| Dear Readers: Right before the holidays, the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest annual population estimates. Florida and Texas continue to grow rapidly and are poised to once again add House members (and with them, additional electoral votes) following the 2030 census, while some Midwest and Northeast states appear likely to once again lose seats and votes. A more modern wrinkle is that California, which added seats in every reapportionment until 2010, and then lost a seat for the first time ever in 2020, is again slated to lose ground. Kimball Brace of Election Data Services released an assessment of what the new estimates might mean for the 2030 census, which of course is still half a decade away.
Kenneth Martis, a long-time follower of reapportionment patterns and political geography (and whose Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts is a cherished part of our library), shows the longer-term patterns of reapportionment over the past half-century, and how these changes have altered the electoral map. — The Editors |
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory of 312-226 in 2024 was just a single electoral vote bigger than what it would have been in 2020 under that election’s Electoral College apportionment.
— The longer-term trend in Electoral College apportionment is toward gains in the west and south and losses in the northeast and Midwest, with California’s recent loss of an electoral vote and possible loss of more in 2030 an added—and for Democrats, unhelpful—change to the usual historical pattern.
The rhythms of reapportionment
When the delegates of the Electoral College met in the 50 states and District of Columbia to formalize the results of the 2024 presidential election last month, 13 states, or one-fourth of the total, had a different number of electors than in the 2020 presidential election. For example, Texas had 38 electoral votes in 2020; in 2024 it had 40. These changes resulted from the 2020 census reapportionment of the House of Representatives. Throughout American history, the reapportionment of the House, and subsequent change in state Electoral College delegation size, has had significant political and regional consequences. This essay details the changes in Electoral College representation in 2024, and in recent history, and their consequences for presidential elections and regional power.
The post-2020 reapportionment
Map 1 shows the 13 states with a different number of electoral votes in 2024 compared to 2020. To examine the political consequences of the vote reallocation, the states are divided into three categories using the pre-election consensus of political party dominance.
Table 1 lists the 24 states designated safe or lean Republican (219 electoral votes) and the 19 states safe or lean Democratic (226 electoral votes). There were seven swing states with 93 electoral votes: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Since it takes 270 votes to elect the president, both parties were significantly short of the required amount without swing state votes. Five of the 13 states with new Electoral College numbers are Republican: Texas +2, Florida +1, Montana +1, Ohio -1, and West Virginia -1; a Republican gain of two electoral votes. Five of the 13 states are Democratic: Colorado +1, Oregon +1, New York -1, Illinois, -1, and California -1; a Democratic loss of one electoral vote. In the 2024 reallocation of Electoral College votes, the Republicans gained a slight advantage. Three of the seven swing states had new Electoral College numbers and all of these have large populations and hence significant electoral votes: North Carolina +1 (now 16 votes), Michigan -1 (now 15 votes), and Pennsylvania -1 (now 19 votes).
As it was, Donald Trump held all of the base Republican states and won all seven of the swing states, winning 312 to 226 for Kamala Harris (this included Trump winning an electoral vote from Maine and Harris winning an electoral vote from Nebraska). Under the old, pre-2020 census allocation, Trump’s victory would have been only a single electoral vote smaller, 311-227.
Map 1: Change in Electoral College apportionment following 2020 census
Table 1: Current Electoral College votes of Republican/Democratic states
Reapportionment and regional strength
Map 1 also illustrates a noteworthy geographical shift in the Electoral College. Six states gained seats, and they are all located in the South and West. Six of the seven states that lost seats are in the Midwest and Northeast. California also lost a seat, the first time since joining the Union in 1850. Nevertheless, the California electoral vote (now 54) is still one-fifth of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect the president.
