The U.S. Census does more than just count people, it also determines which states gain or lose a Congressional seat .

The more seats a state has, the more political power it gains, not only in the number of Members of Congress it has but also the Electoral College votes.

According to an analysis by Election Data Services Inc., the nonpartisan consulting firm specializing in political demographics, eight states are poised to gain seats and 11 states are likely to lose them.

The states that emerge as winners experts say, will be the ones that were able to weather the storms of a tumultuous decade of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession.

Even the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will have an effect, hurting states where people fled in the aftermath and helping the states where they moved.

In its own study, the Brookings Institute reported that 2009 ended "with the greatest migration slowdown since the end of World War II."

This week, Congress.org took a look at which states which Election Data Services said are poised to gain in this year's Census: Texas, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Georgia and South Carolina.

(Brookings found that Oregon would break even and Washington state would gain, but otherwise agreed with the list.)

Texas:

Analysts predict that Texas could gain up to four Congressional seats, the most of any of the handful of other states expected to grow.

Many people attribute Texas' increased population to the influx of Hispanic immigrants flooding in from the state's borders: between 2006 and 2007, Texas became home to 308,000 Hispanic newcomers, more than any other state.

Robert A. Hummer, a sociology professor and demographer at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, says this is a factor, but not the predominant one.

People have gravitated to the state to work in industries unscathed by the economic downturn.

However, "natural increase"—the excess of births over death—is the main contributor to Texas' growing population. According to Hummer, Texas has a "young age structure" and a high rate of fertility, both exceeding these averages for the United States as a whole.

Hummer acknowledged, though, that many of the children born in-state each year are those of young Hispanic women migrating to Texas in droves.

He added that, as Texas continues to grow and diversify, so could voting habits for the traditionally red state.

"How the growth among the Hispanic population, as compared to whites and blacks, will actually end up impacting future elections, I don't know," said Hummer, "but it's important to keep in mind that diversification has the potential to change the way Texans vote and elect officials, and to move towards a more Democratic majority than we've seen in along time."

Arizona, which may pick up two seats, has also experienced population growth due to foreign migration in recent decades: the 2000 census showed that, in the state, the Hispanic population grew by nearly 80 percent, from 733,153 to 1.29 million.