USA 2020 Census Results Thread (Release: Today, 26 April)

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Census is going to report the date next week that the apportionment count will be released this afternoon.

Did they end up making a decision?

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So what effects will this have on redistricting, broadly?

Broadly, the GOP is not going to gain as many seats from redistricting as they’d hoped.

It's really difficult to point to a specific seat the GOP thought they'd gain that they won't now, right? TX and FL don't have rural under-performance that's that bad, and in a lot of northern cities that over-performed the Democrats are already packed and can't very easily use this to gain seats.

The most obvious Democrat this looks like good news for is Angie Craig; her seat probably went from Tossup to Likely D or so. I guess Cooper is likelier to get a sink rather than be split up four ways? (But he's still probably split four ways. Looks like Nashville specifically hugely over-performed, though.) Might be easier to save Underwood if Cook is bigger than was previously thought.

California remains a black box but it doesn't seem like the main urban counties there were particularly overestimated? And Republicans were getting screwed in NY down to 3-4 seats anyway, with the exact number depending more on Albany politics than anything else. That hasn't changed.

For Republicans to get screwed Sun Belt cities would've had to over-perform, but it looks like they mostly didn't, with the bizarre and extremely prominent exception of Nashville.

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(Thanks to cynic for the map).

This is the map comparing the estimate to the actual Census, so for "what just changed with redistricting" this is the relevant map. (Although even better would be a state-normed version.)

Bexar, Travis, Dallas, and Tarrant are all blue. So is Mecklenburg NC. Maricopa is a darker blue!

I think this information makes Democratic maps easier in some places where Democrats have control -- IL/NJ/NY -- and there are a few scattered places where neutral maps should be more Democratic-favorable, like MN. (Perhaps WI as well? Virtually the whole state red except Waukesha and a few of the most Republican rural counties is kind of rough.) But on the whole most of the Republican gains were in the bottom half of the country, and I don't think any of them have really disappeared, certainly not from TX/FL/NC/AZ.

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Whether estimates were right or wrong. Republicans still face the problem of population delineation, population shift, and political trends going into this redistricting cycle. Republican incumbents will now have to pick up more Democratic trending areas or forfeit a seat. Especially if they want to avoid another Texas or Atlanta hiccup again.

...this is mostly not true, and especially not true in TX, where Republicans will probably be getting redder seats than anticipated as a result of the differences between the Census and the estimates. Otherwise a statement like this needs more geographic specificity.

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Whether estimates were right or wrong. Republicans still face the problem of population delineation, population shift, and political trends going into this redistricting cycle. Republican incumbents will now have to pick up more Democratic trending areas or forfeit a seat. Especially if they want to avoid another Texas or Atlanta hiccup again.

...this is mostly not true, and especially not true in TX, where Republicans will probably be getting redder seats than anticipated as a result of the differences between the Census and the estimates. Otherwise a statement like this needs more geographic specificity.

 

I would argue that those spots in blue are not places where Republicans want to be losing population.

Sure, but most of this is stuff we already knew: the estimates weren't that far off the actual Census numbers. We already know Republicans tend to improve in areas losing population and Democrats tend to improve in areas gaining population. The GOP is staying afloat because, over time, more and more places are losing population.

Relative to the estimates, this is a good update for the Democrats but not overwhelmingly so, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. (And, weirdly, Tennessee more than anywhere else). Throughout the Sun Belt, this is mostly a good update for Republicans. San Antonio, Charlotte, Phoenix, and Dallas are not growing quite as fast as was thought.

You can actually characterize this as a pro-gerrymandering update, almost: anywhere Democrats have total control, like Illinois and New York, their task just got easier. Anywhere Republicans have total control, like Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, their task got easier too. And for the most part places with independent commissions, like California, aren't seeing numbers that different from what the estimate showed.

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Seems like Dems now have a golden opportunity to gerrymander the hell out of NY.

When they do, where do Long and Staten Island Republicans go? Upstate NY? Florida?

Why would they go anywhere?  They are already the minority in state politics.

Why would they stay where their views are not represented? They'll move to FL or maybe PA

Why do Democrats stay in Texas? Or Republicans in California? The single county which provided Donald Trump the most votes, in the whole United States, was Los Angeles County, California.

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"Shrinking America" is almost exclusively trending right

"Growing America" is overwhelmingly trending left.

Good thing* that Shrinking America is growing at Growing America's expense...

The real question here is whether these shifts are causal (which I actually suspect; Democrats are the status quo party and Republicans are the party calling for revolutionary change) or whether there might be some background factor causing both size change and political preferences. Thus, would a growing area that starts to shrink switch from D to R? (I think it does, which is a pretty apocalyptic fact for Ds as they currently exist).

*Purely from a political standpoint.

