The COVID-delayed 2020 census results have finally arrived, with a total population for the 50 states and the District of Columbia of almost one-third of a billion — 331,449,281 — and surprises related to the miniature term and what French historians call the “long period.”
The short-term news revolves around the function for which the framers of the Constitution ordered the world’s first regularly scheduled census: the reapportionment of House of Representatives seats among the states. This is done in accordance with the 1941 statutory formula conveniently used by the Census Bureau.
The results were disappointing. Only seven seats out of 435 were transferred from one state to another. Texas gained two, and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one. California (for the first time in history), Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia lost one each.
Readers who follow these issues will note that population and representation continue to flow from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West and, generally speaking, from Democratic states to Republican states. But they will also realize that the changes are diminutive and not like census tracts in which one state gained eight seats (California in 1960) and another lost five (New York in 1980).
Expert forecasters agree that partisan effects are also likely to be diminutive. Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics projects a net gain of four seats for Republicans. David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report rates it a 3.5, and Kyle Kondik of Crystal Ball Sabato rates it a two. That’s not enough to overturn the 222-213 majority Democrats won in November 2020.
All three emphasize that redistribution processes within states can produce a wide range of results. According to Wasserman, Republicans control redistricting in states with 187 districts, Democrats in states with 75 districts and theoretically bipartisan commissions in states with 121 districts. Control is divided between parties in states with 46 districts, and six states have only one district each.
That’s a smaller advantage than Republicans had in the 2010 cycle and about the same advantage they had in the 2000 cycle; this is smaller than the Democratic advantage in the 1960, 1970, and 1980 cycles. The Democratic advantage then was due to their majority in northern metropolitan areas and near monopolies in the South. More recent Republican gains are largely due to Democratic voters being concentrated in central cities, nice suburbs and college towns, while Republican voters are more evenly spread across the country.
In terms of long-term effects, the 2020 census shows less population change and less internal migration than government and private estimates based on models from previous decades expected. Arizona grew 3.3% compared to census estimates and fell miniature of the widely predicted spot, while Texas and Florida fell one spot below expected growth.
On the other hand, the outflow was smaller than expected, especially in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The latter two did not lose seats as expected, and New York was just 89 seats away from losing a seat for the first time since 1940.
Speaking of which, the picture of the 2010–20 decade that the census paints closely resembles that of the long-awaited 1930–40 decade. During these 10 years, dominated by the Great Depression of 1929-33 and its echo in the Roosevelt recession of 1937-39, the country’s population grew by only 7.3%.
That’s eerily similar to the 7.4% in the decade that just ended, dominated by Obama’s leisurely economic recovery from 2009 to 2016 and Trump’s scale-backed pre-pandemic boom from 2017 to 2019. These two stand out as having the lowest growth ranges in American history; in every other 10-year period, the country’s population increased by a double-digit (rounded) percentage.
In any case, the previous decade was a needy guide to the next, because the previous one was characterized by a keen decline, to almost zero, in foreign immigration. This was the intended effect of the Immigration Act of 1924. It was an unintended (and largely unnoticed) result of the 2007 housing price collapse, which hit markets with high Latino immigration first. New York began gaining seats in the House of Representatives after immigration to Ellis Island ended in 1892–1924; California stopped gaining them after the influx of people from Mexico stopped in 1982-2007.
The 1930s was a decade when, with the exception of the picturesque Okies escaping the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains, Americans hunkered down and tended their gardens. The 2010s are turning out to be a decade when Americans, more than demographers and forecasters appreciate, hunkered down and cultivated their grievances in what Ross Douthat of The New York Times describes as our “decadent society.”
By 1940, Americans had entered a period of partisan parity and gridlock: Democrats won the presidency in four of six elections, from 1940 to 1960, but a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats controlled Congress for almost the entire time. Partisan parity and gridlock are certainly familiar now: Joe Biden’s congressional majority is almost identical to George W. Bush’s majority 20 years ago.
But some things may change. The census conducted on April 1, 1940, took place a few weeks before the fall of France and the accession of Winston Churchill to power. Within a few months, Depression America became War America, and a few years later, Post-War America: no more squatting. Will we face similar changes and challenges once America exits the lockdown?
