Don't forget - the 2020 census was interfered with for expressly political gains.
That seems relevant to any discussion if it's outcomes. While states themselves are not nearly as red/blue at the district level as they might be in the aggregate, it is absolutely worth noting that a net 6 additional congressional seats are going from "Blue" states to "Red" states.
The actual impact of the census may be even bigger than this - for all we knew the REVERSE trend should have occurred as the country's demographics shift.
Red states gaining seats is in no way incompatible with demographic changes. Red states become less red via population growth could fully explain this effect, and seems like a completely plausible explanation.
Of the 6 states that gained an electoral vote [0]:
- Biden's 6-point loss in Texas [1] was the slimmest margin since 1996 (and 92 and 96 featured Ross Perot, a strong third-party conservative); the margins for 2012 and 2016 were 16% and 9%, respectively.
- North Carolina went for Trump by just 1.5%, and has had similar slim margins since Obama's 0.3% victory in 2008 [2]
- Colorado and Oregon both went blue by ~15% margins
- Montana has been reliably red.
- Florida has become more and more reliably red, but not as much as Ohio (which lost a vote) has.
More guaranteed-blue states (CA, NY, IL) lost votes than guaranteed-red (WV), but this isn't a seismic, immutable shift by any means.
Comments
Don't forget - the 2020 census was interfered with for expressly political gains.
That seems relevant to any discussion if it's outcomes. While states themselves are not nearly as red/blue at the district level as they might be in the aggregate, it is absolutely worth noting that a net 6 additional congressional seats are going from "Blue" states to "Red" states.
The actual impact of the census may be even bigger than this - for all we knew the REVERSE trend should have occurred as the country's demographics shift.
* https://publicintegrity.org/politics/system-failure/trump-ob...
* https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/trump-...
* https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/08/07/trumps-...
Red states gaining seats is in no way incompatible with demographic changes. Red states become less red via population growth could fully explain this effect, and seems like a completely plausible explanation.
Also 6 electoral college votes.
Wait is that true? Is a democratic president ever going to be elected again?
Of the 6 states that gained an electoral vote [0]:
- Biden's 6-point loss in Texas [1] was the slimmest margin since 1996 (and 92 and 96 featured Ross Perot, a strong third-party conservative); the margins for 2012 and 2016 were 16% and 9%, respectively.
- North Carolina went for Trump by just 1.5%, and has had similar slim margins since Obama's 0.3% victory in 2008 [2]
- Colorado and Oregon both went blue by ~15% margins
- Montana has been reliably red.
- Florida has become more and more reliably red, but not as much as Ohio (which lost a vote) has.
More guaranteed-blue states (CA, NY, IL) lost votes than guaranteed-red (WV), but this isn't a seismic, immutable shift by any means.
[0] https://www.wbur.org/npr/983082132/census-to-release-1st-res...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...