Opinion

OPINION: Democrats Aim To Use 2020 Census — And Millions Of Illegal Immigrants — To Turn Purple States Blue

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Rich Logis Contributor
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Later this year, the Supreme Court is going to decide on the constitutionality of President Trump’s request that a citizenship question be placed on the 2020 census.

Democrats know the citizenship question likely passes constitutional muster, but they’re fiercely objecting to it, citing “privacy” concerns.

So what’s the real reason for their opposition?

Democrats know that many states are “purple,” or political swing states, and they want to turn them blue. State electoral votes, as well as future federal funding, are determined by their population totals. Having illegal immigrants and non-citizens counted in the census means that swing states’ electoral votes will increase, as they did for several swing states between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.

After the 2010 census, Texas gained four seats in the House of Representatives. It’s worth noting that Texas has had gains after every Census since it joined the Union in 1845.

Florida, after the 2010 census, gained two seats; like Texas, Florida was admitted into the Union in 1845, and has also seen its electoral votes increase after every census.

Reliably Democrat states such as Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey each lost a seat following the 2010 census, and New York lost two. Undoubtedly, Democrats want to see gains there after the 2020 census.

Data from the 2020 census will determine electoral votes from 2022-2032.

Do Democrats want the question included because they care about illegal aliens and legal non-citizens having representation, or, because they care about counting bodies in swing and purple states, including historically red states that are trending purple, such as Texas and Florida? You be the judge.

Even after over 1,000 losses in national and state elections during President Obama’s two terms, Democrats never ceased playing the long game. They understand that the cyclical nature of politics means that more electoral votes in swing states and guaranteed Democrat states puts them possibly in a strong position, long-term — especially considering projected population demographics, which potentially remarkably benefit Democrats.

However, it partially requires flooding the country with bodies, and accounting for the ones who are already here on the census. (Open-borders “Tessio” Republicans — named after Sal Tessio from “The Godfather,” who intentionally betrays the Corleone family — have never put up much of a fight.)

Are there “only” 11 million illegal aliens in the country? It’s doubtful. Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tab the illegal population at 22 million. Combined with 13 million non-citizen green card holders, recent migrants represent a potential 10 percent population increase that would influence the next apportioning of electoral votes. Even if only 20 percent answered the door for the census taker, that’s still seven million.

The vast majority of illegal aliens and non-citizens are living in hopelessly Democrat states, and big cities in red states — thereby rendering those red states purple. The two swing states home to the largest illegal alien populations are, you guessed them, Texas and Florida, with 1.6 million and 775,000, respectively. At least, those are the ones we know about. Turning Texas blue is the Democrats’ Electoral College raison d’être.

Textually, the Constitution is somewhat ambiguous regarding the citizenship question. The question, however, that will likely sway a majority of justices is: did our founders want illegals and non-citizens determining electoral votes, federal funding and congressional apportioning?

The Democrats have utterly and abjectly lost the illegal immigration argument. Their remonstrance to the citizenship question is just further evidence.

Rich Logis (@RichLogis) is host of “The Rich Logis Show” and author of the upcoming book “10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.