17 States That Will Gain or Lose Electoral-College Votes After the 2020 Census

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published 30 January 2020

Every 10 years, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reassigned based on the results of the U.S. Census. This also helps determine a state’s number of votes in the Electoral College (House seats plus Senate seats, plus three additional for the District of Columbia for a sum of 538) and thus its power to decide presidential elections.

Where people go, so goes political power. According to Election Data Services, at least 17 states will likely gain or lose seats—and electoral college votes—after the 2020 Census, based on the latest demographic trends. States in the South and West will see the biggest gains; Texas could pick up as many as three seats, the most of any state. The Midwest and Northeast will not fare as well: Eight of the 10 states set to lose House seats are from these two regions.

Another: These are just preliminary estimates. The full picture will only be clear with the results of the 2020 Census, which has been complicated by COVID-19. While the Census Bureau halted field operations on Oct. 15 after getting the OK from the Supreme Court, many state and local officials are prepared to challenge the results, alleging that the agency undercounted the population in certain areas.

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Alabama

Population: 4.9 million (24th)
2010-2019 population growth: 2.5% (30th)
Current House seats: 7
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 6
Current Electoral College votes: 9
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 8

A state doesn’t need to lose people to lose seats in Congress. Take Alabama. The Heart of Dixie’s population is still growing, but slowly. The state has added a little over 100,000 people since 2010, roughly the capacity of the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. Four counties—Baldwin (Mobile), Madison (Huntsville), Lee (Auburn) and Shelby (Montgomery)—account for the bulk of that growth. Without them, Alabama’s population would be shrinking.

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Arizona

Population: 7.3 million (14th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 13.9% (7th)
Current House seats: 9
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 10
Current Electoral College votes: 11
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 12

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California

Population: 39.5 million (1st)
2010-2019 Population growth: 5.9% (20th)
Current House seats: 53
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 52
Current Electoral College votes: 55
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 54

California remains the most populous and prosperous U.S. state—by a long shot. But the Golden State is losing some of its luster. While the state’s population is still growing thanks to natural increase plus foreign immigration, more people are leaving than coming in, a response to the state’s rising cost of living. Residents of Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the most likely in the country to say they want to move. Some are merely relocating to lower cost areas of California such as Sacramento, the state capital, and the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino counties), while others move to states such as Idaho, Nevada and Texas.

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Colorado

Population: 5.8 million (21st)
2010-2019 Population growth: 14.5% (3rd)
Current House seats: 7
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 8
Current Electoral College votes: 9
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 10

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Florida

Population: 21.5 million (3rd)
2010-2019 Population growth: 14.2% (4th)
Current House seats: 27
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 28
Current Electoral College votes: 29
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 30

The Sunshine State first boomed with the advent of air conditioning after World War II, and the boom—minus the occasional bust, such as the 2008 financial crisis—has never really stopped. Indeed, the 2.6 million people Florida has added since 2010 (second only to Texas) is actually a step down from recent decades' gains. But it’s still good enough to net the state another House seat. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford is notably the second-fastest growing metro area in the country, but few parts of the state have gone untouched by the recent population boom.

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Illinois

Population: 12.7 million (6th)
2010-2019 Population growth: -1.2% (49th)
Current House seats: 18
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 17
Current Electoral College votes: 20
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 19

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Michigan

Population: 9.9 million (10th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 1.0% (40th)
Current House seats: 14
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 13
Current Electoral College votes: 16
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 15

Michigan was the only U.S. state whose population shrank from 2000 to 2010, and it hasn’t seen much of a rebound in the last decade, adding only a paltry 102,701 people since 2010. There are a few bright spots. Eight of the state’s 10 largest counties have grown roughly 4% or more since 2010, including Oakland and Macomb (metro Detroit), Kent and Ottawa (metro Grand Rapids), Washtenaw (Ann Arbor), Ingham (Lansing) and Kalamazoo (Kalamazoo). But the population of Wayne County, the most populous in the state, further contracted over the past decade, as did the city of Detroit.

