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danieldwilliamI take an interest in USian politics because, well frankly, because it makes our own look sane, sincere and well-managed.
And the big thing that political professionals are looking at is...
Yeah, baby, Census!
This isn't the process where each state works out how they are going to set the boundaries of the Federal Districts inside their state. That's redistricting. However, that comes after the Census determines how many seats of the 435 available each state gets. That's important because, firstly, that's the number of Representatives each state sends to Congress and, secondly, the Electoral College for the Presidency is based on the number of Representatives plus two Senators. Oh, and 3 Electoral College votes for Washington, DC, which isn't a state and doesnt get any Representatives or Senators despite being the capital of the world's second largest democracy. The more Representatives your state has the more Electoral College votes you are worth.
Just to put that in to context. In order to win the Presidency you need 270 Electoral College Votes. If you win the eleven most populous states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvaian, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina, and you only need to win those states by 1 vote, you win the Presidency.
The process of allocating seats to states is fairly straightforward. (Building the spreadsheet that I used took about half an hour). Each state gets 1 seat for starters. There are then 435 - 50 = 385 seats available to allocate. Each seat is allocated as follows; states are given a priority number which is their population divided by the square root of the number of seats the currently have times by the seats they will have if they get one more. For example. California has a population of 41 million. Texas 29 million and New York 20 million. At the start of the process they all have 1 seat. California's priority is 41/sqr(1*(1+1) or 29. Texas has a priority of 29/sqr(1*(1+1) = 20. New York 20/sqr(1*(1+1) = 14. California gets the first seat.
California's priority is now 41/sqr(2*(2+1) or 17. Texas priority is still 29/sqr(1*(1+1) = 20. So Texas gets the second seat. The third seat goes to Calfornia with a prioty of 17 still beating New York's 14. New York gets the the fourth seat. Then Florida, then California again (California is BIG) and then so on until Minnesota gets the 434th seat allocated (its 8th seat) and Texas the 435th seat, which is the Lone Star States 36th Seat.
Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming all get 1 seat each. Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island get 2 .California gets 53. California is BIG.
So, just to keep an eye on where things were going and how vitally important this was going to be for the 2022 US General Election I decided to make some assumptions about changes in population and run those through the same spreadsheet. I took the movements in population for each state for the last two censuses, averaged them out, and added them to the state's 2010 population. I figure that's probably as a good a starting point as I can get without spending all day looking at city by city demographics. If you think a particular state is growing more or less quickly than its recent trend, let me know and I'll make a few guesses and see if has an impact. Here's what I found based on my own growth assumptions.
Texas gets two extra seats.
No wait, there's more.
A few states lose or gain 1 seat.
Gaining one seat, Florida, Georgia,, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon,
Losing one seat, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana, West Virginia and Rhode Island, who joins the Club of One in having only one Representative.
In terms of the Electoral College, you still only need to win the 11 most populous states to win the Presidency. Fun Fact! If you lose California you need to win the 21 next most populous states. California is B.I.G.
The 22 least populous states, nearly half of the states, have the same number of Electoral College votes as California. Did I mention that California is quite sizeable.
What is interesting to me, looking at this from a left-leaning point of view is that Texas and Florida are probably more contestable by the Democrats in 2022 and beyond than they have been in the last few decades. The rest of the movements look like a wash. A clutch of the Trumpie Mid-Western states lose 1 Electoral College vote.
You might also have a gander at this.
https://www.insightsassociation.org/article/states-expected-gain-or-lose-congressional-seats-after-2020-census
So that was a lot of fun. Re-apportionment perhaps slightly favours the Democrats in 2022, maybe, a bit. But certainly not enough to that they don't have to concentrate on re-districting in 2022. Which is fortunate because they seem to have woken up to that fact and won sufficient state House, state Senates or governorships in 2018 to have more influence over redistricting and perhaps thwart the Republican gerrymander.
But wait, I hear you ask, is there any more? Why yes, yes there is.
It won't have escaped even the most casual reader that here in the UK we are having a massive constitutional crisis, inside botched election fraud, wrapped up in a political fuck-up of epic proportions. In order to sort out the Brexit difficulties that the wily French have allowed us to create for ourselves by being racist jingoistic economic illiterates, cunning, cunning bastards, there is a non-trivial chance that we join the United States. But not as a single entity because we're not speaking to each. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to join the United States as the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th States. That'll show the French. And how!
