I confidently predict that Porterville will gain 570,000 people and a Congressional District.
Fresno, Madera are very fast growing counties.
California will likely gain one seat. You can't split a single seat 1/3 in NoCal, 1/3 in SoCal, and 1/3 in the Central Valley even if the population growth were even if the Illinorgia legislature was drawing the districts. So you start by adding a district somewhere in the center of the state. But let's say that it is on the border between 2 seats. The leftover of those two seats is going to need to add population so they slide north and south, and this triggers other adjustments. Eventually, you get to a Fresno seat that has to add something out of the desert areas of LA or San Bernadino Counties, so they are less purely Central Valley seats. In the north, perhaps a Stockton seat pulls in a bit of Santa Clara County. Or maybe a coastal district dips inland for some voters.
Something like this happened in 2000, and it simply made it convenient to slide Condit out of re-election. But even without that intent, his district would have been changed more than most.
If California gains 2 districts, then they might be placed north and south, but population gains in the Central Valley will be recognized by shifting pieces of the area into the adjacent districts (the opposite direction of the one seat gain scenario).
