What The Midterms Mean For Trump’s Effort To Restore Census
The article discusses the significance of the census in political representation and how the counting of illegal aliens impacts congressional seats and electoral votes. Although illegal aliens cannot vote, their presence influences apportionment, often benefiting Democrats, who tend to control districts with higher non-citizen populations.President Trump aimed to exclude non-citizens from census counts to prevent this skewing, proposing regulations and legal measures to do so. Past efforts, including attempts to add a citizenship question and exclude illegal aliens from apportionment calculations, faced legal challenges, but the administration saw some success. The upcoming midterm elections are critical because a Republican-controlled Congress could pass laws to solidify these changes, making them harder for future administrations to overturn. the importance of voter turnout is emphasized, as it affects the potential for reforms that could alter how census data influences political power. The article also highlights the ongoing vacancy of the Census Bureau director position, which could impact the accuracy of future counts, especially if politicized. the midterms are viewed as a decisive moment in shaping census policies that could influence American governance for years to come.
Illegal aliens cannot legally vote in federal elections, but their presence in the country still helps determine how much power Democrats and Republicans have in Washington. By counting them when allocating congressional seats and electoral votes, the federal government allows illegal aliens to fundamentally shape Congress and, as a result, our laws. But President Donald Trump is locked in a fight to keep illegal aliens out of the census count, and the upcoming midterms represent an important crossroads in that fight.
The Trump administration proposed in September that the process for calculating the census must exclude noncitizens. The rule would remove illegal aliens due to their “lack of sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.”
Noncitizens — and illegal aliens — don’t get to vote in federal elections, since that’s a right of citizens only. And yet they significantly impact elections through apportionment and the electoral college. Every decade the Census Bureau will calculate how many congressional seats a state gets as well as how many electoral votes the state gets based on its population. The population has included illegal aliens — a benefit for Democrats, according to RealClearPolitics.
Had the Census Bureau excluded the estimated 18.6 million illegal aliens from the census in 2020, it would have shifted “eight House seats, mostly from blue to red and purple states.”
“Removing all 41 million non-citizens would shift a stunning 22 seats the same way,” Hayden Ludwig wrote for RealClearPolitics. “In either case, these are districts that should represent U.S. citizens; instead, they’re brimming with non-citizens, and Democratic Party politicians prefer it this way.”
In fact, “Democrats also control seven of the 10 House districts with the most non-citizens; the other three are held by Republicans, either born in Cuba or who are children of Cuban immigrants,” Ludwig continues. Notably, Democrats facilitated a mass invasion of illegal aliens under the Biden administration, which then flocked to blue states like New York, California, Massachusetts, and other hot spots.
Trump previously tried to level the playing field back in 2019 by adding a citizenship question to the census questionnaire. The Supreme Court ultimately stopped his attempt but did not rule that asking immigration status would be unconstitutional. In fact, “The Enumeration Clause [Article I Section 2] does not provide a basis to set aside the Secretary’s decision,” the justices ruled.
As Ludwig explained, the Trump administration originally used the “wrong arguments” and “still came within one vote of winning that fight.” Further, Trump also issued a memo in 2020 excluding illegal aliens from the population used for apportionment, and the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the memo (which was ultimately rescinded by the Biden administration).
But this is why the midterms matter, because Trump’s latest effort will likely face legal challenges and there’s a clear role for Congress. Many Americans frustrated by high gas prices feel tempted to sit out the midterms, either to punish do-nothing Republican leadership in the Senate or to punish Trump. But efforts like this exemplify how much of the work the Trump administration is doing behind the scenes can have a significant effect on American governance. And while most of the administration’s efforts to fix census errors have been limited to administrative rule-making and court proceedings, there are ways that Congress could work for or against the effort depending on the midterm results.
A Republican Congress could also help codify any changes to census procedures into federal law, especially if Trump continues to face roadblocks in the courts. That matters because even if Trump is successful vis a vis executive action, a future administration could simply undo it. A Republican Congress could pass a law that will make it harder for a future president to undo.
As The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood reported in September, Trump has not yet nominated a permanent Census Bureau director despite the need to appoint someone who will ensure an accurate 2030 count (notably, the 2020 count overcounted blue states and undercounted red states). That position requires Senate confirmation. If the vacancy remains when the next Congress takes office, a Democrat-controlled Senate could refuse to confirm Trump’s nominee, which could hurt his ability to get a fair census count.
Republican victories in the midterms will help determine whether Trump has a Congress willing to help advance his agenda and codify it. It’s easy to sit midterms out, especially when gas prices are high. And with illegal aliens counted in the census, Democrats know they stack the deck for themselves. But that makes Republican turnout even more important to counter that rigging until Trump is able to make permanent changes in how the census is counted. But that won’t happen unless Republicans turn out and deliver him the Republican Congress he needs.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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