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

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

The Census Bureau didn't publish how many numerical people each state was from displacing Minnesota or New York (assuming no other states gained/lost seats), so I calculated the 10 closest states to gaining and losing seats.

Gaining (Farthest to Closest)
Texas - 189,645
Florida - 171,561
Utah   - 136,978
Virginia - 111,635
Delaware - 88,205
Arizona - 79,509
West Virginia - 73,911
Idaho - 27,579
Ohio - 11,462
New York - 89

Losing (Closest to Farthest)
 Minnesota - -26
 Montana - -6,371
 Rhode Island - -19,127
 Oregon - -62,408
 Colorado - -72,445
 Alabama - -85,285
 Nebraska - -94,387
 North Carolina - -160,592
 South Carolina - -179,944
 Wisconsin   - -187,747

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

[jimrtex]

Webster's method applied to the apportionment of the British Parliament is a quota violation generator, because the apportionment is between only four countries, and England is so dominant. A person moving from Scotland to Wales can cause Northern Ireland to gain or lose a seat. But this is only because the Parliament size was fixed at 500.

Well, Paul LePage gained a Governor's seat in 2010 in part because some people (including me) voted two weeks early for Libby Mitchell and couldn't pivot to Elliot Cutler (the equivalent of the Andromeda Galaxy gaining a seat because people couldn't get visas to leave the U.S.S.R. for say... Denmark in time for the Local Group census, so how is your above example that different?  :)

I don't understand your counter-example. :(:

As you likely know, heretofore Britain has used independent quotas for redistricting the four countries, though in exchange for creation of a Scottish Parliament, the Scottish quota was reset to that of England.

The Tories proposed reducing the size of Parliament to 600 and using a common quota across the four countries - or alternatively, apportioning the members of parliament among the four countries on the basis of their population (or more precisely on the basis of their electorate).

They use Ste. Lague, but for our purposes we can refer to it as Webster's method.

See Rule 8

The boundary review provided for by the 2011 statute was never put into effect. There is just now a new boundary review to take effect in 2023.

2023 Review

The apportionment formula is retained, but the size of Parliament is increased to 650.

It is difficult if not impossible to determine the probability of quota violations, because that requires assumptions about the distribution of population. But we can vary the "fixed" size of parliament. A size of 651 is no less or more arbitrary than one of 650.

As we vary the size of the parliament a lot of cases of quota violations occur.

You of course understand why polling results rounded to the nearest percentile do not total 100.

If Candidate A has 45.39%, Candidate B has 39.20%, and Candidate C has 15.41%, a poll might show A at 45%, B at 39%, C at 15% and include a note that says that the results do not total to 100 due to rounding.

Your copy editor looks at your results, and changes the results to

A 45%, B 39%, C 16%, and eliminates the results.

You seethe at the editor's innumeracy and meander off into the Alabama paradox and Hamilton's method, and perhaps suggest that it should be

A 46%, B 39%, C 15%.

But is that really better?

46, 39, 15 is arguably better than 45, 39, 16 but is it better than

45, 39, 15?

Isn't column 2 a fairer more accurate representation of the actual results of the poll.

45.39%  45.45%  46.00%
39.20%  39.39%  39.00%
15.41%  15.15%  15.00%

The same applies when apportioning 600 or 650 MPs, or 435 representatives.

[Biden his time]

The Census Bureau didn't publish how many numerical people each state was from displacing Minnesota or New York (assuming no other states gained/lost seats), so I calculated the 10 closest states to gaining and losing seats.

Gaining (Farthest to Closest)
Texas - 189,645
Florida - 171,561
Utah - 136,978
Virginia - 111,635
Delaware - 88,205
Arizona - 79,509
West Virginia - 73,911
Idaho - 27,579
Ohio - 11,462
New York - 89

Losing (Closest to Farthest)
 Minnesota - -26
 Montana - -6,371
 Rhode Island - -19,127
 Oregon - -62,408
 Colorado - -72,445
 Alabama - -85,285
 Nebraska - -94,387
 North Carolina - -160,592
 South Carolina - -179,944
 Wisconsin - -187,747

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

The reasons for this are that first of all, South Carolina already gained a seat by a very narrow margin (of 50k people) in 2010, so there was (barring some Utah-style boom, which clearly didn't happen) already gonna be an extremely long way to gain another seat for SC. Even the 2020 projections showed that SC was closer to losing than gaining a seat (300k people away from losing).

