Conservative groups claim there’s a migration of U.S. residents from Democratic-led states to Republican-led states due to politics and “family values.”
Others say that claim is overblown or misinterpreted.
Fox News has called it “the great wealth migration (to the) Boom Belt” of Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arizona.
The conservative Family Research Council sees “a mass exodus from states controlled by Democrats to states run by Republicans.”
Some conservatives in fast-growing Idaho say the blue-state influx is to blame for a growing rat problem.
But in many cases, the migration from blue to red states isn’t as black-and-white as conservatives claim. Some people migrate from New York or California to other blue states, and others go to blue metroplexes in red states, including the sunbelt cities Houston, Atlanta and Orlando.
The migration from red to blue states isn’t as black-and-white as conservatives claim.
And deep blue states New York and California are doing just fine. While they lead the 50 states in out-migration to other states, they also lead the 50 states in welcoming the most in-migration from other countries, and their economies are growing.
Just about everyone agrees Americans began migrating to other states during and after COVID, but they disagree about what that means. Conservatives cite tighter blue-state COVID restrictions, but there’s another big factor.
When the pandemic severed the connection between work and workplace, millions of workers chose to leave big blue cities for something cheaper and quieter.
Focus on the Family says it supports the “Great American Family Sort.” It advertises: “Expect the great conservative migration to continue, and perhaps God is calling you to be part of it.”
Focus claims the migration is driven by “politics and beliefs” and says, “Families are making their priorities clear through where they choose to live and have children.”
Focus left California for Colorado in 1991 and has attempted without success to make Colorado more conservative.
Just about everyone agrees the cost of living, particularly the cost of housing, is the primary driver of blue-to-red migration.
The cost of living, particularly the cost of housing, is the primary driver of blue-to-red migration.
Ten blue states have the highest state income tax rates. Red states place fewer restrictions on housing construction, lowering costs and enabling some families to achieve a part of the American dream that is out of reach for many others.
The Heritage Foundation, creators of Project 2025, contends: “But why are people overwhelmingly taking the one-way street from left-wing bastions to conservative states? It’s because they’re sick of living in financial and social basket cases. Blue states have a significantly higher tax burden than red states, including income taxes, property taxes, sales and excise taxes, etc. The 10 states with the highest overall tax burden are all blue, while the 10 lowest are all red.”
The National Review sees a “tectonic shift in America’s population, a decided preference among Americans to vote with their feet for red-state over blue-state governance, and the dramatic demographic effects of replacing Joe Biden’s border policies with those of Donald Trump.”
And the conservative publication sees further political change ahead as red states gain seats in the U.S. House of Representatives due to population growth and blue states lose seats.
The Institute for Family Studies says families are migrating to red and purple states because of red states’ “family-friendly” policies. While the policies Democrats paint as family friendly — like child tax credits and paid parental leave — have appeal, they are not the answers Americans seek, the group asserts.
“The revealed preferences of most parents point to a different set of policies being more important for families in today’s America,” including “safe streets” and “school choice (or at least inoffensive and effective public schools) matters more to parents than free school lunches.”
Put another way, Americans “have clustered in communities of sameness,” wrote Bill Bishop in The Big Sort, a book that was prophetic in 2008 and remains challenging today.
“Now people go to church not for how it might change their beliefs, but for how their precepts will be reconfirmed,” he wrote.
The Big Sort devoted a chapter to the ways megachurch and church growth movements promoted homogenous — and therefore segregated — faith communities.
“Americans were forming tribes,” Bishop said. “The like-minded neighborhood supported the like-minded church, and both confirmed the image and beliefs of the tribe that lived and worshipped there.”
He predicted what would happen next: “As people heard their beliefs reflected and amplified, they would become more extreme in their thinking” and embrace a “fundamental kind of self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing social division.”
An academic analysis published at Vanderbilt University was among the first to empirically examine voter migration on a large scale. “Relying on data for millions of partisan migrants across seven states, we show that partisans relocate based on destination characteristics such as racial composition, income and population density but additionally prefer to relocate in areas populated with copartisans,” the report states. “This tendency is stronger among Republicans but is also true of Democratic registrants.”
The Vanderbilt researchers concluded: “Although there is some evidence that the partisan composition of destinations matters, it is not overwhelming. Movers consider a range of factors, and economic motivations loom largest. Other significant factors, such as consumption choices, natural environments, attitudes about mass transit, and access to certain amenities, however, are associated with political preferences and help to create a partisan sorting without having been driven by overtly political considerations.”