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"Shrinking America" is almost exclusively trending right

"Growing America" is overwhelmingly trending left.

Good thing* that Shrinking America is growing at Growing America's expense...

The real question here is whether these shifts are causal (which I actually suspect; Democrats are the status quo party and Republicans are the party calling for revolutionary change) or whether there might be some background factor causing both size change and political preferences. Thus, would a growing area that starts to shrink switch from D to R? (I think it does, which is a pretty apocalyptic fact for Ds as they currently exist).

*Purely from a political standpoint.

But there aren't many places like Scranton and Cleveland left for Republicans to go to. Denver and Houston both slowed down toward the end of the decade but nobody believes that Republicans are going to come back winning Colorado or Harris county anytime soon. Meanwhile, if Democrats can breakthrough in some of these midsize metros like Charleston, Anchorage, and SLC. I think that will death nail in Republican's attempts at relying on institutional advantage.

Sure there are. 52% of counties shrunk between 2010-2020, of which an overwhelming majority probably trended R. That means they can still go to 48% of counties, most of which are going to be much more populated than the 52% beforehand. In the year 2020 something like half of all states had more deaths than births: the current Democratic Party is not sustainable, especially given the fall-off of immigration post-COVID.

(Also, like, while I think the Denver area is still growing strongly, Harris county is a great example of an area where the GOP actually performed much better than expected in 2020 -- it literally trended right!)

Institutional advantage in the Electoral College has to do with winning shrinking areas, so the GOP is going to have that until Democrats start winning there. Institutional advantage in the Senate is just how the median state votes, and that's incredibly consistently right of the United States. The first figure is year, then the two states between which the median is located (since there's an even number of states), then the figure, then a comparison to the national popular vote:

2020 (GA/NC): Trump+0.56 (R+5.02)
2016 (AZ/NC): Trump+3.58 (R+5.67)
2012 (FL/OH): Obama+1.93 (R+1.93)
2008 (FL/OH): Obama+3.70 (R+3.56)
2004 (FL/MO): Bush+6.11 (R+3.64)
2000 (NV/TN): Bush+3.71 (R+4.22)

The advantage is quite persistent and long-lasting -- note that the median Senate seat voted harder for Bush '00, the narrowest victory ever, than it did for the Obama '08 landslide. Also, the current median Senator represents a constituency which voted Trump 2020.

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https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1759638217345687925

This is a weird one because the merits seem not that strong, but the plaintiffs should have standing, and the appeal right now is all about standing. Of course the Supreme Court at least and therefore probably also the DC Circuit loves dismissing suits where they doubt the merits by using standing as a cudgel.

This is an authentically fascinating one, because the Census Bureau has never before admitted to mistakes of a similar magnitude; it actually seems beyond dispute that MN and RI got an extra seat, and TX and FL were stiffed one, and several other changes are plausible.

On the one hand, my understanding is that the Census Bureau's assessment is final and can't be changed, but I think that's statutory, such that if the Supreme Court feels like it, it could probably just unilaterally give those seats away using due process or something. Fascinating case (though my guess is that SCOTUS doesn't want to rock this boat and won't introduce any really novel remedies, but I don't see why residents of Texas and Florida deprived of their constitutionally-guaranteed representation wouldn't have standing).

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Has presidential implications, too: the plaintiffs being granted relief (in the form of extra seats given to FL and TX, even if those seats aren't taken away from anywhere else) would almost certainly mean 2020+GA/AZ/NV turns into a Trump victory map, and takes away the requirement that a Midwestern state flips.

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Has presidential implications, too: the plaintiffs being granted relief (in the form of extra seats given to FL and TX, even if those seats aren't taken away from anywhere else) would almost certainly mean 2020+GA/AZ/NV turns into a Trump victory map, and takes away the requirement that a Midwestern state flips.

Isn't it already within Purcell range of 2024 though, especially if it involves a SCOTUS appeal on the merits?

Did a case ever reach SCOTUS asking them to force reapportionment in the 1920's?  I know the 1910 census apportionment was used for 2 decades for political reasons.  Of course, that predates all modern civil rights law. 

I mean, if it involves a SCOTUS appeal on the merits, then the case might very easily only be heard by SCOTUS next year; by no means do I think it would be too early now, but I think I agree with you that even if the plaintiffs triumph it'll probably be too late to alter the outcome of 2024 (and I don't think the plaintiffs have a very good chance of winning, actually; I just think it's a fascinating and novel question, and I think the case is not ridiculous).

To my knowledge there was not such a case in the 1920s, though if there was some very interesting things could be learned. I feel like the whole practice of the Census Bureau putting out press releases apart from the Census itself where it opines on the meanings of the data it has collected and the problems with collecting it, is most likely peculiar to the Internet Age (and the problems with the 2020 Census are a one-time consequence of the COVID epidemic)?