Then, to top it off, South Carolina underperformed by 1.65% in the 2020 census, the second largest percentage of any state in the U.S. behind Arizona. 85k people who were expected in SC weren't there. Meanwhile, the U.S. as a whole overperformed by 0.68% (2.25 Million people). This strongly blunted the edge that South Carolina had over all the other states, and even though it was still there, it was far smaller than expected.

So South Carolina wasn't in danger of losing a seat really, but the state had an underwhelming performance which kept it very far from gaining an 8th seat (it did get 100k people closer, though).

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

The Census Bureau didn't publish how many numerical people each state was from displacing Minnesota or New York (assuming no other states gained/lost seats), so I calculated the 10 closest states to gaining and losing seats.

Gaining (Farthest to Closest)
Texas - 189,645
Florida - 171,561
Utah - 136,978
Virginia - 111,635
Delaware - 88,205
Arizona - 79,509
West Virginia - 73,911
Idaho - 27,579
Ohio - 11,462
New York - 89

Losing (Closest to Farthest)
 Minnesota - -26
 Montana - -6,371
 Rhode Island - -19,127
 Oregon - -62,408
 Colorado - -72,445
 Alabama - -85,285
 Nebraska - -94,387
 North Carolina - -160,592
 South Carolina - -179,944
 Wisconsin - -187,747

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

The reasons for this are that first of all, South Carolina already gained a seat by a very narrow margin (of 50k people) in 2010, so there was (barring some Utah-style boom, which clearly didn't happen) already gonna be an extremely long way to gain another seat for SC. Even the 2020 projections showed that SC was closer to losing than gaining a seat (300k people away from losing).

Then, to top it off, South Carolina underperformed by 1.65% in the 2020 census, the second largest percentage of any state in the U.S. behind Arizona. 85k people who were expected in SC weren't there. Meanwhile, the U.S. as a whole overperformed by 0.68% (2.25 Million people). This strongly blunted the edge that South Carolina had over all the other states, and even though it was still there, it was far smaller than expected.

So South Carolina wasn't in danger of losing a seat really, but the state had an underwhelming performance which kept it very far from gaining an 8th seat (it did get 100k people closer, though).

That’s really interesting. I’d imagine if you did a straw poll of SC residents the vast majority would’ve said we were more likely to gain then loose for all the aforementioned reasons

[jimrtex]

The Census Bureau didn't publish how many numerical people each state was from displacing Minnesota or New York (assuming no other states gained/lost seats), so I calculated the 10 closest states to gaining and losing seats.

Gaining (Farthest to Closest)
Texas - 189,645
Florida - 171,561
Utah - 136,978
Virginia - 111,635
Delaware - 88,205
Arizona - 79,509
West Virginia - 73,911
Idaho - 27,579
Ohio - 11,462
New York - 89

Losing (Closest to Farthest)
 Minnesota - -26
 Montana - -6,371
 Rhode Island - -19,127
 Oregon - -62,408
 Colorado - -72,445
 Alabama - -85,285
 Nebraska - -94,387
 North Carolina - -160,592
 South Carolina - -179,944
 Wisconsin - -187,747

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

In 2010, South Carolina was entitled to 6.528 seats. In 2020, this has increased to 6.722. So South Carolina is still somewhat close to 6.5, but further away than it was in 2010.

We can back of the envelope estimate that South Carolina will be close to 7.5 in 2060 when it might gain an 8th seat (assuming current trends continue).

Alternatively, South Carolina gained 10.4% over the decade, while the USA gained 7.1%. South Carolina grew 3.1% faster   (1.104/107.1) = 103.1

South Carolina's representation should also grow by 3.1%. 3.1% of 7 is 0.217.

As long as South Carolina continues to grow faster than the USA as a whole it won't lose representation.

[jimrtex]

So hopefully you can see that just changing the root or power of the product doesn't really "work", at least not for something that can be described as a continuum of means or a continuum of divisor methods based on a continuum of means.

Why does a divisor method have to be based on a continuum of means?

Is it just because the power means for an exponent of -infinity, -1, 0, 1, and +infinity have other properties?

As long as the series of divisors exhibit monotonicity, x > y => f(x) > f(y), why can't it be used?

Where does Imperiali fit into this scheme?

