The Growing Blue-State Diaspora

New York Times ^ | August 23, 2014 | Robert Gebeloff and David Leonhardt

[reaganaut1]

Californians have moved to Colorado and Nevada. Massachusetts natives have moved to New Hampshire. New Yorkers have moved to North Carolina and Virginia — and, of course, have continued moving to Florida.

Over the last few decades, residents of many traditionally liberal states have moved to states that were once more conservative. And this pattern has played an important role in helping the Democratic Party win the last two presidential elections and four of the last six. The growth of the Latino population and the social liberalism of the millennial generation may receive more attention, but the growing diaspora of blue-state America matters as well.

The blue diaspora has helped offset the fact that many of the nation’s fastest-growing states are traditionally Republican. You can think of it as a kind of race: Population growth in these Republican states is reducing the share of the Electoral College held by traditionally Democratic states. But Democratic migration has been fast enough, so far, to allow the party to overcome the fact that the Northeast and industrial Midwest contain a smaller portion of the country’s population than they once did.

The migration helped President Obama win Colorado, Florida and Virginia in both 2008 and 2012. In 2014, the influx of blue-state natives gives Democrats a better chance to win Senate races in Colorado, Georgia and North Carolina, among other places.

The spread of people born in New York State offers a particularly telling example: Of the 20 million Americans alive today who were born in New York, nearly one in six now live in the South. That would have been almost unthinkable 50 years ago, when the share was one in 25.

[Moonman62]

I imagine the CA GOP is just like the National GOP. They are perfectly happy with Democrats ruling as long as they get their share of the Big Government pie.

[Jewbacca]

“It requires a total reset to eradicate not only those who caused it, but the laws, polices, education system—a top-to-bottom sanitization of the prior libtard existence!”

To my knowledge, it’s never happened.

[SgtHooper]

The closest may have been the American revolution.

[1010RD]

Calling it migration is really misleading. These are the smarter roaches leaving the next for greener pastures because the nest’s they’ve made are dying.

[1010RD]

I thought there was a study that showed that 400K votes swung the election. Had Romney captured those votes he would have captured the Presidency via the EC. I suspect either fraud or a failed GOTV effort. Take your pick or both.