Count on a Curveball: Trump’s Pitch for a New Census

August 11th, 2025
Brogan Jones

With the 2026 Congressional midterms fast approaching, there’s been one thing on everyone’s mind: redistricting. More accurately, what’s truly been on everyone’s mind has been gerrymandering, a process by which a state’s Congressional districts are intentionally redrawn to give one party a leg up, in the form of more representatives in Congress. The discourse began in Texas when an attempt by President Trump and Governor Abbott to redraw several districts— in hopes of gaining five Republican seats in 2026—resulted in several Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state to block the vote. Texas Republicans have taken measures to respond. Yet more importantly, the battle over redistricting in Texas has sparked a national quarrel. From New York Governor Kathy Hochul promising to gerrymander her own state in response to Governor Gavin Newsom of California threatening to do the same, tensions are certainly running high as the nation’s top lawmakers battle it out to rig the deck in their favor for the 2026 midterms. Yet, amongst all of this chaos, Donald Trump has just thrown out the most chaotic pitch of them all: an unprecedented mid-decade census.

A census is simply the process by which the number of people living in a country is counted one by one. While this may seem boring at first, the data produced by censuses are necessary to keep the country running smoothly, which is why they are constitutionally required and take place every ten years. Not only do these counts reflect the total population, but they are also helpful for allocating federal funding and, notably, determining the number of Congressional seats each district gets. This important fact makes it very clear why Trump is suddenly throwing out the idea of a census amid the redistricting battle. The President is hoping that a new count following the release of 2024 general election data, which indicated a red shift across the nation, will reveal that Republican districts have grown enough in population since the 2020 census to warrant more representatives in Congress.

There are several issues with Trump’s proposal. For starters, there’s the matter of constitutionality. Two specific problems make the pitch pretty undeniably unconstitutional. Firstly, Trump announced that he plans to exclude illegal immigrants from the count, a violation of the 14th Amendment, which requires that all persons residing within the country be counted in a census. Secondly, there is the issue of timing. Although Trump hasn’t stated a timeframe for his new census to be conducted, it is assumed that the timing of this announcement and his ambition to dominate the 2026 midterms indicate that he is aiming for a mid-decade census. Yet Trump’s plans face a major blockade. Although Congress has technically authorized the Commerce Department to conduct a smaller-scale census every 5 years, the data from these “mini-censuses” cannot be legally used the same way as regular censuses, such as to affect the number of Congressional representatives.

The objections don’t just end at constitutionality. Aside from the usual disapproval from the other side of the aisle, there are also just pragmatic objections from experts over the feasibility of holding a census before the 2026 midterms. Censuses are a delicate and intricate process that requires years of planning. The questions asked during the count have to be approved two years in advance, a fact that alone eliminates the idea of conducting a census with such rapidity. But even if you ignore that and assume that the planning process were to begin this month, that would only give the federal government fifteen months to approve the questions, recruit and train volunteers, select the infrastructure and method with which to conduct the count, actually conduct said count, and somehow analyze all of the data in time for apportionment—reallocation of Congressional seats—to occur before the November 3rd midterms. The last part is quite impossible, given that the deadline for delivering the numbers from the count to the President is typically December 31st of the census year.

As made fairly clear by a litany of practical objections, even if Trump’s new census idea had all the public support in the world, getting over the constitutional hurdles, planning and conducting a full-fledged, unprecedented census and subsequently going through the Constitutionally complex process of Congressional apportionment all in just fifteen months is simply impossible. So, while the idea has only contributed to the nationwide partisan struggle for more Congressional representation, it seems for now that it will remain just that: an idea.

Extemp Analysis by: Brogan Jones

Question: Will Donald Trump’s plan for a new census actually happen?

AGD: Here, I would start talking about the whole redistricting process, going through threats from different governors to gerrymander their own states in order to combat Texas. This will help explain the build-up to why Trump wants a new census in the first place. While you could choose to save all of that for the background and opt for a funny opener (since a seven minute speech about censuses can admittedly get a little boring), I would honestly just take the safe route and explain all of that as your AGD, especially because you’re going to have your hands full with background information, having to explain the ins and outs of censuses.

Background: As I just mentioned, here is where you’ll want to explain what a census is, how it’s typically conducted, and what the data collected from a census is used for. You don’t have to go into great detail, since you’re going to be explaining some of this throughout your points, but you should briefly go over the basics of a census.

Answer/SOS: If I got this question, my answer would be no for three key reasons:

The plan is unpopular
The plan is unconstitutional
The plan is not feasible

Analysis + Concluding Thoughts

For the first point, though it wasn’t discussed at length in the article, I would talk about how the proposal lacks support from opposing Democrats and pragmatic Republicans alike, along with the fact that Donald Trump’s approval ratings are consistently dropping the longer his second term goes on. It’s not going to be much of an issue that this point is fairly short, because the next two are longing to be quite long. For the second point, there’s a bit to unpack. Here’s where you talk about the part of Trump’s plan that would exclude illegal immigrants from the count, and how that would violate the 14th Amendment. You’d also need to talk about the fact that a mid-decade census cannot legally be used to apportion Congressional seats. Finally, for the third point, I would talk about all of the complex planning that goes into the census. Everything that I talked about in the article, all of the organizing that goes into the count, and how fifteen months is not nearly enough time to both conduct the census and deliver the data to Trump in time for seats to be apportioned.