Data from the Census Bureau released Tuesday included one bit of interesting news: Florida, at long last, has passed New York in total population. (This is where you make your jokes about retirees and the baby boom, by the way -- jokes which are fairly accurate, however hackneyed.)

There's another bit of data that's worth pointing out, too, particularly for those of us who are obsessed with politics. The population in red states continues to grow faster than the population in blue states. But don't read too much into that.

Here's the percentage change in every state since last year and since 2000.

You probably know which are the red and blue states, but we've gone ahead and highlighted the swing states in the bottom map. (Here we define "swing state" as a state in which the margin of victory in a presidential race was within 3 points in two or more of the last four elections.) We point that out because we're about to lay this chart on you.

Since 2000, states that were red in 2012 grew much more than states that were blue. This led to a redistribution of House seats to states in the South and West -- and to a reallocation of electoral votes. (Note that this is percent growth, which includes, say, North Dakota: the fastest growing state in recent years, but with a small population. In raw terms, red states grew by about a million people between July 2013 and July 2014. Blue states grew by about 941,000.)

That third pair of columns is misleading. It includes only the swing states from 2012, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio -- and is dominated by the growth in Florida.

Notice in the second map above that the swing states have seen a range of growth. Some grew slowly since 2000. Some, like Florida, grew quickly. Which is important to read in reverse: There's not a clear link between population growth and being a swing state.

For Republicans that are pleased about the continued growth in your states, some bad news. It does you no good until 2020, when electoral votes and House seats get shifted around again. The new data doesn't suggest that your states are moving to the left, necessarily, as happened to Virginia as its northern counties absorbed more Democrats. Again, look to Florida, where people have been moving for years. The rate of growth has tapered off a bit, but the state's political status hasn't changed much. It's still the swingiest state in the nation.

Which is perhaps why so many people want to move there. Goodnight everybody!