The census projections weren`t any secret. Our neighbors, old and young, were leaving the farm and heartland, decamping the gritty urban centers and looking for whatever is left of the American dream in sunny freeway oases like San Jose, Calif., and San Antonio.
California`s population was growing faster than the cost of the savings and loan bailout. New York City was becoming a First World Calcutta, the rich fighting for space with the permanently destitute. Demographers were searching for catch phrases and labels to describe the new American calculus.
Now, early figures from the 1990 census confirm many of the projections. Demographic shifts begun more than 20 years ago come into sharp focus, the populations of nearly half the nation`s 25 largest cities having dwindled in the last decade.
At first blush, the politics of the 1990 census seem straightforward and freighted with bad news for Democrats.
Most political observers agree the sun-seekers incline toward Republican candidates and, by rough estimation, 19 congressional seats will move in 1992 from the traditionally Democratic landscape of the Midwest and the Northeast to the South and West.
None of the preliminary figures are final, however, and states and localities will contest population counts, understanding the political and economic consequences of the census numbers.
That said, California, Florida and Texas are likely to gain a total of 14 House seats, while the old Northern industrial Democratic stalwarts-New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan-will forfeit a dozen seats because of declining population.
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For New York, redistricting continues a four-decade slide that has seen the Empire State`s congressional delegation shrink with every census since 1950. New York now has 34 House seats, Illinois 22 and California 45.
By 1992, New York will have 31 seats, Illinois likely will have 20 and California will have 52-the largest delegation ever and nearly 12 percent of the 435 House seats.
Those seats are the basis of electoral votes in presidential elections, a fact that effectively makes a political monster of California.
In Sacramento, the state legislature is moving slowly toward the notion of changing the date of California`s presidential primary, a shift that would diminish the impact of early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire and change the face of presidential politics.
”If you look at electoral votes and the idea of moving the California presidential primary from June to, say, March, that contest could pretty well sort out the Democratic ticket in `92,” said one Democratic political consultant.
Historically, Republicans have had difficulty translating favorable population trends into political gains at the state and congressional level, largely by virtue of a capacity for losing key gubernatorial and state legislative races.
The Republican Party is still haunted by the late Rep. Phillip Burton, a San Francisco Democrat who 10 years ago drew up an artful congressional redistricting plan that found Democratic House seats where no demographer could ferret them out.
Democrats, holding a 27-18 advantage in the state`s current House delegation, are still chortling over Burton`s remap, though they are not expected to be able to repeat the performance.
At the moment, the states making the biggest population surges-California, Texas and Florida-have Republican governors. All three states were in George Bush`s column in the last election, though a living, breathing Democrat other than Michael Dukakis might have won California.
That would seem to bode ill for Democrats, but in the current gubernatorial races in the Big Three states, Democrats are more than competitive in California and Florida.
Last year, Democrats won governor`s races in Virginia and New Jersey, and they have bested the GOP in a number of special congressional elections.
With redistricting a priority, California Republicans are prepared to spend $18 million to get Sen. Pete Wilson elected governor this fall, succeeding Gov. George Deukmejian, also a Republican who is retiring.
But a California poll released last week showed Wilson in a dead heat with the Democratic nominee, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. And Democrats point out that in California, Texas and Florida, a significant percentage of the population growth is Hispanic, providing a source of optimism for Democratic counters.
In short, the long-awaited Republican realignment, the triumph of the Sun Belt, is hardly final.