While Democrats Eye Urban Gains, Republicans Will Rely on Drawing Favorable Districts

U.S.|While Democrats eye urban gains, Republicans will rely on drawing favorable districts.

• Aug. 12, 2021Updated 6:49 p.m. ET

New data from the Census Bureau depicted a more diverse and metropolitan nation than many analysts anticipated, adding to longstanding Democratic hopes — and Republican fears — that sweeping demographic shifts might ultimately culminate in a new progressive majority.

But while the data seemed to buoy Democratic hopes, it also signaled the beginning of an intense phase of congressional redistricting that is expected to help Republicans.

The non-Hispanic white share of the population fell to 57.8 percent, nearly two points lower than expected, as the number of non-Hispanic white people in the United States dropped for the first time. Vast areas of predominantly white, rural America saw their populations decline.

By nearly every measure, the new data released on Thursday seemed to augur well for Democrats, who had feared that Latino and urban voters would be badly undercounted amid the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s effort to ask about citizenship status.

While it’s still possible that the census undercounted Hispanics, the topline results did not leave any obvious evidence that the count had gone awry. The Hispanic share of the population was in line with projections. New York City, once an epicenter of the pandemic, beat pre-census projections by a significant amount.

The possibility that the declining non-Hispanic, white share of the population might help progressives secure a permanent electoral advantage has loomed over American politics for more than a decade, helping to aggravate conservative fears of immigration and even to motivate a wave of new laws intended to restrict access to voting.

Yet the country’s growing racial diversity has not drastically upended the balance of power in Washington. Despite the seemingly favorable demographic portrait depicted by the 2020 census, the 2020 election nonetheless returned yet another closely divided result: a 50-50 Senate, one of the closest presidential elections in history and a House majority so slender that it might be undone by the data Democrats are celebrating today.

Democratic-leaning voting groups may represent a growing share of the population, but the nation’s political center of gravity continues to shift to the traditionally Republican Sun Belt, where Republicans control the redistricting process in states that gained congressional districts in reapportionment this spring.

The data released today, which contains detailed population counts and demographic data for every neighborhood in the country, will usher in an intense period of new electoral mapmaking, with the potential to determine control of Congress and state legislatures across the country in next year’s midterm election.