Yes, red states are attracting blue-state voters. But they don't stay red.
Red states offer lower housing costs, lower taxes, and less regulation than blue states. That's why so many blue-state voters are moving to the West or South. In the short term, the red states gain power. in the longer term, they change.
Red states offer lower housing costs, lower taxes, and less regulation than blue states. That's why so many blue-state voters are moving to the West or South. In the short term, the red states gain power. in the longer term, they change.
An unsigned聽American Interest聽article titled 鈥淩ed States Eat Blue States鈥� Lunch鈥� reports:
While the coastal cities have several advantages 鈥� among which are the coasts themselves 鈥� there鈥檚 an attractive value to more space, lower housing costs, lower taxes, and less regulation. (Indeed, searching for images for this post, I鈥檝e stumbled on related stories like 鈥淚s Life Better in America鈥檚 Red States?鈥� in the聽NYT聽from January and 鈥�1,000 People a Day: Why Red States Are Getting Richer and Blue States Poorer鈥� from the聽Heritage Foundation聽from June.)
But here鈥檚 the thing: While the near-term political effect of this has been to increase the power of red states, the longer term impact has been to turn them into purple and even blue states. First, by definition, the in-migrants to these cities and states are from somewhere else. While some are coming from the rural areas and poorer red states, many are coming from the Rust Belt and even the coasts. That brings with it 鈥� again, by definition 鈥� more cultural diversity and less provincialism. Second, clustering of high talent, high-earning individuals brings with it an increased desire for infrastructure and regulation to accommodate the new metropolis. And, given that someone has to pay for that, increased taxes come with that. 聽Indeed, as Richard Florida notes in the above-linked NYT piece that 鈥渧oters in four red states 鈥� Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Arkansas 鈥� supported referendums in November to raise their state minimum wage. And not just by a little. Controlling for the cost of living, they will have wage floors that are higher than those of many blue states.鈥�
Indeed, most if not all of the cities listed in the WSJ piece (Houston, Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio, Charlotte, Atlanta, Tampa, and Orlando) are purple if not already blue. The same holds true of many states on the list. Florida is a classic swing (purple) state, but it鈥檚 gone blue the last two cycles plus 1996 and 1976;聽in most cases, the margin has been thin either way. North Carolina went for Obama in 2008 (if just barely, 50 to 49) and just barely snapped back into the red column in 2012 (50 to 48). Georgia has mostly been red but went blue in 1992, 1980, and 1976 鈥� albeit with a native son (Jimmy Carter) on the ticket in the last two. Arizona is perhaps the only true red state on the list, having voted Republican聽in all modern presidential elections save 1996 and has actually increased its margins in recent years.
My own home state of Virginia isn鈥檛 on the list because its growth spurt happened a decade earlier, surging in response to an explosion of jobs in the tech and government-related sectors. It remained loyally red even through the Carter and Clinton aberrations, when many Southern states voted for a Southern Democrat. Yet it鈥檚 gone for Obama the last two cycles and has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators now. The trend is too small but we鈥檙e at best purple and quite arguably blue at this point. And that鈥檚 mostly a function of a mass influx into the Northern Virginia region that鈥檚 within commuting distance of DC; the rest of Virginia is still the Deep South.
James Joyner is editor of the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.