Another Great Migration?

How will post-COVID population trends shape our politics?

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128
A U-Haul truck travels along Interstate 10 in California. The state, along with other blue states, has seen increased rates of people moving away. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

Appetizer

Today is a BIG day in our politics. History making. And not necessarily in a good way. Nope, I’m not talking about that. In fact, I decided that if you wanted to read about that, you have plenty of other options. If you want my thoughts on that, you can read them here. But this newsletter ain’t doing it.

So where were we? Oh yes! The Wisconsin Supreme Court election that is being held today. By last count, the race has sucked in more than $45 million, which isn’t just more than any other Supreme Court race in our country’s history—it’s three times more. The ads are ubiquitous as they are vicious. And the two candidates in this “nonpartisan” primary—liberal Janet Protasiewicz and conservative Daniel Kelly—aren’t covering themselves in judicial glory. 

Any potential judge isn’t supposed to prejudge the outcome of any case that could appear before them, but as Reid Epstein at the New York Times reported back in February:

Judge Protasiewicz has pioneered what may be a new style of judicial campaigning. She has openly proclaimed her views on abortion rights (she’s for them) and the state’s legislative maps (she’s against them).

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I’ll bet your son was saying, “‘What?’ is a question.” And then he was puzzled when you seemed not to understand that…

    Are you all that economically conservative, though? How do you feel about, say, healthcare? Or the minimum wage? Or Paul Ryan’s plans to balance the budget and reduce the debt and deficit? Or the free market and economic inequality?

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    Mike Doden

    The only political affiliation truly missing these days is economically conservative / socially (fill in the blank).

    I myself am mostly conservative in both parts (honestly more libertarian - except on abortion where I would be considered very conservative). I lived in California my whole 40 years of life minus a short education stint in DC - and when I say California I mean San Francisco, LA, and the coast. We moved out to North Carolina during Covid mainly for cost of living and overall better quality of life - but two years later we are moving back, dreading the cost and downscale in quality of life - but for one reason: family. At the end of the day, for most people community will trump all else, except when that community is dysfunctional or painful to them.

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      Ben Connelly

      I’m probably in a similar boat to you. Economically conservative and when it comes to social issues: libertarian from a legal standpoint and conservative from a moral/religious standpoint, except on abortion where I’d be considered very conservative. It seems that economic conservatism/libertarianism is increasingly unpopular and that’s why it is “truly missing” as you say. However, I think within a generation or two we will see a reverse of that.

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    2. Rdtomasello51

      Same here except I am a generation older than you. Lived in Minnesota and Europe for a while but returned to the Bay Area because most of our family and friends we are close too still live here. I am basically centrist with varying degrees of conservative and liberal attitudes on social, economic and military matters. They are the glue that keep my wife and I , both native California's here
      But should that shift greatly, we would consider leaving. As you say, community is what binds us together. When that splinters, we, at least, will have a sense of uncertainty and some tension about our place in society
      Believe me, the older you are the more urgency there is to have that familial bond.

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  3. Dr4146

    I'm also curious about how domestic migration affects politics in people's origin states. Many emigrants of Michigan, Ohio, etc. are young adults who went to colleges once established to provide the brainpower for the industrial heartland. These young, college-educated people found jobs in the newly-industrialized South, making Michigan and Ohio one vote redder at a time as they renounce the voter registration of their birth states.

    One of my family members who is still in New York is adamant that the voters Zeldin needed to win moved to Florida or the Carolinas years ago and domestic migration cost him the election.

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  4. Bstarr

    I think the shift within sub-populations (Asian and Hispanic drifting to the right; Rust Belt maybe sliding back toward Dems) is more meaningful than state to state migration. Democrats have a bigger problem in the House which is how heavily their base lives within urban centers which makes for difficult district drawing in purple states.

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  5. Jennifer Stanowski

    Well, I think alot of folks were economically conservative, before they started collecting social security. And socially liberal when that meant they were okay with women having a job outside of teacher/nurse/secretary.

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    O.W.L.

    With some exceptions (upstate New York, Louisiana, rural Texas) it looks to me like the outward migration is driven more by housing prices than by anything else. We migrated out of Seattle before COVID because we no longer had to live there because of our jobs. We sold our house for twice what we paid for a nicer house in a better neighborhood in a small city in the red part of Washington. Our politics are solidly center-left. In Seattle we were relatively conservative. Out here, we are middle of the road. There is a very loud, very Trumpy wing here but it is about 20% of the population. I find we have more in common with the people that have been driven out of the county GOP when the crazies took over.

