Census Day Arrives

U.S. Census numbers are out today, numbers that will be used to reapportion seats in Congress. It is no surprise that the new political map will give more seats to the South and West, and take away from the Northeast and Midwest.

From the NYT:

On the surface, the Republicans would seem to have the advantage. Most of the states winning seats trend Republican, and most of those losing them tend to elect Democrats. What is more, Republicans will be in a strong position to steer the process, with Republican governors outnumbering Democrats 29 to 20, with one independent, come January. Republicans also gained control of at least 18 legislative chambers in the midterms last month.

“Republicans are in the best position since modern redistricting began,” said Tim Storey, an expert on redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But population gains in the South and West were driven overwhelmingly by minorities, particularly Hispanics, and the new districts, according to the rules of redistricting, will need to be drawn in places where they live, opening potential advantages for Democrats, who tend to be more popular among minorities.

And an extensive analysis from Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight:

The partisan patterns are by no means uniform. Democrats will benefit from growing Hispanic populations in some places, and some Republican-leaning rural districts in Farm Belt states like Iowa are losing population. Further, in the urban areas that are losing population, like Cleveland and New Orleans, the voters are so overwhelmingly Democratic that modest changes in boundaries will not harm Democrats much. But the trends should benefit Republicans over all, almost no matter how the new boundary lines are drawn

I am sure there will be lots more commentary in the coming weeks, and lots of fun ways to interact with the data!