California could lose as many as four congressional seats in the 2030 apportionment, researchers say.
A recent report from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) echoes earlier forecasts of the state’s declining political clout, including from the non-partisan American Redistricting Project and from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. All three reports found the state could lose at least three seats; the Brennan Center projected four.
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California isn’t alone. Other Democratic-leaning states like New York, Illinois and Minnesota are also expected to lose one or two seats due to population declines. Meanwhile, Republican-leaning Florida and Texas could each gain as many as four new seats.
Since districts in many of these states tend to be heavily gerrymandered, and because the Electoral College is winner-take-all, these changes would help Republicans in both presidential and congressional races if current partisan preferences hold.
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The zero-sum math behind apportionment has always been the same: Each state receives seats in proportion to its population at each Census. For decades, that math worked in California’s favor. Between 1950 and 1990, the state added an average of 6 new seats every apportionment cycle as its population ballooned…