The net migration of people from blue states into red states has not reversed itself, but it did slow down significantly in 2008, as I write in a new column at Esquire, in such a way that could cost the Republicans a couple of electoral votes once things are reallocated in 2012.
This is presumably mostly a matter of the economic crisis, and since both unemployment and, particularly, housing prices are lagging indicators, the trend will presumably perpetuate itself into 2009 and possibly 2010.
I also play around with the far more speculative notion that red states are kind of uncool now -- most people who move long distances do so when they're young, and Republicans are quite unpopular with young people these days. Then again, maybe it's just that Republicans are following Michelle Bachmann's lead and hiding from the Census Bureau. Anyway, you can read the whole piece over there.
6.22.2009
Voting With Their Feet?
@ 2:06 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
35 comments
And what is it when defined by Obama states?
Probably closer to parity. I think people moving from blue states to red states turn red states to blue states. Ex. Virginia. Any data on that, based on 2008?
Even liberal rag Newsweek must admit Obama not keeping promise of transparency
http://www.newsweek.com/id/202875
With plumetting popularity numbers and tens of millions remaining stubbornly unemployed ("Hey, brother, can you spare a Census job?"), it will soon be pretty "uncool" to stand with Odumbo, the proud defender of Sharia law and the subjugation of women!
The only thing transparent about Obama is his hypocrisy!
petekent01 (on twitter)
@Nate: It would be interesting to try to break down these geographical mobility data by age.
I know that in Michigan, for example, the state's highest net outmigration occurs among the younger age groups (18-29). For this reason, the governor has focused on how to make MI cities "cool" in order to retain the valuable human capital that flows out of the state right after college graduation.
For sure, in MI the economy sucks across the age brackets, but the fact that -- as you've pointed out, this same age group is more decidedly Democratic than the older cohorts -- means that MI is probably losing proportionately more Dems than it might lose if outmigration was even across the age spectrum.
Yeah, I find the whole sorting premise somewhat problematic. Some of that might be going on, though how much choice do workers really have? But you've got VA and perhaps NC blueing with immigration. You've got people fleeing the Rust Belt economy, and retirees fleeing the cold for warmer climes; both seem more likely to induce political mixing. (Retirees might lead to sorting on gay marriage, but mixing on Social Security or other pro-government issues.) California *having* outmigration surprises me, and I assume it's part of the dot-com and now housing busts; it's long been a state people moved *to*. (As well as from, infamously to Oregon and Washington, though Colorado seems popular too now, which might explain some politics there.)
Nate,
Can you do something about this:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24025.html
Obama's poll numbers are dropping (allegedly). But I think it's only one or two polls.
Also maybe do a comparison to other presidents at this time. :)
Gimme a break (or at least, show me a brain)...
I've never heard anything in social science analysis to suggest that the voting patterns of an area have anything to do with either in- or out- migration.
Why do you have to post stupid stuff to keep your blog cited at other sites? Why don't you just become TMZ-STATSaremyGOD.com if you want to go that route?
My guess is that what this is showing is the evaporation of the second home market in the Sun Belt, most especially Florida, in the wake of the bursting of the housing bubble. For many middle class people, the heavily mortgaged condo in Sarasota or Vero Beach was a way to claim Florida residency (no income tax) while waiting to flip the place at a profit. When that dream ended, so did much of the growth of the Sun Belt.
Out of all the factors of why people move whether the state is red or blue is pretty near the bottom of the list
is each data point at each year considering that red states and blue states could have changed from yr to yr?
How much of that is people moving from San Francisco to Austin after the dot-com bust? ;-)
You guys are all over extrapilating... All Nate is saying is that there are less people leaving Ohio, Michigan, etc. and going to TX than in the past which means that the projected net gains and losses of house districts will effect the EC. This is because they projected a continuous of migration which is now proving to be wrong. Doesn't mean people are voting any differently or anything.
I'm no expert, but isn't the census used to determine where at least some of the federal money goes?
Perhaps Michelle is on to something. After all Republicans HATE federal money. Maybe all of them should avoid the census.
Can you do something about this:
Translation:
"Nate, can you whip up some manipulated figures to 'prove' this isn't true."
You liberals are rode the popular wave of "statistics don't lie" when they all moved decidedly in your favor, so don't quibble once everything comes crashing down and you are openly mocked in the streets.
“For the 2/3rds of Americans who are satisfied with their coverage today (including many of the uninsured)…”
Why would I want to follow you PK?
