A Shift in Power
Preliminary U.S. Census data was released yesterday and it’s generally good news for Iowa…we currently have four members of the U.S. House, and that will not change for the next decade. Which counties are in which districts may be shifted due to population changes, but the total will still be four. And that means our electoral college clout has also not changed…we’ll still have six votes for president.
As we told you in our newscasts today, seven states will each lose a House seat, and therefore, one of their electoral college votes. By contrast, one state picks up two House seats, and five others one each.
What difference might that make in a presidential election? Hard to say, but we do know how it would have changed things in 2020.
Using the electoral map that will be in place in 2024, if the same states fell the same way as the most recent election, Republicans would have picked up only three votes. Obviously not enough to turn an election, and less impact than many had thought might happen.
It is true that five of the states that lost seats and therefore electoral college votes were blue states…California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But it’s a small change and doesn’t change the focus of an electoral strategy…although if you’re a Republican, you’ll take those three more votes as opposed to being on the other end.
Now the trick is to make sure those migrating from blue states, perhaps to red states, leave their politics back in their old homes.
