Census Results: California And New York Lose Congressional Seats, Texas Gains

The U.S. Census Bureau has announced the allocation of congressional seats based on the 2020 census, with a new political shift in the House of Representatives with red states gaining seats and blue states losing positions.

What Happened: The migration of residents out of California cost the state to lose a seat in the House of Representatives for the first time in its history. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois and Michigan will each lose a congressional district as a result of the population-based shifts.

Texas added two new House seats based on the Lone Star State’s population growth over the past decade. Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Montana and Colorado will each have a new House district starting in the 2022 election.

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What Else: The new configuration of the House will also impact the Electoral College for the 2024 election, as each state’s electoral votes are tied to its census figures. The Census Bureau will provide more detailed data later in the year to assist the state legislatures with redrawing their congressional districts.

Karen Battle, chief of the Census Bureau's population division, noted that New York barely lost a congressional seat.

"If New York had had 89 more people, they would have received one more seat," she said.

The 2020 census determined the U.S. population is now at 331,449,281, a 7.4% increase from the 2010 census. However, this represented the second-slowest population increase in the history of the census.

(Photo by Sdkb / Wikimedia Commons.)