For p = 1, the raising of exponents or taking of roots doesn't change anything, so you're left with the the arithmetic mean.  For p = -1, the negative 1st power (or negative first root) of a number is the reciprocal of that number, so you get the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocal of those two numbers.  The cubic mean you alluded to (p = 3, the cube root of the arithmetic mean of the cubes of those numbers) is actually on the "larger number side" (or the greatest divisors/D'Hondt/Jefferson "side") of the arithmetic mean (or major fractions/Webster), which itself is on the D'Hondt side of equal proportions, while you maybe thought it was somewhere on the smallest divisors/Adams "side" of equal proportions.

Since I was trying to switch the representative to New York, I was trying to choose something on the Jefferson side, but that was not so far as Webster's which you pointed out would also flip Montana and Rhode Island.

Does that explanation help at all?

I do appreciate the explanation.

My understanding of Adam's, Dean's, Huntington-Hill, Webster's, and Jefferson's method are more based on the properties of each.

[Tender Branson]

Which states are whining around so far after the results are out ?

I know of NY and Cuomo complaining, but who else ?

[Non Swing Voter]

Which states are whining around so far after the results are out ?

I know of NY and Cuomo complaining, but who else ?

I don't see how anyone other than NY could complain.  The next state, Ohio, isn't even close to the number they needed.

I have heard some Democratic politicians complaining about the undercount of hispanics in Arizona, and to a lesser extent Texas, and Florida. 

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

Well, your state is extremely rural. Honestly, I think this could be a factor that works against SC/GA/NC/TN going forward. Even if the cities keep booming, I'd be completely unsurprised to see rural populations converge towards 10-15%. That's equivalent to ~10% of SC's population disappearing--which would require a whole lot of growth in the cities to make up.

[cinyc]

Which states are whining around so far after the results are out ?

I know of NY and Cuomo complaining, but who else ?

I don't see how anyone other than NY could complain.  The next state, Ohio, isn't even close to the number they needed.

I have heard some Democratic politicians complaining about the undercount of hispanics in Arizona, and to a lesser extent Texas, and Florida. 

It's not states who tend to complain; it's usually cities and towns that complain about being undercounted.

[cinyc]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

I often analogize Congressional Apportionment to hiking in the woods with friends when you encounter a hungry bear that's out to maul you. You don't have to outrun the bear. You only have to outrun your friends.

It's a little more complicated than that - some of your friends are hiking up front closer to the bear when first encountered, while others are lagging behind.

South Carolina was closer to the bear, relatively speaking, for the reasons Abdullah and jimrtex explained. It eked out a seat the last time, making it closer to losing a seat if growth went bad. So it had to run relatively faster than someone in the back (say, a state that had just barely lost a seat in 2010) to escape. Compared to expectations, it didn't run as well as expected. But it still managed to run to safety because it grew about 3 points faster than the US as a whole.

[Tender Branson]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet:

Because 150.000 more people were counted in PR than estimated, FL's estimates might have been overestimated. FL ended up ca. 100.000 below the estimates.

It's also possible that a lot of PRans went to NY and NJ instead of FL during the past decade.

[Kevinstat]

Why does a divisor method have to be based on a continuum of means?

When I think about it, I really doesn't have to be, although one that yielded results "beyond" Jefferson or "beyond" Adams wouldn't be one I would think of as optimal.  But if you wanted to give each state an automatic 2 seats, you could set the divisors for the first and second seats to 0 (or 0⁺ (a number infinitesimally greater than 0), or otherwise just know that the reciprocal of that zero divisor is positive infinity).  Regarding your question two paragraphs down, ...

As long as the series of divisors exhibit monotonicity, x > y => f(x) > f(y), why can't it be used?

... x > y => f(x) ≥ f(y) might actually work, although it would want to be understood that if there was a tie for the final seat(s) between different number seat priority values for the same state (or the same party if you're dealing with elections using (either open or closed) party lists), the tie would go to the lower number.  How that would work if two states tied for the multiple numbers of seats would be murkier, particularly if they're a different set of multiple (adjacent) numbers of seats.

Your tweak earlier just seemed... I don't know what word to use, but the fact that you related it to the cubic mean indicated that you didn't understand what that was (that was before my explanation of the power mean last night).  It just didn't seem "right."  I am King and I get to decide what formulas for seat divisors are acceptable or not.

Is it just because the power means for an exponent of -infinity, -1, 0, 1, and +infinity have other properties?

