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By Tom Rogers
Editor-at-Large for Newsweek
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Much has been written about the various attempts to create more Republican House districts through extreme gerrymandering. This column recently discussed a pending Supreme Court case that could strike down the Voting Rights Act’s remedy of creating majority-minority districts and result in the creation of even more Republican House seats.
However, none of these actions affect presidential elections, which are decided in the Electoral College. Electoral College votes reflect the total number of House seats a state has, as determined by the census, conducted every ten years. The next census, which will take place in 2030, will award some states more House seats and take away House seats from others, based on the gains and losses of the population of each state.
So the 2028 presidential election will not be affected by any new census count, but the 2032 presidential election will. Based on a close look at population trends, the upcoming census will not bring good news for the Democrats.
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Donald Trump is clearly underwater in the polls, with somewhere between 43 percent and 47 percent of Americans approving of his presidency, although his approval ratings during his first administration were often below that level. Moreover, many who voted for him in 2024 on key matters related to the economy disapprove of his handling of these pocketbook issues. Against this backdrop, many Democrats believe Trump is a uniquely charismatic politician and that any successor to his MAGA movement would have a much harder time attracting independent working-class voters.
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Yet, according to a recent study by Esri, a population projection firm, assessing current population trends, it appears that over the next several years red states are going to gain Electoral College votes, blue states will lose Electoral College votes, and it will take a higher number of swing-state victories for the Democrats to win the presidency.
Of the 50 states, only seven currently reside in the swing state column—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are often viewed as the most key, followed by Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona. In 2024, Donald Trump won all of those states. Therefore, any population shifts that require Democrats to win more of these states obviously increase their challenge.
In the 2024 race, if Kamala Harris had been able to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, she would have won the presidency with an Electoral College victory of 270 to 268. However, the Esri study suggests that in 2032 even if the Democrats were to win those three swing states the Republicans would end up with a 16-vote Electoral College margin of 277 to 261. That is a major change in Electoral College math.
Ongoing population shifts suggest Texas will be picking up three Electoral College votes, Florida two, Utah one, and Idaho one. Conversely, California would lose three Electoral College votes; Illinois would lose two, and New York and Rhode Island would each lose one. Even if a new census were held today, population changes since 2020 would mean red states gain five electoral votes and blue states would lose five. Moreover, Pennsylvania and Democratic-leaning Minnesota would each lose one, while swing states Arizona and Georgia would each gain one.
In other words, in addition to needing to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Democrats would also have to win at least one of the key Sun Belt states of Georgia, North Carolina, or Arizona.
What does this mean for the Democratic Party, which is itself deeply underwater in the polls and even less popular than President Trump? It clearly means it is more important than ever for the party to rebuild itself with an eye towards centrism—appealing to independent swing-state voters who have clearly showed a willingness to embrace Trumpism and will be unlikely to be won back by left-wing candidates.
It is simply undeniable that if the Electoral College math is going to get significantly more difficult for the Democrats, the party has to be attractive to independent voters in the key swing states—they cannot allow the left wing of the party to drive their national identity. This is a key reason that the looming election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York would create a major albatross around the neck of the party as it attempts to build a more centrist identity.
It is very unclear whether the Democrats truly grasp this challenge, but with the population math only making future elections harder, they had better disabuse themselves of the notion that when Trump is gone the political winds will naturally shift back to them.
Tom Rogers is executive chairman of Claigrid, Inc. (the cloud AI grid company), an editor-at-large for Newsweek, the founder of CNBC and a CNBC contributor. He also established MSNBC, is the former CEO of TiVo, a member of Keep Our Republic (an organization dedicated to preserving the nation's democracy). He is also a member of the American Bar Association Task Force on Democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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