You're neither a celebrity nor the least bit intelligent, so follow you I shall not!
Off topic (sorry):
Some interesting stats from MN race stolen from MSNBC:
MINNESOTA SENATE RACE -- By the numbers
$51.1 million raised between Coleman and Franken for the entire campaign
$50.3 million spent between the two candidates
$11 million at least spent on the recount
2,424,946 votes cast
$94,783 Coleman ordered to pay Franken to cover court costs
1974 was the year of the longest Senate recount in history in New Hampshire between Republican Louis Wyman against Democrat John Durkin. The Republican Wyman, struggling in an election year following the Nixon Watergate scandal, led by 355 votes after the votes were first tallied. But Durkin took the unusual step of challenging the election and eventually won by 27,000 votes 316 days later on Sept. 16, 1975, when the state ultimately decided to hold a special election.
$500 an hour for lawyers
312 votes separating the candidates - Franken leads
231 days since Election Day 2008
225 votes that Franken led by after rejected absentees were included -- he added to his total after Coleman rejected absentees were added
215 votes Coleman led by on Election Day 2008
63% of a year since Election Day 2008
33 weeks since Election Day 2008
7 months, 19 days since Election Day 2008
4 seasons seen since Election Day 2008 election
3 Coleman court challenges (at least: state Supreme Court, three-judge panel, attempt to throw out rejected absentees)
I wonder if Nate could predict the winner in a two way run-off (of course prior to all the bad publicity for Coleman)
Oh, and if you haven't seen this from Jib-Jab, it's hilarious.
http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/hes_barack_obama
Its the economy, stupid!
Unemployment is lower in red states, so there has been movement there. It isn't just about unemployment, of course, it also has to do with diffusion. Once upon a time, if you wanted to work in IT you moved to Silicon Valley, or Boston for biotech. America's high tech industries are growing increasingly geographically dispersed, however.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98569
This notion that young people move where it is "cool" is superficial. Yes I know there are some hipsters that want to dumpster dive in Portland, but they can't live there long-term without jobs.
Actually the other part of out-migration that you missed is the old person factor. Old people move where it is warm. Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Arizona have gotten a lot of blue state retirees as the population ages. These are historically red states.
PS. That's $21 per vote WITHOUT including other party candidate contributions.
Reading through the article carefully it's not clear to me that there is any shift in the balance between red-->blue migration compared to blue-->red migration. Although bluered - redblue has decreased somewhat, it happened at the same time that all migration decreased. That is, if all migration went down uniformly (bluered, redblue, redred and blueblue) by 50% due to economic factors, then we would expect bluered - redblue to go down by 50% as well.
Loomisnews,
academia is full of empirical & theoretical studies pertaining to voters "voting with their fee"" check out Tiebout for some of the most appropriate work for this area.
Loomisnews -
I've never heard anything in social science analysis to suggest that the voting patterns of an area have anything to do with either in- or out- migration.text
Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Montana.
They've all had a lot of in-migration from Democratic-voting areas. And they've all become more Democratic-voting in recent elections.
I do NOT claim to have a definitive answer here, but a reasonable hypothesis is that newer residents from Democratic-voting areas continue to vote for the Democrats after their move.
Texas doesn't show the effect as strongly, but most of the in-migration to Texas is immigrant, not intra-US. Immigrants can't vote until they gain citizenship.
Perhaps it is primarily the housing market. In the past people could sell their home in the "blue state" for a profit and move to a lower cost of living "red state". Now they are can't sell the house and don't have a downpayment for that house in the red state.
Why would Bachmann encourage Republicans to avoid the Census. Wouldn't that hurt their representation?
I've never heard anything in social science analysis to suggest that the voting patterns of an area have anything to do with either in- or out- migration.
Again, for those who can't seem to understand, there is no evidence that politics plays any discernible role in whether people move to a state or leave a state.
THe main reasons people move are economic (jobs) and social relationships -- family or friends drawing people to an area.
If someone has some undiscovered lore of literature on this subject please forward it to people in this world.
Packherd said...
Why would Bachmann encourage Republicans to avoid the Census. Wouldn't that hurt their representation?
Actually, she's advocating everyone only fill in the enumeration part of the census - the number of people in the household, but nothing else. I'm hoping a lot of GOOPers hear her saying 'Don't fill out the census form', and follow the instructions they think they hear, thus committing a federal crime, get convicted, spend time in jail, and don't get to vote in a federal election ever again.
