Analysis by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
Since restrictive policies arose during the Covid pandemic in 2020, Americans have consistently left Democrat-led states like California for “red” states like Texas or Florida, spurring a massive migratory population shift that may affect congressional reapportionment in 2030, data suggests.
According to information from SmartAsset, based on IRS data, more than 54,000 households in California left for Texas between 2021 and 2022, for example. Other popular relocation destinations from California have included Arizona and Florida.
This phenomenon has not been lost on conservatives who earned a hard-fought presidential election in November 2024, netting all seven swing states and reclaiming the U.S. Senate with a slim but solid majority of Republicans.
“Americans are voting with their feet, fleeing Blue state tyranny for better run Red states,” Turning Point President Charlie Kirk remarked on X this week.
He drew attention to congressional reapportionment projections from the Brennan Center, based on estimates between 2022 to 2024.
“Some estimate that blue states could lose as many as 12 congressional seats,” he noted.
According to the center’s data, California could lose as many as four seats, while Arizona could gain one, Texas could gain four, and Florida could gain up to four, as well.
As California’s population growth continues to stagnate, red states are growing increasingly redder, and blue states are becoming increasingly less populated.
Per the Brennan Center’s analysis:
“If these trends continue for the balance of the decade, California would lose 4 of its 52 congressional districts in reapportionment — only the second time the Golden State has ever lost representation. New York, meanwhile, would lose three seats, Illinois two, and Pennsylvania one, leaving all three states with congressional delegations half the size they were in 1940.”
Impressively, rather than East and West Coast states holding the monopoly on population density, the American South could become “the country’s most populous region and home to nearly 4 in 10 Americans” by 2030.
This is a harsh reality for the Democrat party, whose progressive urban strongholds have seemed to have a hand in driving Americans out of their states and into Midwest and Southern regions.
“People are leaving these kind of states for places where they [don’t] feel the heavy breath of government on them…. It’s not that hard for Democrats to understand this, but they don’t. They seem to be incapable of doing anything about it,” said left-leaning talk show host Bill Maher during a recent New York Times interview.
Will this political reshuffling help Republicans maintain dominance in a post-Trump world? Perhaps, but it’s impossible to mention 2030 reapportionment possibilities without mentioning the 2026 midterm elections next fall.
While the Republican sweep of 2024 was something conservatives across the board celebrated, voting registration advocate and Early Vote Action founder Scott Presler had some sobering words for Americans.
He wrote on X, “Understandably, Republicans are celebrating. However, unless we remain focused on getting out the vote & winning elections, it’s a very real possibility that Republicans lose the House in 2026. If that happens, democrats will impeach President Trump — again.”
Presler said he worried that Republicans wouldn’t bring the same sense of urgency to the elections in 2026 that they did in 2024, and warned about the dangers of apathy in the interim.
“I fear that Republicans are going to stay home. I fear that Republicans aren’t going to take off-year elections seriously… We won the battle, but it will take constant vigilance to win the war,” he noted.
Indeed, congressional reapportionment predictions must be tempered with a realistic view of the high stakes midterm races looming next year, and Americans would be wise to heed Presler’s advice.
