CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania, Michigan and West Virginia are among the states in line to lose congressional seats after the 2020 census, an analysis of the new state-by-state population estimates shows.

If current population trends continue, Ohio will fall about 73,000 residents short of the number needed to keep its 16 congressional seats.

This would mark the sixth consecutive decade in which Ohio would have a dwindling influence in Congress. Ohio had 24 congressional seats in the 1960s, dropping after each census since then - to 23 in the 1970s, then to 21, 19, 18 and finally 16 after the 2010 census.

To predict how Congress will likely change, cleveland.com used the 2019 population estimates released on Monday, earlier data on overseas population assigned to each state and an online apportionment calculator made available by the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.

Should the 2018 to 2019 population trends continue through the census being taken in April, nine states would lose congressional seats beginning with the 2022 election, and seven states would gain seats.

In general, the Northeast and Midwest will lose to the South and West, as shown by these projections:

* Losing two seats: New York (to 25).

* Losing one seat: California (to 52), Illinois (17), Ohio (15), Michigan (13), Pennsylvania (17), Minnesota (7), West Virginia (2), Rhode Island (1).

* Gaining one seat: North Carolina (to 14), Arizona (10), Colorado (8), Oregon (6) and Montana (2).

* Gaining two seats: Florida (to 29).

* Gaining three seats: Texas (to 39).

The number of Ohio congressional seats has dropped from 24 to a projected 15. (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

The landscape is quickly changing. In 2018, Ohio still had enough residents to keep 16 seats. If the 2019 estimates were used, Ohio would be just 9,500 residents short of keeping the required number for 16 seats.

The gap is projected to widen considerably by the time this year’s count is done in April, but Ohio is still on target to be one of the closest calls.

The analysis projects New York to be just 11,581 residents short of losing one seat instead of two. The next closest just below the cutoffs are Rhode Island (14,740), Minnesota (19,503), Ohio (73,459) and California (360,616).

On the other side, Alabama just made the cutoff to keep its seven seats by a projected 2,944 residents, and Montana would increase from one seat to two by 4,680 residents.

To determine how the 435 congressional seats are apportioned, U.S. Armed Forces personnel and federal civilian employees stationed outside the country, and their family members living with them, are also added to the resident populations of their home states.

The foreign-resident numbers assigned for 2010 were used in these estimates. The numbers are small but could matter in close calls. In 2010, Ohio’s population number for apportionment purposes of 11,568,495 included 31,991 assigned from overseas. The overseas counts ranged from 2,690 for Rhode Island to 122,857 for Texas.

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. Find other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral or use this link for other census coverage.

State 2010 2020

projection House

seats

projected Change

from

current Alabama 4,802,982 4,939,351 7 0 Alaska 721,523 739,243 1 0 Arizona 6,412,700 7,420,093 10 1 Arkansas 2,926,229 3,036,186 4 0 California 37,341,989 39,650,891 52 -1 Colorado 5,044,930 5,841,919 8 1 Connecticut 3,581,628 3,566,585 5 0 Delaware 900,877 984,992 1 0 Florida 18,900,773 21,810,620 29 2 Georgia 9,727,566 10,763,628 14 0 Hawaii 1,366,862 1,417,712 2 0 Idaho 1,573,499 1,829,511 2 0 Illinois 12,864,380 12,654,319 17 -1 Indiana 6,501,582 6,786,721 9 0 Iowa 3,053,787 3,168,954 4 0 Kansas 2,863,813 2,925,964 4 0 Kentucky 4,350,606 4,485,432 6 0 Louisiana 4,553,962 4,658,488 6 0 Maine 1,333,074 1,354,080 2 0 Maryland 5,789,929 6,071,935 8 0 Massachusetts 6,559,644 6,914,386 9 0 Michigan 9,911,626 10,017,628 13 -1 Minnesota 5,314,879 5,683,969 7 -1 Mississippi 2,978,240 2,982,221 4 0 Missouri 6,011,478 6,175,784 8 0 Montana 994,416 1,081,892 2 1 Nebraska 1,831,825 1,948,686 3 0 Nevada 2,709,432 3,141,852 4 0 New Hampshire 1,321,445 1,370,932 2 0 New Jersey 8,807,501 8,893,962 12 0 New Mexico 2,067,273 2,109,011 3 0 New York 19,421,055 19,419,724 25 -2 North Carolina 9,565,781 10,624,851 14 1 North Dakota 675,905 769,358 1 0 Ohio 11,568,495 11,733,850 15 -1 Oklahoma 3,764,882 3,987,238 5 0 Oregon 3,848,606 4,271,120 6 1 Pennsylvania 12,734,905 12,835,582 17 -1 Rhode Island 1,055,247 1,063,115 1 -1 South Carolina 4,645,975 5,233,883 7 0 South Dakota 819,761 896,201 1 0 Tennessee 6,375,431 6,916,043 9 0 Texas 25,268,418 29,485,953 39 3 Utah 2,770,765 3,265,246 4 0 Vermont 630,337 628,216 1 0 Virginia 8,037,736 8,606,464 11 0 Washington 6,753,369 7,734,746 10 0 West Virginia 1,859,815 1,786,824 2 -1 Wisconsin 5,698,230 5,848,706 8 0 Wyoming 568,300 584,591 1 0

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