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The Texas population continues to grow, and according to new Census Bureau data, Texas will be getting four new congressional seats after the 2030 census thanks to that growth. What's even more interesting is where the population growth driving those four new seats is coming from.
Much of that population growth is the result of people leaving blue states like New York and California and coming to Texas's urban centers like Houston and Dallas.
According to political consultant Bill Miller, this is going to make a huge difference in the balance of political power after 2030. He said, "It's significant by any metric, if we're picking up something, and it's somebody else's loss. This absolutely helps Texas, but it also helps Republicans."
While some might at first think that voters moving from blue states into traditionally Democratic areas of Texas will just lead to Texas getting more blue representatives in Congress, the results of the 2024 election indicated that, despite mass migration into Texas from states like California and New York over several years, Texas has become more conservative.
Miller says this isn't exactly surprising when you consider the possibility that these people are leaving blue states because of left-wing policies, not in spite of them. He said, "They've witnessed first-hand the failings of what some of the policies are in those areas."
He says that's why the chances of these new congressional seats being "solid blue, or hard blue" are small.
Miller also pointed out that what these voters are fleeing to is just as important as what they're fleeing from. While as of right now, most of these voters are headed into Texas's traditional left-wing urban centers, Miller thinks they'll move out to other parts of the state in the coming years.
He said, "You see economic development across the state, whether it's South Texas, Waco, East Texas. A lot of these people are going to be dispersed across the state." Miller believes that as these newcomers spread out and interact with Texans holding diverse political views, they will gradually become more conservative.
With the current majority in the House of Representatives so slim, even just a few of those seats being GOP-held would make a major difference, and if the GOP manages to secure all four, it would be a complete game-changer.
It's also worth noting that for every seat a state gets in the U.S. House, it also gets an Electoral College vote. This would mean Texas, and presumably the next GOP candidate to run for President, would get a four-point boost in the Electoral College.