5 July 2019 — 1719 mdt
Montana’s 2010–2020 population is
growing slightly faster than the nation’s
That’s why Montana could pick up a second seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Below, I’ve prepared two graphs displaying the rate of Montana’s population growth to that of the nation. The first graph displays population growth rates from 1910 to 2020. The second displays growth rates for 2010 to 2020.
Montana began the current decade on a par with the nation, but began growing faster than the nation as the recovery from George W. Bush’s Great Recession picked up steam
Note. As reported by Election Data Services, the Census Bureau produced several projections for 2020. I also projected the 2020 population for Montana, applying linear and polynomial fits to the Census Bureau’s estimate for 2010–2018. The table below displays the range.
Later this summer, I’ll discuss the impact of these numbers in the context of the Huntington-Hill method that the Census Bureau uses to apportion the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.