It may feel like the decade is already winding to a conclusion—after all, many of us are already starting to think about the 2020 presidential election—but another way to think about that is that we’re only slightly past the halfway mark on the 2010’s congressional map. New districts based on reapportionment and redistricting won’t be in place until the 2022 election, based on the data from the 2020 Census, so we’ve still got four years left on the current map.
So, if we’re sort of near the halfway point, that seems like a good place to take stock of how much the nation’s congressional districts have changed, population-wise, since the start of the decade and the 2010 Census. That’s made easier by the brand-new 2017 American Community Survey, which was just released by the Census Bureau last week. (The ACS isn’t a full count of everyone in the country, like the decennial Census. It’s a very large-scale, constantly ongoing survey that asks the more in-depth questions that used to be on the Census long form, and that serves as an annual gap-filler between full Censuses that allows for accurate population estimates.)
To better see both where we’ve been and where we’re going, I’ve put together a new spreadsheet that shows the 2010 population vs. the 2017 population for every congressional district (as well as the change in raw numbers and the change in percentage). And not only that ... because the ACS includes a full range of demographic information, I’ve also included the 2010 vs. 2017 population in every CD’s white population, African American population, Hispanic population, and Asian population (along with change in raw numbers and percentage change).
Knowing the change in each CD’s overall population is important because it gives us some clues about what will happen with redistricting in 2022. Many districts have gained several hundred thousand new residents, while others have stagnated or even lost population, so this can help us see which districts will need to grow or shrink (or, in states where reapportionment will add seats, which CDs will get fractured and where new districts will appear). But the changes in racial composition can help us see something more short-term as well; districts where there has been growth in the share of the non-white population or a decline in the white share of the population may well be poised to move further in the Democratic direction even this year, given the ever-increasing racial polarization between the parties.
While I certainly encourage you to look in detail at the full spreadsheet, I’ll pull out some of the most important data in table form, and talk a little more about the implications. Let’s start with the CDs that have seen the most overall population growth in the last seven years. (I’m going to do this category with just the change in raw numbers, rather than percentages, since almost all CDs, with the exception of some at-large seats, start out the decade relatively similar-sized.)
No comments: