Texas is poised to gain two congressional seats in 2022 according to U.S. Census figures, with Arizona, Florida, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon projected to gain one, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Montana has had just one seat in the U.S. House since 1992. Figures released by the Census Bureau show Montana's 2019 population has grown to 1.069 million, or an 8% increase, since 2010.
Eight states might lose a seat, per the Journal: California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Congressional seats are reapportioned in the House of Representatives every 10 years.
Kimball Brace, president of the bipartisan political consulting firm Election Data Services, told the Journal he expects the Republican Party to benefit from the changes.
"The big states that are very much Democratic are in a loss situation," he said.
California and Illinois have voted for Democratic presidential candidates since 1992 and New York has been a blue state since 1988 when it picked Michael Dukakis as president – Dukakis lost the election by a decisive margin to George H.W. Bush.