Q&A – How Many Electoral College Votes & Congressional Seats Could Be Determined by Illegal Aliens?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Hey, Brian. We're often told to believe that, illegal immigrants aren't voting and, don't affect elections. But I do want to point out that, The House seats and electoral college votes in each state are determined by the census, and the census doesn't count whether you're a citizen or not. And so in effect it does have an impact on elections, and they do vote in that way.
Bottom Line: You’re exactly right, and non-citizens will meaningfully factor into the 2030 census if mass deportations don’t continue to take place. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies near the conclusion of the Biden administration entitled Titling the Balance illustrated the impact which non-citizens have already factored into our census counts and the even more extreme outcomes we were/are pacing by the next census.
When talking about the implications of illegal aliens pertaining to census impacts, it’s important to note as the listener who presented today’s Q&A did, that it’s the census count which determines the number of electoral college votes each state has in presidential elections, in addition to how many congressional seats each state has. Under the Enumeration Clause of the Constitution, all “free Persons” are to be counted towards a jurisdiction’s population count for the purpose of census tabulations. This was challenged unsuccessfully by the Trump administration during the 2020 census process. Thus, it’s widely believed that much of the strategy of “sanctuary states and cities”, is to replace legal citizens fleeing their polices with those lacking legal status to retain influence.
In 2020 here’s the estimated impact of illegal aliens in census counts:
- Illegal immigrants captured in the 2020 census redistributed two seats. Adding in their U.S.-born minor children increases the redistribution to three seats
- California retained two electoral college votes and two additional congressional seats due to illegal aliens
- Texas gained one electoral college vote and one additional congressional seat due to illegal aliens
- Idaho, Ohio & Michigan lost one electoral college vote and one additional congressional seat due to illegal aliens
Here’s what the 2030 outlook is:
- California retains three electoral college votes and three additional congressional seats due to illegal aliens
- Texas gains two additional electoral college votes and two additional congressional seats due to illegal aliens
- Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts & New Jersey gain one electoral college vote and one additional congressional seat due to illegal aliens
- Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington & Wisconsin stand to lose out on one electoral college vote and one additional congressional seat due to illegal aliens
In the context of partisan breakouts of blue states, or states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, seven electoral college votes and congressional seats stand to be gained compared to only two that are gained by a red state. In terms of where those votes are reallocated from, the partisan split is three from blue states compared to six from red states.
This produces a net impact of swinging 4 electoral college votes, and four congressional seats, from states that President Trump won in 2024, to states that Kamala won swinging from red states to blue states. To put the potential impact into perspective, it’s effectively taking a red state like Idaho, Montana or West Virginia (which all have 4 electoral college votes) and turning them blue. It’s also a bit of an oversimplification due to a myriad of potential outcomes due to the redistricting process, but if for example there were four more “blue” congressional seats which were created out of this process as well – that for example, if in place right now would flip the House of Representatives from a GOP majority to a Democrat majority.
There are many reasons why securing our borders and enforcing immigration policies are fundamentally important, however none is greater than illegal immigrants literally holding the influence to swing presidential elections and congressional control – even without ever casting a vote. This is why it’s centrally important that the Trump administration regains momentum in ICE detentions and deportations (in addition to the self-deportations – that also occur due to strong enforcement policies).