In some cases, they explicitly move because they don’t like high taxes (especially when combined with crummy government services). In other cases, they simply move to where there are better economic opportunities and they don’t necessarily understand that those lower-tax states grow faster and create more jobs.
But today’s column is not about the economics of tax-motivated migration. It’s about the political consequences.
More specifically, is there a risk that people moving from left-wing jurisdictions will bring their voting habits with them and cause their new state to shift in a more statist direction?
I know that people in Colorado and New Hampshire think their states have moved to the left because of migration from California and New Hampshire.
But is that just a feeling? Is there actual proof that migration causes changes in voting patterns.
Let’s look at some analysis from John Yoo and Linda Denno of the American Enterprise Institute. Here are some excerpts from their article about the impact of California refugees on Arizona politics.
Americans of all groups –– young and old, rich and middle-class, the college-educated and not –– are fleeing California. Conservatives are leaving in droves. The state will become even more progressive and even more committed to the self-destructive policies that are driving people out in the first place. But this exodus might have a saving grace: It might make surrounding states more conservative, right? Well, this has yet to play out favorably for Republicans in some nearby states, including, for example, Arizona. …According to a recent study, between 2020 and 2024, about five times as many Republicans have left the state as have moved in. …Over the past decade, next-door Arizona has seen an influx of residents from California, with an average of about 173 Californians relocating daily, or more than 630,000 people from 2015 to 2025. …But the complaint most often heard from longtime Arizona residents is “Don’t California my Arizona.” Arizona was long a reliably Republican state, with strong conservative leanings rooted in its libertarian ethos, rural demographics, and historical figures like Barry Goldwater. However, demographic shifts, including the California migration, appear to be transforming it into a purple swing state. …Although many Republicans are quick to blame the California influx for its electoral losses, the reality is more nuanced. For instance, Californians moving to Arizona since 2020 have shown a 20-point Republican registration edge, an edge that undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s 2024 win. …The progressive policies entrenched in California –– such as exorbitant income taxes, unchecked urban decay, and permissive approaches to crime and homelessness –– have fueled a mass exodus to Arizona, where residents seek relief from onerous mandates. However, despite the advantage to Republican voter registration from migration, the practical effect has been mixed, with close races electing Democrats to powerful statewide offices.
Meanwhile, Chuck DeVore wrote an article for The Federalist back in 2021 about the impact of migration to Texas.
So far, migration has been a net benefit for those who want Texas to remain a red state.
It is no secret that pro-growth policies — low taxes and a light regulatory burden — have propelled population growth in Texas and Florida while the opposite has occurred in California, Illinois, and New York. …When population growth in a state occurs through people moving, it generates fear from natives and established residents that the newcomers will bring their voting habits with them, turning their thriving new red state homes into the failed blue states they abandoned. It’s a popular narrative. In Texas’s case, polling says it’s wrong. …In 2013, the Texas Tribune and UT Austin conducted a poll surveying the political orientation of California expats. The California arrivals were 57 percent conservative compared to 27 percent liberal. “OK,” one might expect Texans to respond skeptically, “But what about the others?” In a 2018 exit poll in the hard-fought U.S. Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz (who had moved to Texas) and then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (a Texas native), natives preferred O’Rourke by plus-3 points whereas movers favored Cruz by plus 15. Cruz won the race by 2.6 percent, meaning that if it were up to people who were Texans by birth, Cruz would have lost reelection. …The Texas Public Policy Foundation has conducted two polls of registered voters to test attitudes between natives and non-natives. Its January 2020 poll of 800 registered voters found native Texans supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 7-point margin compared to transplants, who supported Trump by a 12-point margin.
An article the previous year, however, painted a mixed picture.
Here are some excerpts from Ben Zweig’s column for Revelio Labs.
…we show that the origins of people moving between states is a strong predictor of how the electoral map has changed since 2016. …Based on career transitions provided by Revelio Labs HR data analytics, we can see all of the people that moved states. Georgia, which has gotten bluer since 2016, has been welcoming new migrants from Florida (12%), New York (8%), and California (7%). Ohio, which has gotten redder since 2016, has opened its doors to new faces from Kentucky (13%), Pennsylvania (7%), and Michigan (6%). …The demographic differences between red and blue states is quite stark, with black and white Americans living more in red states, while asian and hispanic Americans live more in blue states. …Very much in line with the election outcomes, we see that white and hispanic voters have grown their concentration in red states, while asian and black voters have grown their concentration in blue states.
And here’s a chart from Mr. Zweig’s column.
I’ll close with an observation.
Professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has been a long-time advocate of having a “welcome wagon” to educate migrants to places like Texas and Florida so that newcomers don’t wreck the policies that made those states successful.
P.S. I have a six-part series on blue-to-red tax migration, which can be accessed here, here, here, here, here, and here.
