All states where Republicans run everything. All states where the Democratic Party is seriously underperforming its potential. A total of 109 electoral votes, 99 House seats and 10 Senate seats.
If you want to know why the legislative districts in these states are so heavily gerrymandered, and why there are moves afoot to stop winner take all electoral voting in these and other states, its because of the trend line in these states. Over the next 20 or 30 years, the trends don't look good for Republicans. Most especially in these five states where the population is young, growing, urbanizing, and prospering economically.
Lets look at the losses in these five states:
Texas: 52 to 43
Florida: 49 to 48
Arizona: 49 to 45
Georgia: 51 to 46
North Carolina: 50 to 46
These states were all in single digit territory. However, so were many of the Midwest states that used to be Democratic strongholds but have been trending Republican, locally and nationally, for years. The difference is that the five states noted here are likely to continue growing rapidly, and are most likely to gain new congressional seats (and thus electoral votes) with each new census over the next 20-30 years. At the expense of the Midwest and Northeast:
Alabama: -1 (to 6)
Arizona: +1 (to 10)
Colorado: +1 (to 8)
Florida: +2 (to 29)
Illinois: -1 (to 17)
Michigan: -1 (to 13)
Minnesota: -1 (to 7)
New York: -1 (to 26)
North Carolina: +1 (to 14)
Ohio: -1 (to 15)
Oregon: +1 (to 6)
Pennsylvania: -1 (to 17)
Rhode Island: -1 (to 1)
Texas: +3 (to 39)
West Virginia: -1 (to 2)
That's Sean Trende's projections at RCP. That looks about right to me. Now, in Democratic states like New York, Illinois, etc., Democrats will likely be able to limit the losses to rural Republican seats. (In my state for example, New York City is bursting with population at all time highs while upstate continues to shrink or gtow slowly.) Chances are also that the new seats in the sunbelt will have to be drawn in urban and suburban areas. Urbanization and movement South and West are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, as I've been predicting for some time, states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. are likely to continue to shrink relative to other states and also continue to trend Republican.
So, the issue Democratic party leaders and strategists have to confront is how to become a lot more competitive in the places where the population is growing rapidly. Some of you might have seen my deep dives into places like Gwinnett County Georgia where there is absolutely no excuse for Democrats to have ZERO seats on the Board of Commissioners. The County is only 53% white, trending down. Hillary Clinton won the county, the first Democrat to do so since favorite son Jimmy Carter. It is affluent, suburban, diverse. All five Commissioners are white ultra conservative Republicans. Ridiculous. That's just neglect. Especially considering the county has 18 Georgia House seats and 7 Georgia Senate seats. Not to mention nutcase Congressmen Woodall and Hice. Make Gwinnett a blue County and suddenly Georgia is a true swing state.
There are counties like this all over the sunbelt and there's going to be more of them in the near future. Democrats have message, candidate quality, and turnout problems for sure and those do need attention. But lets face facts: there are places that are just pure low hanging fruit and need to be harvested. You don't need a shitload of voters to win a county commission race. Couple thousand will do the trick. Couple hundred in some cases. That's where your next crop of Congresspersons, Senators and even a president is going to come from. That's your farm team.
Republican aggressiveness in the Midwest was smart in the sort term. Feeling secure in the sunbelt, they could move into those shrinking towns and aging, downscale communities with their doomsday message. That was very successful. But in doing so, they have left a wide open opportunity for Democrats in upscale, growing, diversifying communities the Democrats have neglected. Message, candidates, and money need to be there, in the soft underbelly of the GOP. Bust the GOP in these five states (and admittedly playing defense in the Midwest because the coasts are pretty secure sans rural New England), is in my view the wise and rational way to get back to a geographic majority.