Census Data Likely to Benefit GOP

Far more than a gauge of which state is up and which is down, the decennial head count to be released today will redistribute power in two critical institutions of American democracy: the House of Representatives and the electoral college.

In an ordinary year, the changes likely to emerge from the new census data would seem small. No state is expected to lose or gain more than two seats in the House and the college--in contrast to the aftermath of the 1990 census, when California gained an astounding seven in each.

But the elections of 2000 were anything but ordinary. The GOP majority in the next House, expected to settle at 221-212, could vanish in the midterm elections with a swing of just five seats to the Democrats. And Republican George W. Bush captured the White House with a majority of 271 electoral votes, only one more than the minimum.

Given those wafer-thin margins, where a seat here and a vote there make all the difference, the incremental shifts to be announced today could well be seen as good news for the Republicans who are already studying the political map to plan for a Bush reelection campaign in 2004. Democrats would view the new numbers, at best, as a challenge.

Democrats and GOP Look at the Math

Consider the following electoral parlor game.

Suppose California, a state that went for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, gains one House seat in the release of today’s figures--a distinct likelihood based on recent population projections. Or even two seats, if, as some Californians argue, the state’s head count surges.

That would net 55 or 56 electoral votes for the state, following the constitutional formula that grants each state as many electors as its House and Senate seats combined. California’s total would tower over that of every other state.

Wouldn’t that cheer the Democrats? Perhaps.

But Texas, Bush country, will probably gain two electoral votes, for a total of 34. And New York and Pennsylvania, both Gore states, may well lose two electoral votes each.

Clark H. Bensen, a GOP consultant in Virginia who is an expert on census data, calculates that Bush would have picked up an additional six electoral votes if the 2000 elections had been played on the electoral map that, in his projection, the 2000 census will produce. That would yield a hypothetical Bush victory over Gore of 277 to 261.

Projections Show Gains in States Bush Won

For a GOP strategist, that would mean a bit of breathing room. As Bensen said, “It just solidifies their base.” Six votes is the electoral equivalent of Arkansas, which Bush captured even though it is President Clinton’s home state.

Bensen and Kimball W. Brace, another expert on elections and demographics who was a witness for Gore in the Florida voting dispute, have released projections of the House reapportionment and the new electoral college based on July 1999 estimates of population trends from the Census Bureau.

The bottom line, according to both experts: Bush-carried states appear to be gaining population faster than Gore-carried states. Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Nevada and Texas, all in the Bush column in November, are expected to pick up electoral votes. Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all in the Gore column, are expected to lose votes. (Three Bush-carried states--Oklahoma, Mississippi and Ohio--also could lose one vote each.)

“Clearly, the electoral shift based on the census will help Republicans in 2004,” said Scott Reed, a party strategist who managed Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. “The movement is from the liberal Northeast, Democrat country, to the South and the West, which are trending Republican. This is a good story for Republicans.”

Hold on, say the Democrats. What about Florida? That state’s 25 electoral votes decided the 2000 election. And many Gore backers will always believe he should have been awarded those electoral votes even though Bush was certified the victor. Florida is expected to pick up one House seat and one electoral vote through the reapportionment.

“Any Republican who is counting Florida on their map is going to have a whole ‘nother think coming,” said Jenny Backus, press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. She added that the underlying demographic trends in states such as Colorado, Nevada and Arizona would also favor Democrats.

“If you look at the electoral map and you project ahead to 2004, I don’t think George Bush gets any gains [from the census] except for being able to pick up a vote or two more out of Texas,” Backus said.

But this particular parlor game will end and the real electoral projections for 2004 will begin today when the Census Bureau announces its first results at a news conference. It will be the first of two stages for the census release. In March, the bureau will begin to announce more detailed data to help states redraw legislative boundaries--setting off a free-for-all that will scramble politics from the House down to local school boards.

The battle for the House in 2002 will be influenced heavily by both today’s announcement and by the subsequent releases. Democratic strategists are hoping that the controversy over Bush’s victory in Florida will produce a boomerang effect that will help knock House Republicans out of power. Republicans are banking on their control of a majority of governorships to help them influence House redistricting from state to state--producing boundaries that are favorable to Republican incumbents and that put Democrats in jeopardy.