US House Of Representatives Reapportionment

Major Changes In Electoral College Coming After Census Figures In 2020, And Reapportionment Of Seats In House Of Representatives In 2022 And After

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The Electoral College and Congressional Representation in the House of Representatives will change dramatically, after the Census of 2020 leads to seven states gaining electoral votes and Congressional seats, while ten states will lose electoral votes and Congressional seats starting in 2022 for the lower house of Congress, and for the Electoral College in 2024 and 2028.

The big winners will be Texas and Florida, gaining 3 and 2 seats and 3 and 2 electoral votes. Also gaining one seat and one electoral vote will be Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Montana, and North Carolina.

The ten states that will lose one seat each and one electoral vote are:

California (first time ever)

New York

Pennsylvania

Illinois

Ohio

Michigan

Minnesota

Rhode Island

West Virginia

Alabama

Rhode Island will now only have a Representative at Large, and Montana, which had gone in recent decades from one to two to one member of the House will again have 2 seats in the lower chamber of Congress.

The “Rust Belt” continues to lose in the Northeast and Midwest, while the South and the West, generally called the “Sun Belt”, continues to gain seats and power, although California losing is a surprise. They will still have 52 (instead of 53) House seats and 54 (instead of 55) electoral votes in the 2020s.

New York has lost for seven decades in House seats and electoral votes, from a high of 45 and 47 in the 1930s and 1940s to 26 and 28 in the 2020s. while Florida in the same period has grown from 8 and 10 in the 1950s to 29 and 31 in the 2020s!

Latinos Future Democratic Base In Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas

Ronald 3 Comments

Donald Trump’s “war” on people of Hispanic ancestry is guaranteeing that the vast majority of Latinos in the future will be supporters of the Democratic Party long term, as they are in California.

When California Governor Pete Wilson promoted Proposition 187 to deny undocumented immigrants basic public services in the state, it backfired on him and the Republican Party, which had been dominant in the state for a few decades, including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as Californians who became President.

Proposition 187 was overturned in the courts, but it made the Republican Party the loser, as they rapidly lost any influence over the state, and the number of California Republicans in Congress dwindled down to seven in 2018, after years of great decline.

The same is about to happen in other states with large Latino population, including Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and ultimately, Texas.

And as this begins to happen, some of it in 2020, and more by 2024 and after, it will insure Democratic Congresses in the future, as congressional seats in those states start to fall into the hands of the Democrats.

And the Electoral College will bring a bright future as these four states turn blue, and particularly when Texas does so in the next decade.

So the day of GOP dominance with gerrymandering and voter suppression will come to an end, but the Democrats will have a massive job undoing the damage left by Donald Trump and his party.

Likely Shifts In Political Power In The House Of Representatives And The Electoral College After The 2020 Census

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With the 2020 Census only seven months from now, attention is being paid to the likely shifts in political power in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, after reapportionment of seats based on population changes.

Normally, about 16 states see the number of their Congressional seats and their total number of electoral votes changed up or down.

Right now, subject to change, the following 7 states will gain seats in the House starting in 2022, and electoral votes for the 2024 and 2028 Presidential election cycles:

Texas–3 seat gain

Florida–2 seat gain

North Carolina–1 seat gain

Arizona –1 seat gain

Colorado–1 seat gain

Oregon–1 seat gain

Montana–1 seat gain

These 7 states will gain a total of 10 seats and electoral votes.

The following 9 states will lose Congressional seats and electoral votes:

New York–2 seat loss

Pennsylvania–1 seat loss

Ohio–1 seat loss

Illinois–1 seat loss

Michigan–1 seat loss

West Virginia–1 seat loss

Alabama–1 seat loss

Rhode Island–1 seat loss

Also, either Minnesota might have a 1 seat loss, OR California, for the first time ever, might have a 1 seat loss.

Rhode Island had two House seats throughout its history, except for one decade when it had three seats, but now will have a Congressman At Large for the whole state in 2023. Montana had two House seats from 1913-1993, then a Congressman At Large for the whole state, and will return to two House seats in 2023, due to rapid growth. Rhode Island has not grown much at all in population, and soon will be surpassed by Montana.

Note that the long trend of the Sun Belt states gaining House seats and electoral votes continues, and the Rust Belt states losing House seats and electoral votes. The South and the West will continue to gain, while the Northeast and Midwest will continue to lose influence.

Midterm Election History In First Presidential Midterms Since 1946, And Likelihood Of Results Of Midterm Elections In 2018

Ronald 4 Comments

With the Midterm Elections of 2018 upon us in less than two weeks, it is time to analyze midterm election results in the first such elections after a new President has come to office, starting with Harry Truman in 1946 and all the way through to Barack Obama in 2010.

We are discussing 12 Presidents and how they were factors in the midterm elections which followed their entering the Presidency.

