It’s Time To Stop Regurgitating Nonsense About Blue State Transplants And Get to Work

As usual, I bring the numbers to make my case as to why preventing a pink state from forming is your real mission

The last two states I’ve lived in have been heavily populated by expat Californians in recent decades. Both Texas and Arizona have grown substantially from out-of-state transplants viewing these decades-old GOP presidential strongholds as political safe havens, and the associated residential developments have vastly expanded Austin, DFW, Phoenix, and all significant cities and suburban areas on the map. Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, and some Rocky Mountain states are other favorites for those looking to put down roots somewhere that doesn’t despise them, and some of the new host states handle growth better than others.

I felt too many of Texas’s urban areas were unlivable and lacking in originality thanks to the speed of growth, and on the other hand, Florida handles this growth well. Each popular receiving state may have a different fiscal picture, ranging from property taxes that kill to increasingly expensive housing; however, one thing all these red states taking on hordes of newcomers have in common is that they all worry movement from blue states is going to turn them into exactly what their new residents left. Hence this hilarious meme:

I used to crack California jokes, but Mitch Clemmons (my favorite California freedom fighter) chewing me a new one, plus my knowledge of just how bad California rigs its elections with Automatic Voter Registration, Universal Mail-In Voting, and Count ‘Til Christmas has softened my stance and even forced an admission of guilt:

California’s processes of automatically registering voters have further destroyed the integrity and believability of all elections in the Golden State. Even with the manipulation of the voter rolls, and the Democrats extending the registration advantage once again, California became a point more Republican in the fraudulent results than it was in 2016.

California is losing population thanks to government abuse, and We The People are to believe that the people who destroyed it are still yet to peak in California as a political power? To believe that twice as many Democrats registered in Trump’s term than in any four-year period before, while the Republican incumbent gained over 1.5 million new votes, with many coming from loyal Democrat voters who prospered during his term? That Joe Biden dwarfed Trump’s and Obama’s totals for net new votes and won California by a million more votes than Clinton did?

I am going to put the fear of Californian transplants to bed. Yes, I think Californians killed off Red Colorado, but that was already well underway two decades ago, and couldn’t have happened without existing suburbanites changing sides and the Colorado GOP committing ritual seppuku over a variety of issues as the state turned itself into a refuge for recreational drug use and sucky craft beer.

On Friday, I was going back and forth with Idaho legislator Clint Hostetler, himself a California refugee. Clint passed me a link from the Idaho Secretary of State for my opinion, and as I clicked around the site, I found a tab allowing me to view the party registration for voters who have moved to Idaho from other states. Granted, this is Trump +36.5% Idaho, so California transplants to your more modestly red state probably don’t skew as heavily right as Idaho’s; you’ll get the drift of this article if you keep reading.

The home screen to the interstate portal brings you to a map of the other 49 states. I don’t know how far back the portal tracks records, but a big sample of 127,413 voters (as of today) is present. The saturation of red shows the strength of Republican Party registration from each state, and wouldn’t you know it, California clearly has the deepest shade of red of any state. While much weaker, even pinko states Massachusetts and Vermont send more Republicans to Idaho than Democrats.

Let’s dig deeper. Here is a map of 42,325 Californian refugees by former city:

Deep red everywhere you look, with only a few light blue bubbles visible. One represents San Francisco, which is sending a D+12% sample to Idaho:

While that may irritate you, you should remember that San Francisco County is D+54.7% by party registration today, with only 7.7% of the enrollment registered as Republican. Even hippie commune Santa Cruz is in positive territory for sending more Republicans than Democrats to Idaho. Here is Los Angeles, coming in at a hefty R+18%:

From other states, we can also assess how much of a threat is posed by key hives of left-wing religious devotion.