The party that wins the most seats in a November election gets to control the state Senate and the state Assembly for the following two years. But when the election occurs in the same year as the census, the stakes are even higher.
Whoever controls the legislature in 2011 will have to reapportion the state’s 99 Assembly districts, 33 Senate districts, and eight congressional districts to reflect the population shifts recorded in the 2010 census. The district boundaries drawn by this reapportionment process will govern legislative elections until 2022.