Well, as you know, ...

My understanding of Adam's, Dean's, Huntington-Hill, Webster's, and Jefferson's method are more based on the properties of each.

... As you know, there are measures of inequality between any pair of states or parties for all five of those methods where the apportionment "award" given by that method will be at an equilibrium where shifting any seat from one state/party to another would increase the inequality between those two states/parties by that measure.  The two for Jefferson and Adams are rather convoluted, but if you just relax inequality to "non-optimality" you can just have non-optimality that Adams minimizes being how bad things are for the worse off state/party, and the non-optimality that Jefferson minimizes being how good things are for the better off state/party (recognizing that envy is a natural part of the human condition and that therefore there is something to be said for minimizing that potential envy by minimizing what other states/parties can be envious of).

As a broader continuum, the generalized/power mean has certain combinations of properties that mathematicians find useful.  A number of them are shared by a broader class of means known as the quasi-arithmetic mean or the generalized f-mean.  (With that mean, you can basically pick your function but, in addition to what you wrote above about the function being monotonic (and strictly monotonic, not weakly monotone like my adjustment above), the result can't be outside the range of numbers you're taking the "mean" of.  I mean, it is called a mean after all.  KnowhatImean?)  But quasi-arithmetic means other than the power means aren't homogenous (for homogenous means, multiplying all the numbers you're taking the "mean" by the same scalar b will always result in the result being multiplied by b, or maybe it just has be be some (consistent for all numbers with the given mean) power of b (see the Wikipedia article on homogenous functions), but for power means it's always exactly b).  There's an adjustment that can make them homogenous I guess with that adjustment they no longer qualify as quasi-arithmetic means and can lose some of the associated properties.

I'm not necessarily opposed to going outside power means or even outside quasi-arithmetic means, but it has to make sense to me on a certain level.

Where does Imperiali fit into this scheme?

In addition to the power mean continuum, which I had forgotten to mention limits of the power mean with exponent p as p approaches negative and positive infinity (what the power mean gets increasingly and ultimately infinitesimally close to as you go lower or higher) are the smallest and largest smallest numbers, respectively (so the Adams and Jefferson methods, although you seemed to know that) (I focused on the limit as p approaches 0, as that is more obvious as kind of a "patch" in the continuum).  ...  In addition to the power mean continuum, there is also a continuum of having the divisors for the jth seat (or the divisors for an additional seat for a state/party already "awarded" j − 1 = i seats; people often use what I've called i here but I prefer what I've called j) go linearly from i or j − 1 (Adams) past i + 0.5 or j − 0.5 (Webster) to i + 1 or j (Jefferson).  And on this continuum you can keep going past Jefferson (going past Adams would mean negative divisors and thus negative priority values for a state getting its first seat, and thus as you keep going its second, third, etc.).  For the Imperiali method, as defined in Wikipedia, the divisors for the jth seat (or for a state/party already "awarded" i seats getting at additional seat) at i + 2 or j + 1.

At one point in British history, from what I remember reading, there were some 3- and 4-seat constituencies for the House of Commons.  To give some semblance of proportionality, they powers that be limited the number of people the eligible voters could vote for (there were people who had multiple votes back then, but I'm assuming that meant that they had a vote in multiple constituencies rather than multiple votes in the same constituency) to 2 in the 3-seat constituencies and 3 in the-4 seat constituencies rather than 3 or for 4, respectively in the multiple non-transferable vote/plurality-at-large voting/block vote.  So limited voting but not the single non-transferable vote (SNTV).  (One could still only vote once for any given candidate; it wasn't cumulative voting.)  I'll be focusing on the 3-seat constituency here (the math didn't work the way I thought it would in either case).  The D'Hondt method (the same as Jefferson's method except for no 1-seat minimum, although I often think of the main difference between the two being the context they are used (allocation of seats to parties based on election results apportionment of seats to geographic areas based on a census or electoral register or some such)) can be thought of as awarding what the "equilibrium" would be under SNTV if all voted "optimally" for one candidate or another of a given party, but didn't "split their ticket" and there was no cross-party tactical voting (this might have been before the Labour Party was much of a force, so it was just the Liberals and the Conservatives who had a shot at winning seats).  Let's assume there are just two parties in this example, or that any candidates running not endorsed by those parties will get so few votes that they would lose their deposits.  If voters could have voted for 3 candidates (plurality at large), than one party with 50% + 1 of the voters voting for all 3 of its candidates would win all 3 of the seats.  If voters could only have voted for a single candidate, a party fielding only one candidate (maybe the constituency pretty strongly favors the other party) could clinch a seat if 25% + 1 of the voters for for that candidate, regardless of how well the vote is broken down between the 4 candidates of the other party.

