Census 2010: Texas Wins; California Loses? UPDATED

The above graphic and the quote below are from Sam Roberts’ article in the New York Times on the U.S. Census’ latest population estimates (see the press release and data).

If nearly decade-long trends endure, Texas will gain as many as four Congressional seats and Florida’s delegation will grow by two, while New York and Ohio will lose two seats each, said Andrew A. Beveridge of Queens College of the City University of New York.“Seventy percent of the decade has passed,” Dr. Beveridge said, “and there would have to be massive reversal of population trends for this not to happen.”California’s 53-seat delegation will remain the largest. But for the first time in its history, it may not grow after Congressional reapportionment.“That’s right in line with what we’ve seen for the entire decade,” Tim Storey, redistricting analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said of Dr. Beveridge’s reapportionment analysis. “There’s going to be a shift of more seats to the Sun Belt and to the West.”
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More Californians — 263,000 — left their state than did residents of any other state.

UPDATE: As to this last point, Dan Walters says:

The Census Bureau believes that the state has lost a net of 1.2 million people to other states since the last decennial census, most to adjacent Nevada and Arizona, the nation’s two fastest-growing states. But the Department of Finance’s demographic unit believes that there has been a negligible loss at most.The state’s county-by-county report is available here while the Census Bureau’s state-by-state chart is accessible here.

Bob Benenson’s Midday update at Congressional Quarterly points out that there has never been a census after which California did not gain Congressional seats:

An analysis by Election Data Services of the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates of state populations as of July 1, 2007 suggests that California would do no better than hold even at 53 seats if reapportionment were conducted today. And the consulting firm’s projections of what the states’ populations might be in 2010 — the numbers on which the reapportionment will be based — shows one scenario under which California might actually lose one of its seats.

See also Greg Giroux’s CQ article on the Election Data Services analysis.