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    Dan Baldwin

    In the spirit of this piece: I moved 800 miles away, and stayed away, from my family because I am estranged from them. They are hardcore small-c conservatives, reluctantly voted for Trump both times, and would (very reluctantly) vote for him again and his entire platform simply because they can't stand cosmopolitan liberal Democrats--which is what I am.
    I can't change their minds, they will never accept me as I am as a matter of personal principle, and things got even worse after my wife died. They were very much of the mindset that one grieves for a year, and then moves on. As I have given them no grandchildren and am infertile, they view me as an embarrassment and "too sensitive for your own good". My parents would prefer I give up my life now, move back home into their basement as a 46 year old man, take a job at my brother-in-law's company, and take care of them in their rural desert home because my life is a failure (no wife, no children, and poor political decisions).

    There are plenty of other people in my age bracket who share similar predicaments. We are in exile from our families of origin due to politics and differences in social expectations, and must remain so.

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    1. Jgwadman

      It is sad when something as fleeting and silly as politics drives people, especially families apart, I've seen it happen in my own family. Having had a similar experience, as you, with my parents, although it was alcohol and abuse that caused the estrangement, from personal experience, and the encouragement of my wife, I worked to forgive and make peace with my parents before they died. (and it was work, definitely not as easy as it sounds, a lot of personal hate, anger, and animosity to face and overcome) My siblings did not and they are still suffering the ill effects decades later. My suggestion, try to fix the estrangement before it is no longer an option. Good luck.

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  8. Pundette

    I don't think migration will turn red states purple, but red states will get redder and blue states will get bluer. Diehard liberal Californians and New Yorkers are not the ones moving to Texas and Florida. Rather it's the frustrated residents of Stockton and upstate New York who are making their way to where their voices might actually be heard.

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    1. Andrew W.

      Plenty of diehard liberals are moving to Austin. Austin, and frankly all of the big Texas cities, are very liberal friendly. Don't also diminish the impact of high taxes. I know of plenty of Illinosians and Californians who may have been considered conservative where they lived, but are still more socially liberal than the average in the places where they have moved to (be it Texas, Florida or Wyoming).

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      Mudskipper

      I am a retired liberal Californian. I currently live in a 2-bedroom townhome with a very small backyard that is worth about $1.2 million dollars. I just took a peek at Austin real estate and apparently I could buy a similarly sized home in square feet on a much larger lot for under $500K.

      If I didn't have enough money to see my way through retirement until death, I might well pick up stakes and move to Austin or some even cheaper city in Texas. The extra $500K in my pocket could mean a lot in terms of retirement security. And, yeah, I'd be taking my politics with me.

      So why don't I move? Because, as I said, I think I have enough money. Because I happen to love the community I am in--nestled as a I am between a lovely redwood forest and the ocean. Because, most important of all, I have a network of friends and a family member who live here. (Although, if I'm honest here, laziness plays a good part too.) Politics are way down on the list of why I don't move to a cheaper red state.

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    3. Nordic_man

      I don’t think that is entirely true. I think people are fleeing the blue state housing crunch. I know multiple dyes in the wool Massachusetts dems moving south because they started families and want a house and daycare that isn’t half their paycheck as a doctor.

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        O.W.L.

        Yup. People don't upend their lives for politics, unless they are the less than 1% of the population that runs for office. It's housing, and by extension, cost of living. If you have to move 50 miles out to afford a house, that will make everything cost more: gas, daycare (more time away from home), needing two cars because of no public transit....

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        1. Jgwadman

          The thing that make no sense to me is, it is the liberal policy choices that create the high cost of living in places like California (which is where I live). To move to a low cost place and then vote for all of the same policies that create the high cost regulatory morass just seems counterintuitive.
          But then again most people think there is no cost to having the government solve all of the problems of the world while keeping it free. There is nothing so expensive as a free government solution.

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  9. Mary Stine

    So what is your preferred method of determining who is fit for judgeship, Sara? Appointments by a panel of other judges and lawyers with the electorate only able to vote them out, not in? ("shall Judge T. Marshall be retained??" ) That seems reasonable, or at least more so than letting those of us who are not trained in the law pick someone who might actually be trained but lazy, poorly skilled or just plain nuts.
    But I'd like to know your alternatives to elections.

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  10. Kaybmorrow

    As a life long Republican, when did the Pro Life movement begin? Don’t remember this issue in the 50s or 60s. Think it lost a lot of conservatives.

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      O.W.L.

      It was a fringy Catholic thing until the mid 1970's. Here's a pretty good history: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44195373. I don't remember it being particularly partisan until the Moral Majority years when Republicans used it to bring Evangelicals into their party.

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      1. Kaybmorrow

        Thanks

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      Porouke

      Short answer: January 22, 1973 and it built from there.

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