Where voters could vote for 2 candidates, however, a party would need 40% + 1 of the votes to clinch a seat, as if the other party had 60% of the votes, and ran 3 candidates, and exact thirds of their electorate voted for the three possible pairs of the party's 3 candidates, those 3 candidates would tie the candidate that the voters of the minority party "plumped" for.  If the party had "60% + 2" of the voters, they could win every seat with perfect balancing.  So a party needed 40% of the vote to be able to clinch at least a tie for winning 1 seat with proper balancing (having all its voters "plump" for their single candidate), and 60% of the vote to be able to clinch at least a tie for winning all 3 seats with proper balancing.  In another example with that same constituency, if 50% of the voters voted for candidates A and B of party C, and 50% of the voters voted for candidates X and Y of party Z, then the result would be a 4-way tie for the three seats.  So 50% of the vote would be what was needed to clinch at least a tie for 2 seats with proper balancing.  40%, 50% and 60%.  4, 5, 6.  You can see how those three "divisors" all vary by 1, but it starts at i + 4 or j + 3 rather than the i + 1 or j or 1, 2, 3, ... divisors of D'Hondt.  Alas, not the i + 2 or j + 1 or 2, 3, 4... of the Imperiali method.  I really thought that might have been the basis for that method (it was a real bummer to discover my error midway through).  But anyway, the Imperiali method adds kind of a British ("Imperial") twist to the family of highest averages methods.

For p = 1, the raising of exponents or taking of roots doesn't change anything, so you're left with the the arithmetic mean.  For p = -1, the negative 1st power (or negative first root) of a number is the reciprocal of that number, so you get the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocal of those two numbers.  The cubic mean you alluded to (p = 3, the cube root of the arithmetic mean of the cubes of those numbers) is actually on the "larger number side" (or the greatest divisors/D'Hondt/Jefferson "side") of the arithmetic mean (or major fractions/Webster), which itself is on the D'Hondt side of equal proportions, while you maybe thought it was somewhere on the smallest divisors/Adams "side" of equal proportions.

Since I was trying to switch the representative to New York, I was trying to choose something on the Jefferson side, but that was not so far as Webster's which you pointed out would also flip Montana and Rhode Island.

Ah, good point.  Your tweak did move the result toward the Jefferson side.  I got a little turned around there.  The main thing on my mind while writing that was that the cubic mean wasn't simply changing the square root of the product of the two numbers (the geometric mean) to the cube root.  There's also a quadratic mean or root mean square that is the "square" equivalent to the cubic mean.

[bagelman]

I'm pretty confident that it's going to be the 30th. Always gotta drag their feet for no particular reason.

Glad to be wrong. Do we know when the more specific populations, like for counties and later precincts, are coming out?

[Tender Branson]

I'm pretty confident that it's going to be the 30th. Always gotta drag their feet for no particular reason.

Glad to be wrong. Do we know when the more specific populations, like for counties and later precincts, are coming out?

Mid-August in a non-user-friendly format, late-September in a user-friendly format.

[Skill and Chance]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

Well, your state is extremely rural. Honestly, I think this could be a factor that works against SC/GA/NC/TN going forward. Even if the cities keep booming, I'd be completely unsurprised to see rural populations converge towards 10-15%. That's equivalent to ~10% of SC's population disappearing--which would require a whole lot of growth in the cities to make up.

This might also explain the flatlining in VA. VA-09 and VA-04 are hemorrhaging people, as is the southern half of VA-05. 

[DINGO Joe]

Perhaps not yet noted, even though they are the same size and shape and right next to each other, Colorado is officially 10X the population of Wyoming.  They really should just go in and beat them up and take their two senators.

[Adam Griffin]

Perhaps not yet noted, even though they are the same size and shape and right next to each other, Colorado is officially 10X the population of Wyoming.  They really should just go in and beat them up and take their two senators.

Hell, take UT while they're at it!

