NY tops 20 million in population, loses congressional seat by razor-thin margin

ALBANY – For much of 2020, state and local leaders waged public campaigns encouraging New York residents to fill out the U.S. Census. It was important to make sure you're counted, they said.

On Monday, it became abundantly clear why.

New York will lose one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives beginning with the 2022 elections, dropping its congressional delegation from 27 to 26 as the country's population continues to shift south and west.

The Census Bureau on Monday released population counts for the country and each state, with the data used to divvy up the 435 seats in the House.

It was widely anticipated New York would see its congressional clout diminish: The state had lost at least two seats every Census since the 1950s.

But it turned out to be an extremely close call: Had just 89 additional New York residents been counted in the 2020 Census, the state wouldn't have lost a seat at all assuming the other states' counts didn't also change.

Instead, the seat went to Minnesota.

"What we have is that if New York had had 89 more people, it would have received one more seat," said Kristin Koslap, the Census Bureau's senior technical expert for 2020 Census apportionment.

New York's 2020 population is 20.2 million

Overall, New York's population grew to 20.2 million people in the 2020 Census, a 4.2% increase from the 2010 count, according to the Census bureau.

But that increase — outpacing the Census Bureau's estimates in recent years, which had suggested New York was in danger of losing at least one seat — lagged behind many states in the south and west, making New York one of seven states to lose a congressional seat.

It also allowed Florida to officially pass New York in population, which had been estimated by the Census Bureau as far back as 2014.

Florida's resident population count was 21.5 million in the 2020 Census, data show. 

"We do know from our population estimates that the state of New York has experienced negative net domestic migration, meaning there were more people moving out of New York than moving into New York," said Karen Battle, the Census Bureau's population division chief. 

The state's loss of only one congressional seat was an improvement over Census counts dating back to the mid-20th Century.

New York's congressional delegation totaled 45 after the 1940 and 1950 count before dropping to 43 following the 1960 Census.

From there, New York had lost two seats in each Census with the exception of 1980, when it lost five, and 1990, when it lost three. 

"The good news today is New York, for the first time since World War II, has stemmed the loss of districts from two or more to one," said Jeffrey Wice, adjunct professor and senior fellow with New York Law School's Census and Redistricting Institute. "That in itself reverses a 70-year downslide."

Total U.S. population tops 331 million

The total U.S. population was 331.4 million in the 2020 Census, which tracks where people lived as of April 1, 2020, according to the data. It marked a 7.4% increase since 2010, which marked the second-slowest rate of growth in Census history, according to the Census Bureau.

With 26 congressional members, New York's delegation will be the fourth-largest in the country. There are 435 seats in the House.

It's possible for New York to challenge the results of the Census, as New York City did following the 2010 count when there was a dispute over the number of New York City housing units.

But Wice said a legal challenge would take years to work its way through the court system. And even then, the Supreme Court has traditionally granted significant leeway to the Census Bureau in how it decides to complete the population count.

The 89-person margin that kept New York from retaining its 27th seat is also misleading, Wice said, since it assumes all other 49 states would have their Census count frozen.

"That's not going to happen," he said. "But it does show the importance of the need to count every single person, because had New York counted 89 more people and Minnesota not counted, say, 100 more people, then New York would have kept its 27th district."

Once more granular, neighborhood-by-neighborhood Census data is released in August, it will be up to New York's newly minted redistricting commission to decide where to eliminate a congressional district and redistribute its population to neighboring districts, though the state Legislature still retains the power to reject anything the commission comes up with.

If the commission opts to reshape a district where a sitting congressperson is not running for re-election, it could put Rep. Tom Reed or Rep. Lee Zeldin's districts in jeopardy.

Reed, a Republican who represents an expansive district that stretches across much of the western Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, has announced he will not run for office in 2022 after a former lobbyist accused him of unhooking her bra during a 2017 networking trip.

Zeldin, a Long Island Republican, has announced he's running for governor in 2022. Another Republican congressperson, Rep. Elise Stefanik of the North Country, has not ruled out a gubernatorial run, as well. 

More:Texas will gain 2 congressional seats. Seven states to lose 1 seat, Census Bureau data shows

Jon Campbell is the New York State Team editor for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JCAMPBELL1@Gannett.com or on Twitter at @JonCampbellGAN.

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