A day after the government released the first results from the 2020 Census, some states and civic organizations were reeling from unexpected results, and wondered if the differences between projections and actual data might be an indicator of problems with the count.

Among the surprises were lower-than-expected population counts in Texas, Florida, and Arizona, which led to those states ending up with fewer House representatives than projected. And D.C., which had been projected to surpass the 700,000 population line, failed to hit that mark, growing by 14.6 percent instead of 18.4 percent over the past decade.

Decennial census data is used to determine the apportionment of House seats, redistricting and $1.5 trillion a year in federal funding, so the release of its data is always closely scrutinized. But this time, perhaps more than ever, the count faced unprecedented hurdles. They included underfunding, attempts by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question and exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment, the coronavirus pandemic, and natural disasters that struck just before the count ended….

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But until more-detailed 2020 Census data showing race, ethnicity and geography is released later in the year, it will be hard to confirm any suspicions of tallies of Hispanic residents being under par. The data released Monday shows no relationship between a state’s share of Hispanic residents and whether the state population tally turned out to be lower than projected.

“Nothing looked terribly outside of expectations or historical patterns,” said Chris Dick, founder of DA Advisors, an analytics consulting company, and former Census Bureau statistician and branch chief. Noting that the Arizona data in 2010 were also lower than estimates, he said, “I think we have to be careful. I don’t think we have enough information to say the census was flawed, but I don’t think we have enough information to say the census was a success.”…

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