 26 seats that will be lost, 24 are from states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Of states that will gain House seats because of immigration, 19 seats will go to the solidly Democratic states of California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Texas is the only solidly Republican state that gains, while Florida is a swing state.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from The Wall Street Journal’s report is the revelation that California will lose a congressional seat for the first time since 1850.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that California’s population was set to decrease for the first time in over 100 years:

The estimates, which indicate that California’s population grew by 141,300 people between July 1, 2018, and July 1, 2019, nonetheless signal a 0.35% growth rate, “down from 0.57% for the prior 12 months — the two lowest recorded growth rates since 1900,” department officials underscored.

California has been criticized for years over its high taxes, far-left Democrat-controlled government, cities that are in bad shape, and unwillingness to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

A report released this month from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “revealed that homelessness is on the rise in the U.S. and that Democrat-controlled California is the main force behind the overall increase of the homeless population in the United States,” The Daily Wire reported.

“While the rest of the country experienced a combined decrease in homelessness in 2019, significant increases in unsheltered and chronic homelessness on the West Coast, particularly California and Oregon, offset those nationwide decreases, causing an overall increase in homelessness of 2.7 percent in 2019,” HUD said in a statement. “Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia reported declines in homelessness between 2018 and 2019, while 21 states reported increases in the number of persons experiencing homelessness. Homelessness in California increased by 21,306 people, or 16.4 percent, which is more than the total national increase of every other state combined.”

“As we look across our nation, we see great progress, but we’re also seeing a continued increase in street homelessness along our West Coast where the cost of housing is extremely high,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “In fact, homelessness in California is at a crisis level and needs to be addressed by local and state leaders with crisis-like urgency. Addressing these challenges will require a broader, community-wide response that engages every level of government to compassionately house our fellow citizens who call the streets their home.”

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