Census count leaves
New York 89 people short
New York will lose one Congressional seat and one vote in the electoral college, as a result of population shifts counted in the 2020 United States Census, according to census data released Monday, April 26.
New York’s loss will decrease its representation to 26 from 27. It is unknown at this time how or when the state will redistrict for the 2022 elections, but in 2014 state voters passed a ballot to allow redistricting to be done by a 10-member bipartisan commission.
The loss of representation comes with a horrifying statistic: if 89 more New Yorkers had responded or been counted, the state would have kept its current representation and Minnesota would have lost a representative and EC vote instead. The margin of change was the lowest in the history of the Census, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The next smallest margin of change was in 1970 when Oregon needed 231 more people to gain a seat.
New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will all lose one seat in Congress and one EC vote. Texas will gain two seats/EVs, while Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon will pick up one each.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office said Tuesday, April 27, that it is considering legal options to see if it can prevent the loss.
“Census takers in New York faced unprecedented challenges last year in their efforts to get New Yorkers counted, from the pandemic’s effect on the mail system to the Trump Administration’s xenophobic, flagrant and illegal efforts to hurt blue states by discouraging non-citizens and people of color from being counted,” Cuomo said in a media release. “And despite a growing state population, New York State’s congressional delegation will lose a seat in the House of Representatives next year, having fallen an equally unprecedented 89 responses short of continuity
“I’m calling on the Attorney General to review all legal options available to ensure the voice of every New Yorker is fairly and wholly represented in the halls of Congress,” he continued.
More than one million people have left NY between 2010 and 2019. With covid and it’s aftermath I’m sure 2020 just accelerated that rate.
There is no incentive for anyone to move to NY these days. I’m actually surprised we only lost one seat.