Democrats' Crisis Of The Future: The Biggest States That Back Them Are Shrinking

Texas and Florida are growing rapidly. California, Illinois and New York are shrinking.

With America's population shifting to the South, political influence is seeping from reliably Democratic states to areas controlled by Republicans. Coming out of a presidential election where they lost all seven swing states , Democrats are facing a demographic challenge that could reduce their path to winning the U.S. House of Representatives or the White House for the long term.

If current trends hold through the 2030 census, states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris will lose around a dozen House seats - and Electoral College votes - to states that voted for President-elect Donald Trump . The Democratic path to 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum needed to win the presidency, will get much narrower.

"At the end of the day, Democrats have to be able to win in the South or compete in the South" if they want to control the levers of government, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice. "Otherwise, it's a really uphill battle every time."

The Brennan Center, which is left-leaning, projects Democratic states in 2024 would lose 12 seats in the next census. The right-leaning American Redistricting Project forecasts a similar blue-to-red shift but pegged the loss at 11 seats, not 12.