Arizona won’t get 10th seat in US House

State’s census count short by 80K residents

Arizona’s population gains over the past decade fell short of what was needed to gain a 10th seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, an unwanted surprise that snaps decades of growing influence on Capitol Hill.

Many political observers and demographers had expected the state to gain a seat, but it fell into the largest group of states that were unaffected by the 2020 population count announced by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The national population grew 7.4% overall, the slowest total since the Great Depression held down growth in the 1940 tally. The national population as of April 1, 2020, was 331,449,281.

Arizona’s population came in at 7,158,923. That was 12% more than its 2010 population count. Using the complex, population-based formula for allocating the 435 House seats, Arizona’s next seat, the would-be 10th, came in at 440. The state fell short of another seat by nearly 80,000 residents.

California, the nation’s most populous state, lost a seat for the first time in its history. As expected, New York also lost a seat, but by an excruciatingly close 89 people. Minnesota, a state with historically high census participation, kept its existing eight-member House delegation by a scant 26 people.

Heading into the final months of the population count, Arizona had one of the lower response rates in the country, making it more challenging for the Census Bureau to settle on a final number for it.

The last time Arizona had failed to gain a seat in Congress was after the 1950 census.

Surprised, frustrated and disappointed about falling short

The result was clearly disappointing for Arizona.

Gov. Doug Ducey declined to comment and instead pointed to a series of tweets from the state’s Census outreach account.

They said “we’re disappointed” and noted the state was still among the fastest-growing in the country. The account cited the “grassroots outreach campaign” that helped raise the initial response rates and the challenge of any count during a pandemic, a problem facing every state.

A spokeswoman for Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., said only, “David’s reply is — surprised.”

The state’s other three House Republicans didn’t offer public comments on it or respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., blamed former President Donald Trump for stoking concerns that undocumented immigrants would go uncounted for apportionment for the first time, and Ducey, who supported a citizenship question on the census, for not pushing back on it.

“We’re going to be paying federal tax dollars for the next 10 years to Washington, D.C., and we’re not going to be receiving back what we deserve as a state,” he said in an interview. “We’re basically going to be a donor state because we wanted to play games. When you play stupid games in politics, you get stupid prizes, and this is one of them.”

Gallego noted that he had long feared an undercount for Latinos and for Native Americans, which is why he cosponsored a bill to extend the deadline for counting people last year.

That measure, led by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and cosponsored mainly by California Democrats and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., never made it out of committee.

Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., similarly noted what he viewed as failed leadership.

“Gov. Ducey refused to stand up for Arizona and instead followed former President Trump’s strategy to intimidate Latinos and discourage their participation in the Census,” he said in a statement. “When real-time data showed Arizona’s response rate was near the very bottom, state leaders looked the other way.

“These poor efforts will do much more harm than cost Arizona a congressional seat and more influence on Capitol Hill. This failure will cost the state billions of dollars in federal funds for schools, children’s health care, emergency management, veterans, infrastructure and much more over the next decade.”

California spent more than $180 million in a failed effort to boost its response rate to stave off the loss of a seat. Arizona largely left it to its localities to boost its rates.

Population shifts to South, West

The longstanding national migration to the south and west continued, though with some surprises. Utah grew the fastest, 18.4%, and West Virginia was the worst of three states that actually lost population, at 3.2%.

The once-in-a-decade reapportionment helps reset the nation’s political balance of power closer to the states that are large and growing, and helps funnel hundreds of billions of federal dollars across the country.

Once again, the biggest winner was Texas, but it only gained two seats. All the other states that gained only added one each, including Florida, which had been expected to gain two.

States in the east and in the Rust Belt lost seats as their population growth couldn’t keep pace with that in the nation’s Sun Belt.

Overall, Texas gains two seats and gaining one each are: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.

Losing one seat each are: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The nation’s final census numbers were about 1.1% higher than the last estimate, which was dated July 1, 2019, or nine months earlier.

Arizona’s census population turned out 1.6% lower than the agency estimated in 2019. As it worked out, Arizona was the state where the Census Bureau had most overestimated the population compared to the 2019 figures.

On the other end, New York and New Jersey were the states that had the

greatest underestimation.

Existing congressional districts will be adjusted

Even though the number of House seats won’t change, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission will still redraw the state’s congressional boundaries from scratch. It means all nine of the existing congressional districts are likely to see at least some changes.

Complications due to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as battles over how to count undocumented immigrants and other issues, delayed for months the long-awaited results from the U.S. Census Bureau. The data released on Monday only includes topline population figures for the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Later this summer, the agency is expected to release block-level information that will allow the redistricting commission to redraw the congressional districts, as well as the state’s 30 legislative districts.

Each of Arizona’s nine congressional districts will now have about 795,000 people in it.

The new House allocation will be used for the 2022 midterm elections and, based on the current composition of the delegations, suggests Republicans will close their gap in the chamber just by changes in redistricting.

Republicans already have a 15-seat advantage in the states set to gain seven more seats. The seven states losing seats currently tilt Democratic by 39 seats.

Beyond the redistricting and the midterm elections, the shift in seats also suggests a steeper path to reelection for President Joe Biden in 2024, though it is less daunting than many had expected. The same states that gave him 306 electoral votes in 2020 would now give him 303.

Arizona still growing fast, with Phoenix area the main destination

While the final result was a surprise, if not a disappointment, the new numbers confirm that Arizona once again was among the nation’s fastest-growing states. The state added 767,000 new residents over the past decade.

The Census Bureau did not report where the population changes occurred within each state. That information, along with other key data points such as race, ethnicity and age, will be rolled out over the coming months.

For now, the agency’s city estimates suggest the urbanized Valley is where the bulk of the extra population has settled.

Of the 16 cities and towns that have gained at least 10,000 from the 2010 census through July 2019, 12 are in the Phoenix area and they have added an estimated 594,000 residents. Phoenix alone accounts for 235,000.

After that, Queen Creek, with 25,000 new residents, nearly matched Tucson, which gained 28,000.

A decade ago, Arizona’s estimates were the most off the mark, in part because the housing crash and Great Recession brought the usual influx of new residents skidding to a halt.

At the same time, the state’s immigration-enforcement laws, from a 2008 crackdown on employment verification to Senate Bill 1070 — passing the Legislature days before the count — also helped drive off many in the immigrant community.

Challenges mark the 2020 Census

This time, the entire country faced significant hurdles counting the population.

For one, the pandemic sent the country into quarantine just as the census was starting, and made it harder for the Census Bureau to send people door to door to account for those who had not already submitted their information.

Beyond that, the census itself faced a series of challenges. Congress provided less funding for the constitutionally mandated census than the Census Bureau needed for its usual preparation.

Trump also triggered a legal battle over his efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the final tally. The census has always counted every person, not just citizens.

The Supreme Court left open the possibility that could happen, but the Census Bureau reported days later it could not meet the Dec. 31 deadline and would not be able to provide the data needed to proceed with Trump’s proposed plan for assigning members in the House.

That plan, depending on what number of undocumented immigrants the Census Bureau might have settled on for each state, alone could have cost Arizona the extra seat it hoped to win.

Biden scrapped the idea with one of his first executive orders after taking office in January.