Florida TaxWatch reports Sunshine State could add 1 or 2 House seats under potential reapportionment

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A Florida TaxWatch analysis suggests Florida missed out on a U.S. House seat after the last census — and maybe two. But any effort to correct that could impact 13 other states, depending how the federal government treats noncitizens in a new count.

The Tallahassee-based fiscal watchdog released its latest report, “Census Briefing: Apportionment changes amid policy proposals,” which evaluates three different methods by which the federal government could revisit its 2020 census data.

The report focuses on different outlooks one can take in revisiting the population count in the country conducted five years ago, not one that a snap census might produce. Whether trying to correct an undercount in the state or by changing standards to only count legal residents or legal citizens, the result for Florida would be the same: an increase in political influence from the 2021 reapportionment of congressional votes.

“During the 2020 census, an estimated 750,000 Floridians failed to respond to their census survey, resulting in a statistically significant undercount of 3.48%. This undercount cost the State of Florida at least one additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and at least one additional vote in the Electoral College, and billions of dollars’ worth of grant funding throughout the decade,” said Florida TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro.

The report came out as Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida legislative leaders move toward a mid-decade redistrict similar to other states, a process that would be significantly impacted if Florida has more than the 28 U.S. House districts assembled in its current map. But sources closely following the redistricting process wonder whether the process would result in the gains desired by Florida Republicans.

Shorted by any measure

Florida TaxWatch has already explored one scenario. A July report showed that inaccuracies in the 2020 census — most because of an undercounting of people in the state — resulted in Florida, Texas and Tennessee all being shorted one congressional seat, while Colorado, Minnesota and Rhode Island all erroneously obtained a seat.

Of note, the three wronged states, according to that analysis, were ones President Donald Trump carried in the 2024 Presidential Election. All three states that gained from the undercount went for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

But TaxWatch in its latest analysis considered two other scenarios. The first considered what would happen if federal officials reapportioned seats after removing all individuals counted by the census who are in the country illegally. Another went a step farther and excluded any noncitizens from state counts.

For the former, TaxWatch subtracted the counts of undocumented immigrants from each state and evaluated how House seats would be apportioned based on those totals. Under this model, Florida would actually gain two House seats, while Louisiana, Ohio, Texas and Virginia each gained one. California and New York would lose two seats, while Minnesota and Rhode Island would each lose one.

“These results may seem surprising, considering Florida has the fourth highest estimate of illegal immigrants based on 2019 estimates (772,000),” the report reads. “If illegal immigrants were excluded from the census count, however, the effects of illegal immigrants in other states limit the effects of Florida’s own illegal immigrant population on apportionment.”

Meg Cannan, Director of the Florida TaxWatch Census Institute, was the report’s lead author.

Of note, the only state Harris won in 2024 that gains influence in this scenario would be Virginia. Notably, Virginia currently has a Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, and will hold an election in November to elect his successor. Every state losing seats under this measure was carried by Harris and has a Democratic Governor.

This method of recalculating political pull seems especially important as it most closely adheres to President Donald Trump’s own desires. The President, who has expressed a desire for a new census to be conducted ahead of the Midterm Elections, has said an accurate tabulation should not count anyone in the nation illegally.

Finally, TaxWatch studied a scenario similar to that proposed by U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, an Atlantic Coast Republican, with his Correct the Count Act (HR 4884). Fine’s legislation calls for a new census in 2025, one that includes only legal citizens and excludes any noncitizen living in the country legally or illegally. While TaxWatch doesn’t speculate what a new census may produce, researchers apply the same exclusions to state counts based on 2020 census data.

Doing that would result in seven states gaining one seat in a reapportionment process: Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Again, Virginia would be the only state Harris carried in 2024, though Pennsylvania went for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, and most analysts consider it a swing state.

Those seats would be obtained at the expense of four Democrat-controlled states, with three coming from California, two from New York and one each from Minnesota and Rhode Island.

Now what?

The bottom line for TaxWatch is that Florida missed out in the last national population count, no matter what anyone feels about inclusion of immigrants. That shows Florida should begin efforts now to ensure an accurate count using any standards once the 2030 census rolls around, and if a Trump-desired census occurs before then.

“Florida’s census undercount not only cost the state at least one congressional seat but also resulted in a loss of federal funding that will range from $11 billion to $21 billion by the end of the decade.”

“Planning for the next census count is currently shrouded by questions of whom to count and when to count. The three scenarios outlined by Florida TaxWatch reveal the answer to perhaps the most critical question for Florida taxpayers — what is at stake for the State of Florida? To maintain a fair democratic republic, every state should count its residents in the same way,” the analysis reads.

DeSantis, for his part, pushed for months for a new census to be conducted, one that would recognize the population growth in Florida and contrition in states like California. But more recently, the Florida Governor said the federal government could at least “reevaluate” the 2020 census data and whether Florida deserves more clout.

But sources close to the redistricting process question if a new census could be completed and allow sufficient time for a legally defensible redraw of Florida’s political boundaries.

House Speaker Daniel Perez already announced he will appoint a select committee to evaluate Florida’s congressional boundaries this year. That will look at lines in the wake of a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said districts could not be drawn with race as a motivating factor even to comply with language in a “Fair Districts” amendment to the state constitution. The Florida Senate has remained quiet to date on its own plans.

But the decision whether Florida could be awarded additional congressional seats, and not simply redraw lines for the 28 districts in the state now, must be done at the federal level, and would necessarily impact other states.

Of note, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week signed a new congressional map based on 2020 census data but which creates more districts where a majority of voters supported Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election. A new census, or even a reapportionment giving Texas an additional seat, would make that new map out of date and force a reboot of what has been a controversial and contentious process in the Lone Star State.

But many are skeptical whether that would occur, or even if it would achieve the goals of national Republicans in creating more GOP-friendly U.S. House seats ahead of the 2026 elections. One Democratic operative in Washington noted that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has expressed a desire to draw more Democratic districts in that state.

But New York is bound by statutory restrictions similar to Florida’s Fair Districts amendment, which have made a mid-decade redistricting legally questionable than in Texas. But a new census or a new apportionment of U.S. House seats would eliminate any barriers and allow New York to draw a more Democratic map.

One Republican source in Florida who closely followed the redistricting process in 2022, when DeSantis pressured the Legislature to pass a more GOP-friendly map than lawmakers drafted, suggested there isn’t the same room for gains for the GOP that exist in a state like Texas. The source noted raising the number of seats where Republicans can win in a good year also boosts the number of places the GOP could lose in a difficult year.

Historically, Midterm Elections have punished the party in control of the White House. Only twice in U.S. history has a President who newly won the White House seen his party gain seats. The last time was in 2002, when Republicans gained seats in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks during former President George W. Bush’s first term.

TaxWatch, for its part, did not explore what might result from a new census being performed ahead of any reapportionment or redistricting process. Calabro in a statement suggested a new population count now would at least raise legal questions.

“Any change to the operations of the census count must withstand constitutional scrutiny, which is why Florida TaxWatch examined three scenarios under the current proposed changes — concluding that Florida would have gained at least one additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in every scenario,” he said.

If a reapportionment occurred based on existing census data, it still would likely prompt legal challenges from states losing seats. But the TaxWatch analysis suggests that even if a mid-decade reapportionment took place, Florida almost inevitably would gain political power as a result.