voting with their feet. But I’m not sure what that means. It’s true that in FL, the “movers” are, on the whole, MORE conservative than the residents!
I guess that after once drinking from the bitter cup of Leftism, they are not eager to again stain their lips…
But there is a real concern that these folks will behave as Lefty missionaries, when in fact they are refugees. And I think that does indeed happen, though I’m not at all sure that’s typical.
Still, some unusual movement IS happening. Is it a “Great Sort” where birds of a feather are flocking together, or is it diluting Conservatism and making the country as a whole more Lefty homogeneous?
Earlier this month, the Census Bureau released data on “net domestic migration.” This tracks where people are moving between counties in the country. Last year, the 10 counties that gained the most through net migration had one thing in common – they were conservative counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
At the other end of the spectrum, all 10 counties that saw the biggest negative net migration also have one thing in common – they all voted for Biden in 2020. That includes two blue counties located in red states – Miami-Dade County, Florida, (where Biden beat Trump 53%-46%), and Dallas County, Texas, (where Biden got 65% of the vote).
… In other words, in just the three years after Biden won his election, more than 1% of the population had packed up and moved out of counties that voted for him. [emphasis added]
So just what does this all mean? Honestly, I don’t know. But I lean toward a “Great Sort” given what has happened in history and the FL data.
I mean, it’s pretty dang hard to move, and I strongly suspect that Conservatives are far more motivated to leave the Lefty squalor of their current environs than Leftists are to move and become “missionaries.”