Trump census push raises concerns
Could face challenges, affect 2026 election
By: Erin Mansfield
USA Today
..... President Donald Trump announced his intention to "immediately begin work on a new" census, raising questions about whether the plan would be constitutional and how it would affect the partisan makeup of Congress.
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His announcement came amid Texas Republicans' efforts to perform an unusual mid-decade redrawing of congressional maps, which are normally drawn after the census determines the number of seas in each state's delegation at the beginning of each new decade.
.....Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the GOP-led state legislature hope to add up to five new seats for their party by redistricting, prompting proposals for Democratic states to redraw there congressional maps in retaliation.
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Trump's August 7 [2025] social media post said a new survey should be taken "based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained form the Presidential Election of 2024" and that people "who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS."
..... USA Today has reached out to the White House for comment. Niter the U.S. Census Bureau nor the Commerce Department responded to requests for comment.
....."I think you would have to see, at some point, do things state moving?" said Shawn Donahue, a political science professor at the University of Buffalo. "It it something that is more of just a press release, or is there something that the Commerce department is going to state doing?"
..... The U.S. constitution calls for the census to be conducted every 10 years and in years that end in zero, most recently in 2020. The U.S. Census Bureau, part of the Commerce Department, carries out these resource-intensive surveys and hires temp pray staff to conduct outreach to count as many people as possible.
..... The survey results are sued to decide how seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are distributed to each state based on its popularity, a process called apportionment. Those processes usually take place in the firs two years of decade. The survey results are also used to determine how much federal funding is distributed to states, and researchers widely cite the demographic searcher to understand the country.
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Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, announced a bill in July [2025] that would require a new census to be performed, counting only U.S. citizens, and then direct states to redraw their congressional districts based on the new numbers. "Americans don't feel like they're represented in Washington," she said.
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Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow for the conservative Heritage Foundation said he thinks states should redraw their congressional districts every five years. he said the United States has a mobile and constantly constantly population that a survey held every 10 years doesn't capture.
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He also pointed to a 2022 report from the U.S. Census Bureau that found 14 states had statistically significant differences between the bureau's count and the acute population. Six states - Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas - had undercounts.
..... But John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, called Trump;s mid-decade census proposal "a comprehensive campaign to flout the U.S. Constitution in order to predetermining election outcomes so he can consolidate his power and avoid accountability to the American people."
..... Sophia Lin Lakin, direct of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, told National Public Radio that following through "would defy the Constitution, federal law, and settled precedent" and her organization "won't hesitate to go back to court to protect representation for all communities."
..... Michael P. McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said the congressional maps are the fairest they've been in about 40 years because of redistricting reform efforts across the country to prevent unfairly drawn districts.
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He said the congressional maps are already drawn in such a way that there are more Republican-leaning distinct than Democrat-leaning ones, despite the practice of including undocumented immigrants in the count.
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However, "the Republican are so desperate at this point to forestall what's likely going to happen in 2026," McDonald said.
..... Democrats are widely expected to win seats in the House of Representatives in next year's [2026] congressional elections, because the party that occupies the White House usually does poorly. Trump also has low approval ratings. That blue wave could flip control of the House in which Republicans hold a 219 to 212 majority.
..... McDonald said if Republicanism new congressional districts, they might be able to mitigate the number of least they lose.
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The 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution says representatives shall be apposition according to the "whole number of person in each State." This ended the longstanding practice of counting three-fifths of enslaved people for purposes of representation. There is no language in the 14th Amendment that restricts these counts to citizen or people with legal presence in the country.
..... During his first term. Trump attempted to add a question to the 2020 census asking if the person completing the survey was a citizen. The Supreme Court struck down in 2019. The following year, Trump issued a memorandum saying undocumented immigrants should not be included in counts that determine congressional representation.
..... "It seems pretty unlikely that you could do this for 2026, just beasties it takes so long," said Donahue. The government also isn't allowed to speed up the process by basing its count on statistical sampling, he said, pointing to a 1999 Supreme Court decision that said people must be counted.
..... Would a mid-decade census order end up in court?
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"Absolutely," said Donahue. "The constitution calls for a decennial census. It doesn't say that you can't (have more). But, I mean, it pretty much implies that you're only going to do one every 10 years."
..... Contributing: Francesca Chambers, USA Today