So, what would that do the United States Districting and Electoral College? Well, I might have mentioned that California is big. England is fucking huge, on a stick! California has a population of 41 million. England has 55 million. It's a third larger. Scotland at 5.4 million would be the 24th largest state, in between South Carolina and Minnisota, Wales 37th, next to Kansas and Mississippi (but less racist, look you, and more stereotypicallky musical) and Northern Ireland is 42nd out of 54 beating out Idaho and Hawaii.
I'm going to chuck in DC Statehood because someone with beer I like should gain out of Brexit and it might as well be DC. No Fermentation without Representation. To the barricades comrades!
Assuming that the number of Representatives is not increased from 435, the Electoral College would increase by 2 Senators for each Home Nation and the State of DC, to 545.
Running the allocation model again, England gets 59 Reps, Scotland 6, Wales 3 and Northern Ireland 2, plus 2 Senators each. Between them the have 78 Electoral College votes, or 14% of the total.
To get to 273, the new winning post, if you won the Home Nations you can now win the Presidency without troubling North Carolina and there is no need to March Through Georgia either.
If the Home Nations join the US then nearly every state would lose 1 Representative. California loses 9, Texas 5, New York 6.
What would this to US politics? Well, the UK is quite a bit to the left of the US and I think, at least initially, it would be hard for the two main US parties to get past the historical tribal affiliations and Devurger's Law support for the current UK parties. I expect UKIP will simultaniously implode, explode and be arrested for contempt of court, but other than that, business as usual in the UK.
Based on recent election results the Home Nations would return to the US Congress;
from England 22 Tory, 24 Labour, 7 Lib Dem and 6 Green representative
from Scotland 1 Tory, 1 Labour, 2 SNP and 1 Green
from Wales 1 Tory, 1 Labour, 1 Plaid
From NI, 1 Sinn Fein, 1 DUP
Senators
from England 1 Tory, 1 Labour,
from Scotland 1 Labour, 1 SNP
from Wales 1 Tory, 1 Labour,
From NI, 1 Sinn Fein, 1 DUP
That's giving 26 Labour Represenatives, 7 Lib Dems and 7 Greens and 3 social democratic civic nationalists in the US House. In the Senate, 3 Labour and 1 SNP senators. That's your single-payer health care right there.
That all seems more fun that the much smaller revisions arising from the 2020 US Census and certainly more fun that Brexit.
And the big thing that political professionals are looking at is...
.... House of Representative Re-apportionment following the 2020 US Census.
Yeah, baby, Census!
This isn't the process where each state works out how they are going to set the boundaries of the Federal Districts inside their state. That's redistricting. However, that comes after the Census determines how many seats of the 435 available each state gets. That's important because, firstly, that's the number of Representatives each state sends to Congress and, secondly, the Electoral College for the Presidency is based on the number of Representatives plus two Senators. Oh, and 3 Electoral College votes for Washington, DC, which isn't a state and doesnt get any Representatives or Senators despite being the capital of the world's second largest democracy. The more Representatives your state has the more Electoral College votes you are worth.
Just to put that in to context. In order to win the Presidency you need 270 Electoral College Votes. If you win the eleven most populous states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvaian, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina, and you only need to win those states by 1 vote, you win the Presidency.
The process of allocating seats to states is fairly straightforward. (Building the spreadsheet that I used took about half an hour). Each state gets 1 seat for starters. There are then 435 - 50 = 385 seats available to allocate. Each seat is allocated as follows; states are given a priority number which is their population divided by the square root of the number of seats the currently have times by the seats they will have if they get one more. For example. California has a population of 41 million. Texas 29 million and New York 20 million. At the start of the process they all have 1 seat. California's priority is 41/sqr(1*(1+1) or 29. Texas has a priority of 29/sqr(1*(1+1) = 20. New York 20/sqr(1*(1+1) = 14. California gets the first seat.
California's priority is now 41/sqr(2*(2+1) or 17. Texas priority is still 29/sqr(1*(1+1) = 20. So Texas gets the second seat. The third seat goes to Calfornia with a prioty of 17 still beating New York's 14. New York gets the the fourth seat. Then Florida, then California again (California is BIG) and then so on until Minnesota gets the 434th seat allocated (its 8th seat) and Texas the 435th seat, which is the Lone Star States 36th Seat.
Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming all get 1 seat each. Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island get 2 .California gets 53. California is BIG.
So, just to keep an eye on where things were going and how vitally important this was going to be for the 2022 US General Election I decided to make some assumptions about changes in population and run those through the same spreadsheet. I took the movements in population for each state for the last two censuses, averaged them out, and added them to the state's 2010 population. I figure that's probably as a good a starting point as I can get without spending all day looking at city by city demographics. If you think a particular state is growing more or less quickly than its recent trend, let me know and I'll make a few guesses and see if has an impact. Here's what I found based on my own growth assumptions.
