Donald Trump’s latest push for a mid-decade census has the left in a panic, and for good reason. The census isn’t just a headcount; it’s the foundation for congressional seats, electoral votes, and trillions in federal funding. By counting illegal immigrants, Democrats have inflated their political power, effectively inflating their representation in Congress by quite a few seats.
The miscounts in the 2020 census gave Kamala Harris six extra electoral votes and stripped Trump of nine, while Florida and Texas lost seats they deserved, and blue states like Minnesota and Rhode Island kept ones they shouldn’t have.
This is why the redistricting war in Texas has become a national political flashpoint, and according to Republican commentator Scott Jennings, it’s laying bare the Democrats’ reliance on a system that bolsters their political power while sending them into a political tailspin.
During a segment on CNN, anchor John Berman explained how President Trump has now entered the fight dramatically, calling for a brand-new census, an idea that, if enacted, could dramatically reshape the U.S. political map into something fairer and more accurate. Redistricting usually only takes palce once every decade after the U.S. Census, but the 2020 count was so wildly inaccurate that it demands correction.
Florida lost two congressional seats it deserved, Texas lost one, while blue states like Minnesota and Rhode Island kept seats they should’ve lost, and Colorado gained one it didn’t earn. President Trump’s call for a new, citizen-focused census is a direct response to this dereliction of duty, which has eroded public trust in the results.
And, of course, Democrats, who believed they’d successfully rigged the system to their advantage, are now furious that those errors might finally be addressed.
“The president is kind of throwing a grenade in the middle of it all; he’s calling for a new census, which, of course, determines how many Congressional seats every state gets, as well as how much money they receive,” Berman noted on CNN NewsNight. The twist? Trump wants to exclude illegal immigrants from the count.
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Jennings said the president’s goal is straightforward and popular with much of the public. “He certainly wants to do the census in a way that doesn’t count illegal aliens as part of the overall population for the purpose of determining Congressional districts and federal funding,” he said. “And I think he’s going to have a lot of popular support for it.”
Jennings stressed that Democrats have an apparent reason for opposing any change. “There is a widespread belief that Democrats want to keep the system in place because it advantages them,” he said. As evidence, he pointed to remarks from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), who recently said she wanted more migrants in her district specifically for redistricting purposes. “A Democratic congresswoman from New York, Clarke, the other day said out loud, ‘I want more migrants in my district for redistricting purposes.’ And so it’s a political strategy of the Democrats.”
"Democrats are in the middle of a high speed-come apart."@ScottJenningsKY spells out to combative CNN panel why the US Census shouldn’t count illegals for purposes of congressional apportionment.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 8, 2025
Democrats are apoplectic over this issue, and everyone understands why:… pic.twitter.com/NmssWVS9tZ
For Jennings, Trump’s push boils down to a fundamental question of fairness in representation. “Why are we counting illegal aliens, unauthorized residents in this country when it comes to apportioning our political leadership?” he asked.
With Texas at the center of the storm and Trump signaling he’s ready to take the fight nationwide, the battle over who gets counted and who benefits has become the latest high-stakes clash in America’s redistricting wars. By targeting the Democrats’ long-running scheme of inflating their power through the census, Trump isn’t just challenging a bureaucratic process; he’s threatening to dismantle one of the left’s most reliable advantages. And if he succeeds, the political map that’s kept blue states overrepresented for decades could be redrawn in a way that changes the balance of power for a generation.
