2020 Census gives 2 Idaho neighbors more congressional seats. What about the Gem State?

Nicole Foy
·4 min read

Idaho ranked No. 2 on the list of fastest-growing states in the country over the past decade, but that rapid growth still wasn’t enough to gain another seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Instead, population growth in two neighboring states — Oregon and Montana — led to each gaining a congressional district, according to 2020 Census Bureau data released Monday.

The state that edged out Idaho to be No. 1 in growth from 2010 to 2020 also was a neighbor: Utah. Its population grew by 18.4% over that time, with Idaho’s growing at 17.3%.

It’s unclear how many more residents Idaho needed to count in order to qualify for a third U.S. representative. Preliminary data released by the Census listed Idaho eighth out of 10 “runner-up” states that almost gained a seat. Idaho will continue to have only two seats in the U.S. House. Oregon will go from five to six, and Montana will go from one to two.

With only 435 U.S. House seats to go around, adding a seat to one state inevitably removes a seat from another that lost population.

Census Bureau representatives have yet to answer a Statesman request for the exact number of people Idaho needed to qualify for a third seat. But the margin was extremely close for other states on the list, an example of how razor-thin the counts can be. New York needed to count just 89 more people to keep its current number of seats at 27, according to Census Bureau data. Instead, it will lose one seat.

Idaho’s population was 1,839,106 on April 1, 2020, according to data released Monday. The West grew 9.2% from 2010-2020, making it the second-fastest-growing region in the country after the South, which grew 10.2%.

Idaho was one of 10 states close to qualifying for an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives based on new population numbers in the 2020 Census.
Idaho was one of 10 states close to qualifying for an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives based on new population numbers in the 2020 Census.

What does this mean for 2030? Or state legislative districts?

More detailed demographic data below the state level won’t be available until the fall. State redistricting commissions will need this data to redraw and adjust lines for congressional and local legislative districts, and some Idaho lawmakers have floated a plan for the Idaho State Legislature to reconvene in the fall to handle that redistricting.

The state Constitution was amended in 2020 to fix the number of statewide districts at 35, which means the target population for each district would range from just under 50,000 to 55,000.

Matthew May, senior research associate at Boise State University’s Idaho Policy Institute, said legislative district lines are likely to be redrawn in the Treasure Valley and other areas of the state that have experienced the most population growth. May said District 14, which covers Star, Eagle and Meridian, will be of particular interest. Growth in Boise has also pushed the dividing lines between the two congressional districts farther west with each successive redistricting, May said.

Idaho won’t have another shot at a third congressional seat until after the next census count, in 2030.

Experts had predicted in 2020 that Idaho would fall short of the threshold needed to gain a new voice in Washington, D.C. Kim Brace, president of Election Data Services in Virginia, uses population trends to forecast what that means for states and their number of seats in the House. He told the Statesman in January 2020 that Idaho likely would be about 61,000 people away from qualifying for a third seat.

Despite Idaho’s rapid growth, May said a lot of factors could affect whether the state hits the right number for a third seat 10 years from now. The data gathered last year, right at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, might not accurately reflect the range of impacts COVID-19 had on communities. The 2020 Census recorded the second-lowest growth rate in U.S. population since the Great Depression, May said.

“I can see Idaho moving up that list of 10 states,” May said. “I think a lot of it will depend on how much the net-out migration trends continue in places like California and New York, and how much of that population is coming to Idaho, as opposed to somewhere else.”

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