“If blue state policies work so well, why do their residents leave — and support the same policies that caused them to leave? “
In the vernacular, this is what’s called moving after you’ve crapped up your own nest! The problem is the timeline quoted in the doesn’t go back far enough. Until Jerry the Fairy became governor here in California for the first time (back when he was knocking boots with Linda Ronstadt), this state had been solid Republican. But the westward migration of the Liberal Trash from the Northeast had finally reached critical mass here back then, and this state has been forever transformed. Now “native-born” Coloradans and other Western states are pi$$ed off at California because they see our state’s liberals moving back to their states because they’re not happy with the outcome that their original migration brought. And, as some here have pointed out, this “migratory crap” probably doesn’t even make the connection between their “liberal feelings” and the reality of what they wrought here.
My family moved to California from the New York area about the time you mentioned....circa 1974. California gained additional Republican voters when my family moved there (to Santa Barbara).
I lived in California for 16 years and there was no shortage of native-born California twenty-something and thirty-something voters who were proud liberals and voted as such.
You also can’t discount illegal immigration.....once the anchor babies reach voting age, they’re overwhelmingly voting for the rats.
Then there’s the liberal teachers, brainwashing the next generation of voters with their leftist agenda.