Georgia and North Carolina's delegations in the U.S. House would overtake New Jersey's, for example, while Florida would catch up with New York, according to projections based on a July 2007 population snapshot released by the Census Bureau last month.
Texas would be the biggest gainer, while a handful of Western states such as Arizona and Nevada could also grab new seats.
The power shift would continue a long-term trend and has been predicted for years. But the latest population estimates provide the clearest picture yet of the likely winners and losers once seats are reapportioned for the 2012 elections.
With many of the growth states tilting Republican, the changes could influence the partisan makeup of Congress, although experts caution that the political ramifications are murky and depend heavily on how states divvy up the spoils.
"Right now what you can say is that you've got gains in areas that Republicans tend to do better in and you've got losses in areas that Democrats tend to do better in, so nationally ... one would think Republicans would do better," said Kim Brace, president of Election Data Services, a consulting firm specializing in political demographics. "But it depends on what happens in the next stage."
The 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states every 10 years based on the census. State legislatures are charged with drawing new congressional district maps, a process that often creates bitter partisan struggle. The next census will be taken in 2010.
The Census Bureau last month released state population estimates for 2007 showing that the South grew faster than any other region from July 2006 to July 2007.
Georgia posted the fifth-fastest growth during that period, followed by North Carolina at sixth, Texas at seventh and South Carolina at 10th. Florida slipped from the top 10 fastest-growing states for the period, but that may be a temporary blip because it ranks seventh dating back to 2000.
The Western region grew second-fastest, with Nevada and Arizona ranking first and second, respectively. But because raw totals were larger in the South, Southern states are expected to be the biggest political winners.
Texas could gain as many as four additional seats, depending on what happens in the next few years, according to projections from Election Data Services and Polidata, two national consulting firms based in the Washington area. Florida could pick up two, while Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina could add one each.
Other Southern states such as Alabama, which has been on the brink of losing a seat, and Mississippi, would probably hold steady. Louisiana remains in danger of dropping a seat after population losses from Hurricane Katrina.
Arizona could pick up two seats, with Nevada, Utah and Oregon getting one each.
New York and Ohio could be the biggest losers, dropping two seats each, with a handful of other northeastern and midwestern states possibly dropping a seat, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and California.
On the surface, the trends look troubling for Democrats, who fare particularly poorly in the South and have done well in the Northeast and Midwest.
But political demographers say many of the growth states such as Florida and Arizona are increasingly competitive for Democrats. And that trend could continue because much of the growth in Texas and the West is coming from minority groups, particularly Hispanics, and from newcomers from Democratic-leaning states.
"Conventional wisdom might be that growth in the Sunbelt means growth for Republicans, but I don't think that's necessarily the case," said William Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan and the Brookings Institution. "On the other hand, a lot of these states that are losing population are substantially blue states - Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York."
Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, predicted that Republicans might net two or three more seats in the South. But those gains could easily be offset by what happens in other parts of the country, he said.
"The consequences are going to depend a lot on who controls redistricting in those states, both the ones that are gaining seats and the ones that are losing seats," he said. "We've seen in the past the consequences of redistricting can vary."
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