‘26 Must Add to ‘32 | Opinion

With the midterms only about two weeks away, all focus is on the Election Day 2026 races. The Democrats appear as if they will flip the House of Representatives and are increasingly looking as if they are poised to flip the Senate as well. The Senate races in particular are getting an enormous amount of attention. However, the gubernatorial races in key states are getting much less focus, and in these last two weeks there needs to be an extra push in those races to help prepare for 2032.

What do the current elections for governor have to do with presidential politics in 2032? Potentially a lot, and here is why.

There will be a new United States population census in 2030. This obviously will not affect the next presidential cycle two years from now, but it will very much affect the makeup of the Electoral College vote six years from now. That is because current red states are expected to pick up several House seats and current blue states are projected to lose seats in the 2030 population count. That will correspond directly to a gain and loss in Electoral College votes among the states. To put that in total perspective, the South is expected to have double the number of House seats as the Northeast with 164 versus 81.

Texas is projected to gain as many as four Electoral College votes, and Florida two or three, while California is expected to lose four such votes. In addition, solid red states Utah and Idaho would pick up one more vote, while solid blue states New York, Illinois, Oregon, and Rhode Island would each lose one. Moreover, northern swing states Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania would lose one vote and southern swing states Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona would each gain one.

This is not a simple story of red states gaining and blue states losing population, because one needs to look at the underlying reasons for those gains and losses to really assess what kind of electoral headwinds the Democrats are facing. And there are some reasons for Democrats to be more positive than the headline numbers on population shifts alone might suggest.

There are four key reasons populations shift among the states: birth and death rates, migration between states, immigration from abroad and census counting efforts. Examining each provides meaningful insight into whether gains for traditionally red states will necessarily translate into a political advantage for Republicans.

According to The Economist, birth rates are higher in counties that typically vote Republican than in those that typically vote Democratic. However, Republican-leaning counties skew older and have significantly higher death rates. As a result, life expectancy in Democratic counties is over three years longer than in Republican counties. Deaths now actually outnumber births in Republican-leaning counties, resulting in negative natural population growth, while natural growth remains positive in Democratic counties.

Looking at migration between the states, The Economist also reports that migration from other states has increased the population in Republican counties by an average of 0.5 percent a year, while Democratic counties have tended to lose population as residents move elsewhere by about 0.6 percent per year. What somewhat mitigates this for Democrats is that about 20 percent of the new arrivals in red states come from blue states and around 40 percent come from swing states, which has weakened the amount of Republican support in the fastest-growing red counties. This suggests that many of those moving from blue states are bringing their politics with them.

When it comes to immigration from abroad, the trend adds to population growth about five times more in blue counties than red ones. But immigration contributes heavily to population growth in red states. Immigration has accounted for 44 percent of Texas’ population growth over the last two years, more than came from domestic migration or natural population increases. That is even more true when it comes to Florida.

Of course, immigrants cannot vote, but they are counted for census purposes, although the Trump administration would like to change that. In doing so, however, it may actually reduce the Electoral College advantage that would otherwise flow to certain Republican states.

In fact, if immigration remains at zero or turns negative for the rest of the decade, Florida's Electoral College gain could be limited to two additional votes rather than three. Florida may also see a sharp decline in migration from other states as rising housing costs make it increasingly unaffordable for retirees.

It is not only population growth but the ethnic and racial composition of that growth that matters for electoral purposes. For example, in Texas, population growth in the Houston and Dallas areas has been driven almost entirely by the growth of communities of color, a trend expected to continue in the coming years. Similarly, in Georgia, communities of color are the only groups experiencing population growth, according to The New York Times.

Lastly, population counts may be further affected by what actions states take in trying to promote the importance of filling out census forms, particularly in immigrant communities. New York and California spent significant sums encouraging residents to do so, while Texas spent no state funds on such outreach. It has been estimated as a result that Texas actually received fewer House seats, and therefore fewer Electoral College votes to cast, based on the 2020 census. Adding a citizenship question to the census forms, as the Trump administration looks like it will attempt to do again in preparation for the 2030 census, might further depress the immigration population growth in red and blue states alike as immigrants become fearful of the use of that information.

With all these puts and takes, even if the Democrats were to lose blue state voting power in the Electoral College, there are some underlying population trends working to their advantage in red state America. However, the bottom line is that even if the Dems win the Rust Belt swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2032—which they narrowly lost to Trump in 2024—while holding all the other states that Kamala Harris carried, based on the expected population shifts they would still lose the Electoral College by 20 votes. That means they would have to win either North Carolina, Georgia, or Arizona to get to the clinching number of 270 votes. To the extent they lost any of the Rust Belt states, they will need two or more southern states to prevail.

What is the import of this for the 2026 races? It means Democrats must win governorships that are up for grabs in states like Georgia, Florida, and Texas to begin rebuilding the on-the-ground party infrastructure needed to make these increasingly important Electoral College states competitive. With underlying population trends—on natural population growth, the political leanings of migrating populations from other states, and racial composition of growing populations—helping to potentially shift southern states closer to Democratic voting majorities, Democrats need to build back their party infrastructure in these states. They have in many cases left their state party apparatus to atrophy, particularly when it comes to fundraising and getting out the vote.