POPULATION TREND AFFECTING POLITICS

In 22 years, half the country will live in only eight states.

The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service of the University of Virginia analyzed Census Bureau population projections to estimate each state’s likely population in 2040, including the expected breakdown of the population by age and gender. Although that data was released in 2016, before the bureau revised its estimates for the coming decades, the information shows the population will be heavily centered in a few states.

Eight states (Florida, Georgia, California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas) will have slightly less than half the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate.

The next eight most populous states (Colorado, Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey Virginia and Washington) will account for an additional one-fifth of the population — meaning that the 16 most populous states will be home to about 70 percent of Americans.

Geographically, most of those 16 states will be on or near the East Coast. Only three — Arizona, Texas and Colorado — will be west of the Mississippi River and not on the West Lineups and broadcast times may change.

“State of the Union”

7 a.m. Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA.; Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-calif.

“This Week” “Fox News Sunday”

D-del. National security adviser John Bolton; Sen. Chris Murphy, Dconn. Jon Huntsman, U.S. ambassador to Russia; Sen. Chris Coons,

“Meet the Press”

Huntsman; Warner; Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-alaska.

“Face the Nation”

9:30 a.m. Reps. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Joe Crowley, D-N.Y.; Sen. John Cornyn, R-texas. Coast.

Washington Post opinion writer Paul Waldman points out that this concentration means the other 30 percent of the population — occurring in 34 states — of the country will control 68 percent of the seats in the U.S. Senate. Or, more starkly, half the population of the country will control 84 percent of those seats.

The demographics of the 34 less-populous states also will differ from the larger states, and, therefore, so will their politics.

The 34 smaller states will be more rural than the 16 largest; a key part of the reason those states will be so much more populous is the centralization of Americans in cities. It’s true, too, that this movement to cities has reinforced partisan divisions.

The Weldon Cooper data, though, is less stark on the age differential. Eleven of the 16 most-populous states will have over65 populations that are below the median density nationally. Twenty-two of the 34 less-populous states will have over-65 populations that are over the median density.

In the current political context, older voters would be more Republican voters. By 2040, though, those 65-year-olds will be Generation X, a generation that currently skews more Democratic than the two generations that preceded it, according to a March study from the Pew Research Center. By 2046, even some millennials — a group that is much more Democratic-leaning — will be at retirement age. White male millennials are the only demographic group within that generational bracket to lean more heavily to Republicans.

So the partisan ramifications of the uneven distribution of the country’s population aren’t clear. But the possible anti-democratic effects of the lopsided Senate are. The 34 less-populous states make up more than two-thirds of the land area of the United States. They will control enough of the Senate to overcome any filibuster.

The House and the Senate will be weighted to two largely different Americas.