Census Reapportionment Looks Set To Benefit GOP

Early analysis on the 2020 census data released by the US Census Bureau earlier in the week looks likely to shift House seats to states that lean Republican, at the expense of large Democratic support bases.

• Earlier this week the UVA Center for Politics, and its Crystal Ball staff of Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and J. Miles Coleman has made some rough estimates of how seat reapportionment could look.

Source: UVA Center for Politics

• The loss of seats from California, New York, and Illinois will come as a blow to the Dems, while there is only one solidly Republican state losing a seat, West Virginia. The other states to lose a seat (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania) are toss ups. Two solidly Republican states (at present), Montana and Texas gain one and two seats respectively, The only solidly Democratic states to gain a seat are Oregon and Colorado, while toss-ups Florida and North Carolina each gain a seat.
• Overall, this change leaves solidly blue states net down one seat, solidly red states up net two seats, and toss-ups net down one seat.
• This reapportionment not only affects House seats, but of course the Electoral College come the presidential election, with those states gaining seats also gaining an additional vote, while those losing will see their influence on the outcome of presidential elections reduce narrowly.
• The UVA Center for Politics offers the following accurate notice that while we know the numbers of changes in seats, we don't yet have data to allow for maps of new seats to be drawn: "...the more granular data that states use to draw new maps will not be available until later this year. The Census Bureau's deadline is Sept. 30, though it may produce the data earlier than that. So the actual maps are still many months away in all likelihood, and that's not even taking into account court battles that likely will force redraws".