Texas' population growth, as measured by the census, translates into increasing political clout, adding four congressional seats and the corresponding electoral votes.
Texas Tech Political Science Professor Craig Goodman said that while big cities got bigger, rural West Texas will likely hold it's own in the House when the numbers are divvied up.
"Some of the back of the envelope calculations suggest maybe it's not going to be quite as bad as we had thought, in the sense that it looks like maybe 700,000 is going to be the number to keep seats. Given that we were roughly in the 650's last time, even with the relatively low population growth, we should be able to keep all three West Texas congressional districts, the 11th, the 19th, and the 13th districts, but the districts are going to get bigger."
