Electoral College Will Be Redder in 2012

Every ten years the U.S. Census reallocates the 435 U.S. House seats and thus determines how many Electoral College votes each state will control. While no one can be sure that next April's final population count will bear out today's projections, the best estimate right now is that Ohio will lose two House seats and seven other states will lose one each -- Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Three other states are also in danger of losing a seat apiece -- Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri.
And the big winner? It will be Texas, whose 25 million people are expected to bring an additional four House members and give it a stunning 38 votes in the Electoral College. In addition, five other states -- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah -- will likely gain at least one House seat each (Arizona is on the tipping point of gaining two). Two states, South Carolina and Washington State, will be close to gaining a single seat apiece.

The political implications are considerable. Not only is the Census likely to confirm a continued population shift to the South and West, but most of the states losing in the Electoral College will be Democratic-leaning states, while most of the gainers lean Republican for president. Polidata, a Vermont firm run by statistician Clark Bensen, has made its own projections about exactly how the two parties will fare in the Census, based on how states voted in the elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008. By his reckoning, Republicans are likely gain an overall advantage of eight electoral votes in the 2012 election thanks to the new Census. If that same allocation had applied in the 2004 election, George W. Bush would have prevailed in the Electoral College over John Kerry by 294 to 243 instead of by 286 to 251.

In a closely balanced country, such a small shift might have significant consequences. As an incumbent, President Obama has to be counted as the favorite in the 2012 race, but his climb to reach the needed 270 will be a bit steeper after the next Census.

-- John Fund