Funny thing is, she probably fills in every line of her tax forms with very few second thoughts. There are laws that prohibit revealing an individual's tax return, but there are loopholes after loopholes in those laws, and if someone really wants the information, they almost certainly can gain access within a few weeks, months, or a couple of years at most.
With the census, there is a law that states the individual census returns are kept confidential for 72 years after the census is taken, and there are no loopholes on the release of that information. The next release of census data from which individuals can be identified is in 2012, when the 1940 census forms are released to the public.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
loomisnews said...
I've never heard anything in social science analysis to suggest that the voting patterns of an area have anything to do with either in- or out- migration.
Again, for those who can't seem to understand, there is no evidence that politics plays any discernible role in whether people move to a state or leave a state.
THe main reasons people move are economic (jobs) and social relationships -- family or friends drawing people to an area.
So when people emigrated from Europe to the US, they stopped observing their religion? Why do we have Catholic churches where Irish, Italians, Poles, etc., settled? Why so many Lutheran churches where Swedes, Danes and Norwegians settled? Why so many Orthodox churches where Greeks, Russians, Serbs, etc., settled?
Same way with political beliefs. The person moves, they keep their political beliefs for the most part. The Greeks in Baltimore had a major schism during the 1930s over whether Greek-Americans should support the monarchists or the anti-monarchists 'back home in Greece.' It caused so many problems, the Greek Orthodox church in Baltimore split, and it was the late 1950s/early 1960s before the split was healed.
Some states that have experienced a LOT of net in-migration from Northern and other 'blue' states (and thus the people moving into those states are keeping their 'blue state' politics):
Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Montana.
Guess what? Those states are now a less red than they have been for decades, and most of them actually voted for the Democratic Party Presidential candidate for the first time in decades!
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
loomisnews-
Oppenheimer hypothesized sorting based on factors other than partisanship but correlated to it in a chapter in the last edition of Congress Reconsidered (8th edition, I believe). And, there's that Big Sort book (forget the author).
Of course, neither of those (there are others in the same vein) argue that politics => moving. As a causal factor, I would think that its real but fantastically tiny.
However, other things can certainly be correlated with it. I had a buddy who moved to Texas specifically because it has no income tax (he's a libertarian). I know my wife hates living behind the "Orange Curtain" (Orange County, CA) because her coworkers were religious conservatives (that said, we haven't moved, but we're not averse to the idea). But the arugment Oppenheimer makes is that all these things that ARE reasons why we move (jobs being #1) are increasingly correlated with partisanship. While that makes sense to me, I'm not sure the data support it...I haven't seen anyone trying occupation as a variable since the old sociological theories from the 50s/60s, but what little I've played with in the NES hasn't turned up much interesting.
i don't believe that Loomis is saying that migration has no effect on the politics of the affected states. He is saying that politics is not the primary motivator in why people move.
I wonder how much of this trend can be explained by the uneven distribution of the net swing in unemployment in the past two years. People obviously move where the jobs are, and for the past few years, FL, AZ and NV (Bush states all in 2004) had some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Young people (myself included) followed those jobs south and west.
Now the sunbelt states have around or above the national unemployment rate, so a lot of those kids have moved back home to mom and dad (myself excluded, thank god!)
I bet if you look at the states with the greatest swing in unemployment from 2006-2008, you'll see that they are in 2004 Bush states and that this explains most of the reverse migration pattern.
Also, to loomisnews, here is a link to the wikipedia entry on Tiebout sorting, which is basically the idea that people move into areas based on the level of taxation and government service that suits them best (i.e. political ideology):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiebout_model
Revelant excerpt:
"Tiebout describes municipalities within a region as offering varying baskets of goods (government services) at a variety of prices (tax rates). Given that individuals have differing personal valuations on these services and varying ability to pay the attendant taxes, individuals will move from one local community to another until they find the one which maximizes their personal utility. The model states that through the choice process of individuals, jurisdictions and residents will determine an equilibrium provision of local public goods in accord with the tastes of residents, thereby sorting the population into optimum communities."
Andy,
Even when you consider Tiebout sorting, the main reason people move from one jurisdiction to another (especially moves of several hundred miles and/or across several states) is for economic reasons, be it a new job with a new employer, or a promotion with the same employer; OR
for retirement.
Normally the Tiebout sorting (again, especially when the move is of several hundred miles and/or across several states) would be a consequence of the move for economic reasons.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Mike in Md, good post about those keeping their politics when they move elsewhere.
Two points I'd like to make.
First, I can add New Hampshire to your list of "blueing" states. In the last 5 years, this state has switched from Red to Blue in the following ways:
(a) voted for president
(b) both U.S. House members
(c) one U.S. Senate seat
(d) governor
(e) both houses of its state legislature
Only Colorado and Virginia come close to this conversion. From what I have read, NH has become Blue from the many people moving into southern New Hampshire (i.e. Nashua area) from the Boston, MA, area while still working in nearby Boston.
Second, I do not recall where I read this, perhaps on this website last year, but the most popular zip code given for the former zip code of people moving to Colorado (not sure if it is statewide or a locality) was one in Los Angeles, California.
polls_apart said...
i don't believe that Loomis is saying that migration has no effect on the politics of the affected states. He is saying that politics is not the primary motivator in why people move
Exactly.
People don't move because of political considerations; they move because of jobs or social relationships. Period.
The Tiebout model has been a market theory that's been searching in vain for proof for over 50 years. It's fallen apart on every key point -- available info to people to make a move, that fragmentation produces competition and efficiency between local gov'ts, moves matching up the models predictions, that people in fragmented systems have more info than those in a centralized system, etc.
so advocates simply redefine their failures as the level of proof they need. The only "proofs" its acolytes can point to are the tautological traps that economists fall into all the time -- "my theory doesn't work so I'll just relax the assumptions and the standards. Voila!"
Like many economic theories, it assumes a can opener on a deserted island and Voila! We're saved!
Except the Tiebout can opener(s) don't exist. People don't have perfect knowledge about taxes and services, they can't easily move from community to community, there's a multi-decennial lag between new people moving into an area and getting their needs met (therefore that should affect migration), etc. They can't prove any part of it with real world data, so it's taken on faith.
It's a theory driven by ideology, not facts. Therefore MinMd's nonsensical response:
So when people emigrated from Europe to the US, they stopped observing their religion? Why do we have Catholic churches where Irish, Italians, Poles, etc., settled? etc. etc. etc
actually makes sense -- you gotta have faith in the market, since the evidence won't ever back you up.
Neither Tiebout nor any of his acolytes can deny that people move primarily for jobs or family relationships. Unlike this model, those motivators have empirical data behind them. They just ignore and dismiss them as readily as any of the commentators here touting the Tiebout model.
So "Voting with their Feet" is as nonexistent as the Tiebout can opener. No one is moving from a red state to a blue state (or vice-a-versa) because of politics, anymore than the US lost liberals to Canada from 2000-2008, or that it's getting US conservatives moving there now.
What they do/how they vote once they move (for the other reasons people actually move in the real world) is another story, ala the people who moved to the northern Virginia counties.
But I was wrong when I said there was nothing in social science analysis to suggest that the voting patterns of an area have anything to do with either in- or out- migration.
What I should have said there's nothing anyone with a brain should really take seriously. Outside of the brilliant geniuses who gave us the Chicago school of free marketeers, that is. They are insidious.
loomisnews,
When you quote/paraphrase people, do NOT distort what they stated to fit YOUR predilections, peccadilloes and preconceived ideas.
What I stated is that the vast majority of people making a move IS for employment reasons. What I also tried to illustrate is that when people move, they don't drop their previous beliefs (especially religious and political) and pick up new beliefs in the new location.
How many people who emigrated from Europe to the US left their religious beliefs in Europe and adopted the prevailing beliefs of the area they moved into in the colonies/states? Not many, otherwise there would be NO Christians, Jews, Muslims or any other religion that originated or predominated in Europe, Asia or Africa in the Americas (North or South), Australia or Oceania.
And that same situation also holds for political beliefs. When I lived in Indiana, I was a liberal. When I moved to Maryland, I remained a liberal.
When a conservative OR liberal moves from one state to another, their basic political beliefs almost always remain the same, even if the area they move to has dramatically different viewpoints. I have had several co-workers who moved from politically conservative areas to much more liberal areas. Almost without exception, they kept their conservative political viewpoints.
You can take your comment that my "nonsensical response: [religious belief discussion] . . . actually makes sense -- you gotta have faith in the market, since the evidence won't ever back you up" and do what I've already invited PK and others to do - go tweet yourself.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
It's nonsensical, and your next rant on it is nonsensical squared, because I'm talking about what causes people to move
and
you're bound and determined to pick a fight over what people do after they move.
You might try to read comments you try to rip. Please take notes if you can't keep up, you won't make such a waste of baudwidth.
Post a Comment