The U.S. Census Bureau released block-level data needed for redistricting today (Thursday). The state’s total population of 29.1M was previously announced with the congressional apportionment data. Today’s release includes far more detail and at a much more granular level. At first glance, here are some figures that caught our attention:

  • The state’s voting-age population increased 19.6% to 21.87M, adding nearly 3.6M people aged 18 and up (This figure includes Texans who were under 18 at the time of the last census.). The number of voter registrations has kept pace with population growth, increasing by 3.7M since the 2010 general election.
  • Texas is the fourth most diverse state in the country with a population that is 39.7% white/Anglo, 39.3% Hispanic/Latino, 11.8% Black and 9.2% “diffuse,” of which 5.4% are represented by Asian-Americans.
  • Texas gained 11 Hispanic/Latino residents, 3 Black residents and 3 Asian-American residents for every additional white/Anglo resident since 2010.
  • The 15 fastest growing counties are Hays +53%, Comal +49%, Williamson +44%, Kaufman +41%, Fort Bend +41%, Rockwall +38%, Denton +37%, Montgomery+36%, Collin +36%, Chambers +33%, Kendall +33%, Waller +32%, Guadalupe +31%, Bastrop +31%, Ellis +29%.
  • 143 of the state’s rural counties lost population during the decade. Of those, 41 counties lost 10% of more of their population.
  • Nationwide, 14 cities gained at least 100K new residents. Five are in Texas: Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio.
  • Four of the 10 fastest-growing cities (over 50K in population in 2010) are in Texas: Conroe, Frisco, McKinney and New Braunfels.
  • As currently configured, eight of the state’s congressional districts are below the ideal population: CD13 (Jackson) -7.8%, CD34 open (Vela) -7.2%, CD29 (Garcia) -6.5%, CD33 (Veasey) -6.0%, CD1 (Gohmert) -5.8%, CD19 (Arrington) -4.6%, CD27 (Cloud) -3.6% and CD16 (Escobar) -1.3%.
  • Nine congressional districts are at least 10% over the ideal population: CD22 (Nehls) +26.8%, CD26 (Burgess) +23.0%, CD10 (McCaul) +22.3%, CD31 (Carter) +21.8%, CD3 (Taylor) +21.7%, CD8 open (Brady) +19.5%, CD12 (Granger) +12+7%, CD21 (Roy) +10.6% and CD25 (Williams) +10.4%.

We don’t have population runs for the legislative districts, but it’s likely that the same areas are below or above the ideal as then congressional seats.

The Texas Legislative Council is expected to have the data fully uploaded into the mapmaking system by September 1. This likely means that redistricting will need to be addressed in a subsequent special session, assuming a quorum can be established in the House and retained in the Senate.

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