With strong population growth, South to gain political power

Continued robust population growth signals a potential surge in political power for Southern states into the foreseeable future.

Census state population estimates released Tuesday show that Florida, North Carolina and Texas would each gain one seat in the House of Representatives if reapportionment happened today. (Oregon in the Northwest would as well.)

If population trends continue through 2020, when redistricting occurs, Texas would gain three seats, Florida two and Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina and Oregon one each.

The estimates, from July 1, 2015, also include figures for the voting-age population. Conservatives are asking the U.S. Supreme Court, in Evenwel v. Abbott, to change state laws so congressional districts would be based not on total population but on the number of citizens eligible to vote. If representation were based on the number of voters, Texas would lose one seat.

“That’s the most intriguing thing,” said Kimball Brace, the president of Election Data Services, who analyzed the potential impact of the new numbers on long-term political calculus. The high court and its interpretation of the Constitution stands in the way of any shift in apportioning the 435 congressional districts.

On the basis of the number of eligible voters, Florida, North Carolina and Oregon would each gain a seat. in addition to Texas, Illinois and Minnesota and would each lose one.

The Supreme Court has heard arguments in Evenwel v. Abbott and is expected to issue its ruling in June. 

Districts with large immigrant populations that tend to be younger and include more noncitizens and minors are bound to be affected if reapportionment is based on eligible voters rather than the one-person, one-vote standard in place since a 1964 Supreme Court ruling.

As long as total population continues to be the foundation for deciding districting, Southern states win.

Seven states lost people in the latest figures: Illinois, West Virginia, Connecticut, Mississippi, Maine, Vermont and New Mexico.

Almost all the political losers in terms of representation according to the numbers from this year and in 2020 projections are in the Midwest and Northeast. By the end of the decade, if population patterns hold, Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia would each lose a congressional seat.

The continued demographic rise of the South is evident from the census data. North Carolina now is the ninth-most-populous state, with more than 10 million people. It added an average of 281 people per day in the last year.

Florida added more people than California for the first time in almost 10 years, pushing it above the 20 million mark, behind California and Texas. North Dakota is maintaining its status as a fast-growing state, with its numbers spurred by the oil boom there.

“Many states with histories of substantial domestic migration loss during the economic boom that sustained smaller migration losses during the recession are now experiencing growing domestic migration losses again,” said Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School.

Massachusetts and Illinois experienced larger domestic migration losses in 2014 through 2015 than they did in the preceding two years, he said. Only 2,200 more people left Massachusetts than moved to the state from 2012 to 2013. But in the past year, its net loss was 10 times the size, at 22,000 people. Illinois’ losses jumped from 67,000 to 105,000 in the same periods.

In Maine, a state with one of the oldest populations in the nation and one of the lowest fertility rates, more people died than were born for the third straight year. New Hampshire is now larger than Maine, for the first time in 200 years, Johnson said. West Virginia’s aging population is also resulting in a natural decrease for that state.

U.S. growth continued at a modest 0.79 percent annual increase, barely up from 0.78 percent the previous year.

“It looks like U.S. population growth is picking up a little from 2012 to ’13, when we had the lowest national growth since 1937," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "Now immigration is where it was prerecession, in 2001 to 2002, and births have picked up a little.”