The 2020 census reallocation of the House of Representatives and Electoral College seats from the North to the South and West continued a half-century trend. The last time a northern state increased its representation was after the 1960 census. The 1970 census heralded the beginning of what geographers and demographers call the Sunbelt-Snowbelt Era. Table 2 enumerates the Electoral College vote count and reapportionment for each state for the last six censuses. Thirty-four states had some sort of change; 19 states lost electoral votes, and 15 states gained. As Table 2 shows, 5 of the 16 that did not change are small population states that kept the minimum three electoral votes. Table 3 lists the gains and losses for each solid or leaning state for each political party, and Table 4 goes into a bit of additional detail on the seven key states from the 2024 election. The clear winners are Texas (+14) and Florida (+13), both currently Republican. Democratic California (+9) is the next big winner and, in spite of losing one seat in the 2020 census, has by far the largest Electoral College delegation. Three formerly sparsely settled western states have significant percent gains, Republican Utah and the swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Table 2: Change in Electoral College votes, 1972 to 2024
Table 3: Electoral College vote change Republican/Democratic states 1972-2024
The clear losers in congressional and Electoral College power are the northern states of New York (-13) and Illinois (-7), both Democratic, Republican Ohio (-8), and the swing states of Pennsylvania (-8) and Michigan (-6). All the above states have large percentage losses, with New York and Ohio leading the way, losing one-third of their delegation apiece.
Map 2 shows the regional gains and losses for the nation in the Sunbelt-Snowbelt Era. The pattern shows an incredible shift of political power from the Northeast and Midwest to six Southeast states (+23), six Southwest states (+28), and three Pacific Coast states (+14).
Map 2: Change in Electoral College apportionment, 1972-now
The effect of the long-term Sunbelt-Snowbelt reapportionment on the 2024 Electoral College vote was examined using the same pre-election consensus division of states. Over the last half-century, the current 19 Democratic states lost eight electoral votes, while the current 24 Republican states gained eight votes, or a net swing of 16 votes. As in 2024, the long-term shift of electoral power is toward the Republicans.
All of the seven swing states had seat changes: The three northern states lost votes, while the four southern and western states gained. Table 4 summarizes the last 10 presidential elections in the swing states (the post Ronald Reagan era). The Republicans have made inroads in the three northern swing states and Nevada, while the Democrats have made gains in two southern states and Arizona. Wisconsin, for example, had voted Democratic eight of the nine elections before 2024. Nevertheless, the Republicans have made inroads in Wisconsin and won the state in 2024. Likewise, the Democrats have made inroads in Georgia and won the state in 2020 despite that state’s pattern of voting Republican in seven of the previous eight elections. However, Georgia, like all of the other swing states, went Republican in 2024, but it and North Carolina were closer in 2024 than Arizona, which showed signs in 2024 of reverting to its previous Republican roots.
Table 4: 2024 swing states electoral vote change, 1972-2024
The reallocation of Electoral College votes has occurred every decade since the 1790 census (with the exception of 1920). Decennial reapportionment has had partisan and regional consequences throughout American history. In the Sunbelt-Snowbelt Era, a large amount of electoral votes have been transferred from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West. Reapportionment in the last half century has also produced political party consequences, giving a transfer of electors to current Republican states. However, this shift is not substantial enough to ensure a clear, consistent Electoral College majority in the present partisan alignment of states.
The next reapportionment of the House and Electoral College will occur after the 2030 census. However, the census continues to research and report population trends and movements on a monthly and annual basis. Population statistics since the last census indicate a continuation of the Northeast and Midwest migration to the South and West, as noted in the introduction at the start of this article. If the population trends hold through the remainder of the decade, a regional reapportionment pattern similar to the one illustrated in Map 1 will continue. The projection of states to gain the greatest population are led again by Texas and Florida, both Republican. The projection of states for slow growth, or even to lose population, are led by California, New York, and Illinois, all Democratic. The 2030 census is on track to award additional electoral votes to several of the current Republican states and take away votes from a number of current Democratic states.
— J. Clark Archer and Frank LaFone contributed to the creation of the maps included in this article
| Kenneth C. Martis is a Professor Emeritus of Geography at West Virginia University. He is author or co-author of nine atlases on American elections and politics. Compilation cartographers J. Clark Archer is a Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Frank LaFone is Director of Institutional Effectiveness at Fairmont State University. |