Immigration Will Dramatically Shift The Electoral College In Favor Of Democrats, Study Finds

A new analysis finds that immigration will dramatically reshape the Electoral College map in favor of the Democratic Party after the completion of the 2020 U.S. Census.

Rising immigrant populations around the United States will result in several solidly Democratic states gaining more seats in the House of Representatives at the expense of solidly Republican states, a new study by the Center of Immigration Studies (CIS) finds. The shift will ultimately give the Democratic Party more influence in the Electoral College map, according to CIS.

As the 2020 Census approaches, CIS conducted a study to predict what the Electoral College map will look like after the counting is done. Under current policy, all individuals are included in the population count, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Democratic states are expected to be bolstered with more congressional representation — thus giving them more influence in the Electoral College — thanks to their burgeoning immigrant populations.

All immigrant populations — including naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal aliens — and their American-born children will redistribute 26 House seats in 2020, the study predicts.

Of the 26 seats predicted to shift, 24 are expected to be taken away from states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Ohio is expected to lose three seats; Pennsylvania and Michigan will lose two; and Arkansas, Alabama, Idaho, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and West Virginia will each lose one seat, according to CIS.

California, already a behemoth of the Electoral College, is predicted to gain 11 seats after the 2020 Census is completed. New York will gain four more seats. New Jersey will come out with two more seats, and Massachusetts and Illinois will each gain one more seat, CIS predicts.

The only traditionally red state to see gains is Texas, which is expected to notch four more House seats. Florida, which is considered a swing state but trends toward the GOP, will earn three more seats, under the CIS analysis. Rhode Island and Minnesota are expected to lose one congressional district each.

“While it’s clear that American citizens in low-immigration states lose from mass immigration, the winners are not necessarily the non-citizens who cause the reapportionment, since they cannot vote or otherwise fully take part in the political process. Instead, it is citizens who live in the same districts with non-citizens whose political power is enhanced,” the authors of the CIS study concluded.

“Put simply, in a district in which a large share of the population cannot vote, those who do vote count more than citizens in districts where almost everyone is an American citizen. Put a different way, large non-citizen populations take voting power from some Americans and give it to other American citizens in high-immigration districts,” the authors went on.