Tuesday, December 21, 2010

It's More or Less Official: Arizona Gains a House Seat

Posted By on Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 9:58 AM

From the Washington Post blog, The Fix:

The westward movement of the U.S. population means eight districts in states that went for Obama will shift to states that went for McCain — a small but significant shift that could help a GOP presidential candidate in 2012, provided they can hold those states for the party.

Most of the other new seats will be in swing states that went for Obama, which could also be won by Republicans in 2012.

Texas, as expected, gained the most seats, moving from 32 to 36 seats thanks to big gains in population — primarily in the Hispanic community.

Florida was the only other state to gain multiple seats, adding two and bringing it to 27 seats.

Six other states gained a single seat: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.

The biggest losers were New York and Ohio, which each lost two seats. Eight other states lost a single seat: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Five of the eight states that are gaining seats were won by McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Eight of the 10 that are losing seats went to Obama.

Republicans, whose 2010 gains make them dominant in the upcoming round of drawing new district lines, will control the redistricting process in eight of the states mentioned above, while Democrats control it in just two. That's important, because states that lose or gain seats generally see the biggest changes.

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