[lfromnj]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

Well, your state is extremely rural. Honestly, I think this could be a factor that works against SC/GA/NC/TN going forward. Even if the cities keep booming, I'd be completely unsurprised to see rural populations converge towards 10-15%. That's equivalent to ~10% of SC's population disappearing--which would require a whole lot of growth in the cities to make up.

This might also explain the flatlining in VA. VA-09 and VA-04 are hemorrhaging people, as is the southern half of VA-05. 

Also Fairfax county growth has really slowed down. The Inner ring"urban" area of Alexandria and Arlington are now growing fast and Loudon/PWC are booming though.

[BigSkyBob]

This is close to the best case scenario for Dems from this apportionment.  Total control over 26 seats in NY, additional CD in MN forces MN-01 to get more urban, no extra GOP leaning seat in AZ, Texas is an unambiguous plus because they have to concede an Austin seat now anyway and the RGV redraw is harder with bigger seats, even the safe seat in RI stays.  Wow.

Do you think this is an accident? I don't.  I half expected this would happen. RI keeps 2, three-sigma? four-sigma?

[Kevinstat]

This is close to the best case scenario for Dems from this apportionment.  Total control over 26 seats in NY, additional CD in MN forces MN-01 to get more urban, no extra GOP leaning seat in AZ, Texas is an unambiguous plus because they have to concede an Austin seat now anyway and the RGV redraw is harder with bigger seats, even the safe seat in RI stays.  Wow.

Do you think this is an accident? I don't.  I half expected this would happen. RI keeps 2, three-sigma? four-sigma?

Ah, the Notorious BSB is back.

[cinyc]

This is close to the best case scenario for Dems from this apportionment.  Total control over 26 seats in NY, additional CD in MN forces MN-01 to get more urban, no extra GOP leaning seat in AZ, Texas is an unambiguous plus because they have to concede an Austin seat now anyway and the RGV redraw is harder with bigger seats, even the safe seat in RI stays.  Wow.

Do you think this is an accident? I don't.  I half expected this would happen. RI keeps 2, three-sigma? four-sigma?

AZ not gaining a seat was actually more unlikely than RI keeping 2.

My explanation is NY expats temporarily moving to RI to escape COVID. That would be ironic - especially since Gov. Raimondo didn't want NYers to come in the first place.

[bagelman]

I'm pretty confident that it's going to be the 30th. Always gotta drag their feet for no particular reason.

Glad to be wrong. Do we know when the more specific populations, like for counties and later precincts, are coming out?

Mid-August in a non-user-friendly format, late-September in a user-friendly format.

For larger units like counties, this seems like an unreasonably long wait to me.

[7,052,770]

This is close to the best case scenario for Dems from this apportionment.  Total control over 26 seats in NY, additional CD in MN forces MN-01 to get more urban, no extra GOP leaning seat in AZ, Texas is an unambiguous plus because they have to concede an Austin seat now anyway and the RGV redraw is harder with bigger seats, even the safe seat in RI stays.  Wow.

Do you think this is an accident? I don't.  I half expected this would happen. RI keeps 2, three-sigma? four-sigma?

It's been a long time. Good to see you again.

[Non Swing Voter]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

Well, your state is extremely rural. Honestly, I think this could be a factor that works against SC/GA/NC/TN going forward. Even if the cities keep booming, I'd be completely unsurprised to see rural populations converge towards 10-15%. That's equivalent to ~10% of SC's population disappearing--which would require a whole lot of growth in the cities to make up.

This might also explain the flatlining in VA. VA-09 and VA-04 are hemorrhaging people, as is the southern half of VA-05. 

Also Fairfax county growth has really slowed down. The Inner ring"urban" area of Alexandria and Arlington are now growing fast and Loudon/PWC are booming though.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/sites/demographics/files/assets/demographicreports/fullrpt.pdf

Fairfax county still grew by almost 100,000 people (I actually would have expected more based on all of the skyscrapers that have recently gone up around Tysons, Reston, etc.).  In raw numbers this is basically the same as Loudoun, but now that Fairfax is hovering around 1.2 million people it's hard for it to grow as a percentage. 

The point about rural Virginia is definitely true.  There are some downstate towns where half the downtown areas are completely boarded up.  So NOVA's huge growth is offset by that.  If they just kept pace Virginia would probably be gaining a congressional seat. 

Virginia recently legalized gambling in hopes of revitalizing some of these downstate areas but I doubt it will help that much.