Posted on December 31, 2019

The Withering Away of the Blue: California Set to Lose a Congressional Seat

Monica Showalter, American Thinker, December 31, 2019

California, which has made itself a blue hell, is set to lose a congressional seat, based on people doing what they always do in socialist hellholes, fleeing. That’s the word from the bureau of the Census.

Via Breitbart, citing a Wall Street Journal report:

Based on Monday’s figures, Texas is poised to gain two congressional seats, and Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon are expected to gain one. Eight states are expected to lose one seat: California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.

. . .

The actual reapportionment calculation will take place by December 2020, with its details worked out in 2021. Each state will redraw its legislative maps, and those that have more than one congressional seat will redraw districts as well.

The shift of political power away from the Northeast and Midwest toward the Southeast and Southwest is the result of residents flocking to states with warm weather, strong job growth, cheaper housing and, in some cases, lower taxes.

Well, call it Peak California. Instead of coming to the state, people are getting the heck out and going to red states that are far more liveable. That’s what happens in all socialist regimes, in the U.S., it’s just most obvious in the lost congressional seats. And if you think it isn’t related to California being solid one-party blue, consider that dark-blue New York is set to lose a seat too, along with other solid blue states. Sure enough, it’s leftist Democrats who are going to pay the price.

More from the Journal:

Kimball Brace, president of the bipartisan political consulting firm Election Data Services, said he expects the changes will benefit the Republican Party. “The big states that are very much Democratic are in a loss situation,” he said, citing California, Illinois and New York, while traditionally Republican states like Texas and Arizona are poised to gain power.

Democrats have said in Texas and Arizona, the growth of the Latino populations and new residents from other states could eventually turn them blue. Democrats noted how population movements in recent years have moved the partisan makeup of some states in their favor, including Virginia and Colorado.

Fact is, most Californians who are in the state would like to get the heck out, actually. As I noted earlier, more than half want out, and even the illegals are fleeing. Who wants out the most? Actually, it’s Republicans and conservatives, according to this report. These voters live in a one-party state with absolutely no Republican participation. Why would anyone want to live in a place with no representation? That would explain the forecasters’ expectation that the states set to gain seats from incoming Californians would gain Republican seats. It’s often argued that incoming Californians are turning other states blue, which might be partly true, but it’s also true that the conservatives with no representation are especially adamant about electing conservatives since they had no such opportunity back in California.

It’s also telling that illegals are among the fleeing. After all those vast banquets of goodies laid out for them, making California home to a quarter of the nation’s illegals, large numbers of them would prefer opportunity and a chance to live a normal life instead.

This ought to be a wakeup call to the state’s leftists, to maybe start cutting taxes and regulations and getting home prices to liveable levels. Any chance of that happening? Not a snowball’s chance in the Sierras actually. The state’s far-left governor, Gavin Newsom, is busy blaming President Trump for the horrendous results of one-party Democrat rule. That’s his solution, make a mess, go full left-wing, and pin the problem on Trump. He’s a total failure and his solution is to blame Trump.

Sound like he’s going to switch the trend any time soon? The rest of us can take comfort in this miserable failure of a state’s declining national influence.