Texas gets two extra seats.
No wait, there's more.
A few states lose or gain 1 seat.
Gaining one seat, Florida, Georgia,, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon,
Losing one seat, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana, West Virginia and Rhode Island, who joins the Club of One in having only one Representative.
In terms of the Electoral College, you still only need to win the 11 most populous states to win the Presidency. Fun Fact! If you lose California you need to win the 21 next most populous states. California is B.I.G.
The 22 least populous states, nearly half of the states, have the same number of Electoral College votes as California. Did I mention that California is quite sizeable.
What is interesting to me, looking at this from a left-leaning point of view is that Texas and Florida are probably more contestable by the Democrats in 2022 and beyond than they have been in the last few decades. The rest of the movements look like a wash. A clutch of the Trumpie Mid-Western states lose 1 Electoral College vote.
You might also have a gander at this.
https://www.insightsassociation.org/article/states-expected-gain-or-lose-congressional-seats-after-2020-census
So that was a lot of fun. Re-apportionment perhaps slightly favours the Democrats in 2022, maybe, a bit. But certainly not enough to that they don't have to concentrate on re-districting in 2022. Which is fortunate because they seem to have woken up to that fact and won sufficient state House, state Senates or governorships in 2018 to have more influence over redistricting and perhaps thwart the Republican gerrymander.
But wait, I hear you ask, is there any more? Why yes, yes there is.
It won't have escaped even the most casual reader that here in the UK we are having a massive constitutional crisis, inside botched election fraud, wrapped up in a political fuck-up of epic proportions. In order to sort out the Brexit difficulties that the wily French have allowed us to create for ourselves by being racist jingoistic economic illiterates, cunning, cunning bastards, there is a non-trivial chance that we join the United States. But not as a single entity because we're not speaking to each. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to join the United States as the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th States. That'll show the French. And how!
So, what would that do the United States Districting and Electoral College? Well, I might have mentioned that California is big. England is fucking huge, on a stick! California has a population of 41 million. England has 55 million. It's a third larger. Scotland at 5.4 million would be the 24th largest state, in between South Carolina and Minnisota, Wales 37th, next to Kansas and Mississippi (but less racist, look you, and more stereotypicallky musical) and Northern Ireland is 42nd out of 54 beating out Idaho and Hawaii.
I'm going to chuck in DC Statehood because someone with beer I like should gain out of Brexit and it might as well be DC. No Fermentation without Representation. To the barricades comrades!
Assuming that the number of Representatives is not increased from 435, the Electoral College would increase by 2 Senators for each Home Nation and the State of DC, to 545.
Running the allocation model again, England gets 59 Reps, Scotland 6, Wales 3 and Northern Ireland 2, plus 2 Senators each. Between them the have 78 Electoral College votes, or 14% of the total.
To get to 273, the new winning post, if you won the Home Nations you can now win the Presidency without troubling North Carolina and there is no need to March Through Georgia either.
If the Home Nations join the US then nearly every state would lose 1 Representative. California loses 9, Texas 5, New York 6.
What would this to US politics? Well, the UK is quite a bit to the left of the US and I think, at least initially, it would be hard for the two main US parties to get past the historical tribal affiliations and Devurger's Law support for the current UK parties. I expect UKIP will simultaniously implode, explode and be arrested for contempt of court, but other than that, business as usual in the UK.
Based on recent election results the Home Nations would return to the US Congress;
from England 22 Tory, 24 Labour, 7 Lib Dem and 6 Green representative
from Scotland 1 Tory, 1 Labour, 2 SNP and 1 Green
from Wales 1 Tory, 1 Labour, 1 Plaid
From NI, 1 Sinn Fein, 1 DUP
Senators
from England 1 Tory, 1 Labour,
from Scotland 1 Labour, 1 SNP
from Wales 1 Tory, 1 Labour,
From NI, 1 Sinn Fein, 1 DUP
That's giving 26 Labour Represenatives, 7 Lib Dems and 7 Greens and 3 social democratic civic nationalists in the US House. In the Senate, 3 Labour and 1 SNP senators. That's your single-payer health care right there.
That all seems more fun that the much smaller revisions arising from the 2020 US Census and certainly more fun that Brexit.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 02:21 pm (UTC)Although from a historical point of view it would be hilarious.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 07:09 pm (UTC)We'd split the Electoral College and have the deciding votes in Congress.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 07:56 pm (UTC)We'd split the Electoral College and have the deciding votes in Congress.