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Based on the 2010 census, North Carolina’s total number of congressional districts remained the same during the reapportionment process—13 House seats. But not every district drawn 10 years earlier that was based on the 2000 Census data grew at the same rate over the decade. There was significant variation in population growth across the state: major metropolitan areas grew rapidly, while other areas experienced slow growth or population declines. North Carolina’s post-2010 redistricting process required…
Every decade, following the release of decennial census data and the reapportionment process, state legislatures and committees redraw district boundaries to account for population changes. This process is called redistricting. As of 2010, there were 43 states with at least two congressional districts, meaning that they must undergo a redistricting process. Two federal guidelines govern redistricting. Both of them are based on demographic data: equal population in each district and the protection of racial/ethnic voting…
States typically benefit from having as much representation in Congress as possible. Each state is guaranteed two Senators, but the number of representatives each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives is based on population size. Representatives are reapportioned to the states every ten years, following the release of population counts from the decennial census. As the number of seats in the House of Representatives is fixed at 435, any change in the number…
December 21, 2017: This post provides an updated look at potential 2020 reapportionment shifts based on the July 1, 2017 population estimates. Every decade, following the decennial Census, the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are allocated to the 50 states on the basis of their population. After the 2000 Census, 12 House seats shifted between 18 states. Ten states lost at least one representative while eight states gained at least one representative.…
The major function of the decennial census is apportionment, the allocation of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to states based on their population size. Every 10 years, following reapportionment, states undergo a redistricting process, redrawing congressional (and other) district boundaries to reflect population changes within their state. Individual redistricting guidelines vary from state to state, but basic federal requirements for congressional redistricting mandate equal population size among the redrawn congressional districts…
The Census Bureau is already planning for the decennial Census on April 1, 2020. This will be the largest enumeration in American history, as the U.S. population has continued to grow steadily since 2010. 2020 is also on the horizon for the major political parties. The outcome of state and local elections on November 3, 2020, will determine who is in office during the post-enumeration process known as reapportionment and redistricting. One time each decade, seats…
According to the 2014 American Community Survey, there were nearly 6.7 million adults ages 25 and older living in North Carolina. More than 1.9 million, or 29%, of these adults had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher. Across North Carolina’s 14 largest metropolitan regions, adult educational attainment varied significantly. Fewer than 20% of adults had completed a bachelor’s degree in three metropolitan regions: Rocky Mount (15%), Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton (18%), and Jacksonville (19%). At the other end…
“America’s shrinking cities are widely viewed to be suffering from a “brain drain”—the flight of highly educated residents to other, more hospitable locales—that is crippling these cities’ economic competitiveness. While such cities have many problems, brain drain as popularly conceived is not one of them. Indeed, the conventional wisdom on brain drain and declining human capital in shrinking U.S. metropolitan areas is largely a myth: brain gain, not drain, is the reality…. …even major U.S.…
Not all North Carolinians who are eligible to vote (citizens 18+) are registered to vote, and only two-thirds of those who were registered to vote participated in the 2014 election. Overall, less than half of North Carolina’s eligible voters cast a ballot in November 2014 according to the Current Population Survey voter supplement. Why didn’t individuals vote? Just over one in four registered voters (26%) reported that they did not vote because they were too…
According to the 2014 Current Population Survey, nearly 70% of North Carolina citizens 18 and older were registered to vote in the November 2014 election. Only about two-thirds of registered voters reported actually voting on Election Day, however, meaning less than half (46.2%) of eligible voters voted in 2014. Among North Carolina adults, there are significant racial and ethnic differences in eligibility to vote, registration rates, and voter turnout. As a consequence, the composition of…
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