Six of the 12 Presidents entered that first midterm election with their popularity in public opinion polls under 50 percent—with the order of lack of popularity being lowest to highest the following—Truman, Reagan, Lyndon B. Johnson, Obama, Clinton, and Carter. Notice this list is all Democrats except for Reagan.

The other six Presidents were above 50 percent popularity at the time of the first midterm elections–from the highest to the lowest being George W. Bush, Kennedy, Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, Nixon, Ford. Notice this list is all Republicans except for Kennedy.

The record shows that only George W. Bush and Kennedy saw the best results, with Bush seeing a gain of 8 House seats and 1 Senate seat, in the year after September 11, and Kennedy losing 4 House seats but gaining 2 Senate seats in the weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

And George H. W. Bush, Nixon, and Eisenhower midterms showed respectively 8 House seats and 1 Senate seat lost; 12 House Seats lost and 1 Senate seat gained; and 18 House seats and 1 Senate seat lost.

Only Ford, three months after taking over the Presidency, and with still a high public opinion rating of 54 percent, but the Nixon Watergate Scandal still reverberating with Ford’s pardon of Nixon, do we see a major loss of 48 House seats and 4 Senate seats lost.

Meanwhile, those six Presidents with a lower than 50 percent public opinion poll rating at the first midterm of their Presidency saw a much greater loss, with Carter having the smallest loss, 15 House seats and 3 Senate seats lost with a 49 percent rating.

Reagan, with a 42 percent rating, lowest except for Truman, saw a loss of 26 House seats but one Senate seat gained.

The other four Presidents—Johnson, Clinton, Truman, Obama—suffered far worse losses—with Johnson losing 48 House seats and losing 4 Senate seats, the same as Ford, who had ten points higher public opinion rating of 54 percent to LBJ’s 44 percent.

Clinton, Truman, and Obama, all Democrats,lost massively in seats in both houses of Congress—Clinton losing 54 House seats and losing 8 Senate seats; Truman losing 55 House seats and losing 12 Senate seats; and Obama losing 63 House seats and losing 6 Senate seats.

What all this leads to is the strong belief that Donald Trump, with 47 percent approval rating most recently, will see a major loss of House seats for sure, and the guess at this time, after much reflection, is that it will be between 40-45 seats. In the Senate, with the great Republican advantage in only having 9 seats open for election, and the Senate having a 51-49 Republican margin, the odds of the Democrats holding on to their seats and gaining two or more of the nine contested Republican seats would seem to lead likely to a 50-50 tie, meaning a one seat Democratic gain, but still a Republican controlled Senate at 50-50, whereby Vice President Mike Pence will still organize the Senate for the next two years. This so unless there is a move by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted against Brett Kavanaugh, and has been attacked by her state’s Republican party leadership, to switch to Independent or Democratic support, and giving the Senate to the Democrats.

The Governorships generally follow Congressional results, and are extremely important for reapportionment of state legislative districts and US House districts after the Census 2020 population figures are tabulated, so having more Governors of one party over the other are crucial. At this point, it would seem likely that the Democrats will gain from 16 present Governorships by 10-11, and have 26-27 Chief Executives of states.

So overall, a Democratic gain to a majority of House seats to about 235-240 and 26-27 Governorships, but likely a tied 50-50 Senate, putting the results worse for Trump than for Reagan in the House and Senate, but not as bad as for Ford among Republican Presidents.

Key Democrats To Elect As State Governors: Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, Ben Jealous, Gavin Newsom, Richard Cordray, J. D. Pritzker, Tony Evers, Gretchen Whitmer

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It is urgent that Democrats, who at present, only have 16 state governorships, win a majority of the 36 gubernatorial races taking place this November.

Among the crucial races to win are the following:

Andrew Gillum in Florida

Stacey Abrams in Georgia

Ben Jealous in Maryland

Gavin Newsom in California

Richard Cordray in Ohio

J. D. Pritzker in Illinois

Tony Evers in Wisconsin

Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan

With other large states in Democratic hands and likely to remain so, including:

Andrew Cuomo in New York

Tom Wolff in Pennsylvania

it would mean that Democrats would control most of the larger states’ executive branches, crucial for reapportionment of seats in state legislatures and the US House of Representatives after the Census in 2020.

Only Texas of the top ten states in population would be likely to remain Republican, and with North Carolina (Roy Cooper) and New Jersey (Phil Murphy) and Virginia (Ralph Northam) and Washington State (Jay Inslee) all under Democratic Governors, it would mean 12 of the top 13 states with nearly two thirds of the nation’s population would be controlled by Democrats.

Add Democratic states likely to remain so, including Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, and the possibility of winning in Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New Mexico, and you have a majority of Democratic run state governorships. Finally, Nevada and Arizona seem long shots, but could, in a “Blue Wave” be won by Democratic nominees for governor in those states.

But even if not a majority of states, if the large populated states are won, it will benefit the Democrats in the coming reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives.