While civic-minded Americans often pay attention to the movement of national polls every election season, they might also want to start watching the movement of people.
Polling is a good data point in understanding public opinion, but it certainly isn’t the only thing to consider when trying to understand election outcomes. One factor that the national media seems to have altogether discarded in recent months is the enormous amount of domestic migration that has occurred in our country since 2020.
I believe that this exodus of Americans from blue states to red states gives us an insight into the momentum of public opinion today. In fact, there is little doubt that this migration will one day impact presidential politics. The question is how soon that impact will take place.
Given the construction of the Electoral College under the Constitution, each state is allocated votes equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in their federal delegation, liberal states are expected to lose electoral votes in the coming decades if population trends continue. California, for example, already lost a seat in Congress for the first time in its history following the last Census. However, an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the progressive Brennan Center for Justice predicts that California could lose four congressional seats after the 2030 redistricting. Other strategists predict that California could lose as many as five congressional seats in that period. In addition, New York could possibly lose three seats and Illinois could lose two seats, if trends continue.
Meanwhile, red states are growing rapidly. According to the same report at the end of 2023, four states in the South – Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina – accounted for more than 90 percent of American population gains since the 2020 Census. Texas and Florida, alone, accounted for 70 percent of the population growth during that period. Some 40 percent of Americans could live in the South by the end of the decade, and the congressional seats and electoral votes will follow.
Texas and Florida are predicted to gain a combined seven seats in Congress, and seven Republican states across the South and the West could gain another seat each.
With this context, it is not surprising that the Left has long supported getting rid of the Electoral College – over 80 percent of Democrat and Democrat-leaning voters support moving to the popular vote, according to Pew Research.
While in theory, these migration trends could take a few decades to impact presidential politics, a look at the effect of domestic migration on the ground could indicate an earlier influence. For example, Republican counties gained 3.7 million more people than they lost since 2020, while Democratic counties suffered a net loss of 3.7 million, according to a Stateline analysis. As the report notes, it would only take a little movement from one community across a state line to another community to become a difference maker in a highly contested swing state.
Regardless, if the election was actually decided by the number of moving trucks headed from blue states to red states, Vice President Harris would already be packing up her own boxes to head back to California. That’s just not how our system works.
No one will really know what these population shifts will mean for this election cycle until the votes are counted. Yet, it is indisputable that this migration represents a trend in the American political dynamic – a shifting of Americans toward freedom-oriented communities. I believe this movement is indicative of momentum. Clearly, Americans are moving to places that respect freedom, traditional family values, and the rule of law.
While states like Texas and Florida grab the headlines, other freedom-loving states have grown tremendously. For example, my home state of Oklahoma is the 28th most populous state in the country, but we ranked among the top ten states for domestic migration in 2021 and 2022.
Oklahoma’s story is not that unique. I would contend that just about any place that cares more about your productivity than your pronouns, that believes the ultimate decisions regarding a child’s life should be made by parents rather than bureaucrats, and that understands your money belongs to you and not the government, is capable of tremendous growth and prosperity.
Progressive states like New York and California already pushed out many common-sense citizens and companies prior to 2020 due to their oppressive economic and extreme social policies. Their draconian pandemic measures seemed to be the last straw for many Americans.
While we will soon know the impact of this post-Covid migration on the election results this November, we can predict that the electoral map will eventually be tipped in the favor of conservative communities if these population trends continue. In the short term though, deeply blue states could become more liberal and deeply red states could become more conservative, given the exodus of freedom-oriented Americans away from traditional progressive strongholds. Yet, there are positive signs for the immediate future. Republicans have made some gains in voter registration in a few key battleground states, and they now fully control 23 state governments, while Democrats only control 16 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Furthermore, Donald Trump has proven he can connect with voters in places where past Republican candidates have struggled. For this reason, he is expanding the map and pursuing voters in traditionally blue areas.
Conservatives should aspire for this November to represent a shift from the political power of the coastal elites to the values of everyday Americans in the heartland. If the American people turn out to vote in the direction that their feet have been taking them, this election season could bring much hope for the preservation of economic freedom, personal responsibility, limited government, and religious liberty.