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Minnesota

Population: 5.6 million (22nd)
2010-2019 Population growth: 6.3% (19th)
Current House seats: 8
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 7
Current Electoral College votes: 10
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 9

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Montana

Population: 1.1 million (43rd)
2010-2019 Population growth: 7.9% (16th)
Current House seats: 1
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 2
Current Electoral College votes: 3
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 4
Net gain/loss: +1

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New York

Population: 19.5 million (4th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 0.3% (45th)
Current House seats: 27
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 26
Current Electoral College votes: 29
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 28

New York is essentially the tale of two states: While New York City’s population (roughly 40% of the state total) has grown 2.5% since 2010, the rest of the state has shrunk 1.5%. The result is stagnation. Even the Big Apple’s population has been in decline since 2016. As a result, the state will lose a congressional district for the eighth Census in a row. It's been worse: New York lost two congressional seats after the 2010 and 2000 Censuses, three after the 1990 Census and five after the 1980 Census.

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North Carolina

Population: 10.5 million (9th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 9.5% (12th)
Current House seats: 13
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 14
Current Electoral College votes: 15
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 16

North Carolina has been one of the nation’s fastest growing states for half a century. Its population has more than doubled since 1970, and the state closed out the most recent decade by adding 100,000 people or more for four years in a row (2016-2019). Rapid growth in the state’s urban and suburban areas, especially the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham metro areas, has more than offset declines in most rural jurisdictions.

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Ohio

Population: 11.7 million (7th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 1.3%
Current House seats: 16
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 15
Current Electoral College votes: 18
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 17

Ohio’s woes mirror those of the other Rust Belt states (Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania), with slow population growth almost certain to cost the state a congressional seat after the 2020 Census. Most of the state’s major cities are shrinking, and only two of its 10 most populous counties have grown by more than 2%. The main exception is the state capital, Columbus, in Franklin County, the only Midwestern entry on the Census Bureau’s list of the fastest growing cities.

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Oregon

Population: 4.2 million (27th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 10.1%
Current House seats: 5
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 6
Current Electoral College votes: 7
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 8

Oregon’s growth is primarily Portland’s growth. Nearly half of the state’s population lives in the counties in and around the state’s largest city, whose population has grown by 11.6% since 2010. Indeed, the state’s three biggest counties—Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas, all in the Portland metro area—have each grown by at least 10% in that time. Salem and Eugene, the state’s second- and third-largest cities, respectively, have also experienced solid population increases.

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Pennsylvania

Population: 12.8 million (5th)
2010-2019 Population growth: 0.8%
Current House seats: 18
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 17
Current Electoral College votes: 20
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 19

Despite being the nation’s fifth-largest state by population, Pennsylvania also ranks among the slowest growing. Its 0.8% population growth since 2010 is seventh-worst in the country. And while five of the state’s 10 largest counties (many of them in the Philadelphia metro area) have experienced growth of 3% or more during this period, the rest of the state has primarily seen population decline.

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Rhode Island

Population: 1.1 million
2010-2019 Population growth: 0.5%
Current House seats: 2
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 1
Current Electoral College votes: 4
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 3

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Texas

Population: 29 million (2nd)
2010-2019 Population growth: 15.3% (2nd)
Current House seats: 36
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 39
Current Electoral College votes: 38
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 41

No state has added more people since 2010 than Texas—a whopping 3.8 million. So naturally, Texas will see the largest increase in congressional representation, picking up three additional seats in the House of Representatives. Most of these gains are concentrated in the state’s five biggest metro areas: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. But even smaller metros such as Odessa-Midland have reaped the benefits of the past decade’s population boom.

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West Virginia

Population: 1.8 million (38th)
2010-2019 Population growth: -3.3% (50th)
Current House seats: 3
Forecast for House seats after the 2020 Census: 2
Current Electoral College votes: 5
Forecast for Electoral College votes after the 2020 Census: 4

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Housiaux covers the White House and state and local government for The Kiplinger Letter. Before joining Kiplinger in June 2016, he lived in Sioux Falls, SD, where he was the forum editor of Augustana University's student newspaper, the Mirror. He also contributed stories to the Borgen Project, a Seattle-based nonprofit focused on raising awareness of global poverty. He earned a B.A. in history and journalism from Augustana University.