Reapportionment

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See above.

The Census Bureau unveiled its once-a-decade, constitutionally mandated population data this morning and the results are in: Eight states will gain at least one seat in the House of Representatives and 10 will lose seats. Here’s the breakdown:

Adding seats: Arizona +1, Florida +2, Georgia +1, Nevada +1, South Carolina +1, Texas +4, Utah +1, Washington +1

Losing seats: Illinois -1, Iowa -1, Louisiana -1, Massachusetts -1, Michigan -1, Missouri -1, New Jersey -1, New York- 2, Ohio -2, Pennsylvania -1

Those results reflect a population shift from the industrial north and midwest to the west and south. And on the whole, it’s very positive news politically for Republicans. Those states gaining seats are mostly GOP leaning, most notably Texas with a whopping addition of four. It also makes President Obama’s re-election climb slightly steeper; the number of electoral college electors allocated to each state is based on the 535 members of Congress (plus three from D.C.) Tom Bonier tells Politico that the reapportionment, when applied to 2008 election results, costs Obama six electoral college votes.

In November, Republicans picked up a number of the governships and state legislatures that redraw the maps to accomodate new districts, further adding to their advantage in the process going forward. All these changes will take effect in 2012.

More Census data is available here. One last interesting tidbit: The average congressional district now has a population of more than 700,000.