Five Out Of Seven New Seats Go To ‘Red States,’ After Reapportionment Following Census

In breaking news, red states have gained five of the seven news seats in Congress, after a reapportionment based on the 2020 Census.

Texas has gained two seats, while North Carolina, Florida, and Montana gained one seat. Oregon and Colorado also gained one seat.

California, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia all lost one seat.

States gaining seats in reapportionment:
Texas +2
N. Carolina +1
Colorado +1
Oregon +1
Montana +1
Florida +1

States losing seats:
California -1
New York -1
Illinois -1
Michigan -1
Ohio -1
W. Virginia -1
Pennsylvania -1

— Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) April 26, 2021

“The process of redrawing America’s political maps has begun. The Census Bureau kicked off the year-long redistricting scramble with its announcement of congressional reapportionment, changing the number of House seats each state will have for the next decade,” reported Politico, adding that the actual Congressional maps won’t be redrawn until later in 2021 at the very earliest.

“But reapportionment amplifies the long-term shift in population and political power from northeast to southwest, which began in the middle of the last century. States like Texas and Florida continue to add seats, while New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio shed them,” Politico added.

As The Hill correspondent, Reid Wilson, noted, Arizona didn’t receive an added seat, and Rhode Island didn’t lose a seat. Some were also surprised that Texas only gained two seats, and not three.

Democrats in New York expressed frustration after the state reportedly lost one congressional seat over just 89 people.

“New York State was narrowly edged out by Minnesota by fewer than 100 people after the Census Bureau Monday released population figures that will determine the make-up of Congress for the next 10 years,” reported New York Daily News.

New York Magazine also described the “photo finish” between various states.

“In the Q&A session following the reapportionment ‘reveal,’ Census personnel explained there was something of a photo finish between Minnesota and New York for the last seat awarded. Had New York registered just 89 more people in the census, it would have retained all 27 House seats. California was also pretty close to retaining all of its 53 districts, and Arizona just missed adding one to its current 11 seats,” New York Magazine reported.

According to The Washington Post, the 2020 Census shows that the United States 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 noted.

Another factor is the number of people fleeing “blue states.” For example, according to estimates, 135,600 more people left California than moved there in 2020, “only the 12th time since 1900 the state has had a net migration loss, and the third largest ever recorded,” according to CNBC.