Increasing Density and Diversity Likely to Make Western States More Blue

The geography of American politics is shifting, and this is especially true in the Mountain West. These six states – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – are undergoing changes large and small as they rearrange their political representation in response to the latest Census figures. As they redistrict their state legislatures and reapportion federal representatives, the new political boundaries being formed in these states are largely the result of two trends: increasing demographic diversity and a growth in urban populations.

A new report from the Brookings Institution digs into these shifts to understand how populations are changing and how these changes will likely affect the outcomes of future political races. Author David F. Damore writes that in these six states, the boundaries are being reshaped by high rates of population growth, the geographic concentration of that growth in urban areas and the growing number of minority residents there. As a result, Democrats are likely to see more votes in many parts of these states – in both federal and state legislative races.