Of the many self-inflicted dooms besetting the Democratic Party, the blue state exodus gets talked about far less than Trump Derangement Syndrome or the radical wokeness destroying the party (along with everything else it touches). But for a party that once crowed about “demographic destiny” making them the “permanent majority party,” the shifting demographics of people fleeing blue states due to lousy governance, and the resulting shift in electoral votes, is going make Democrats winning the presidency much more difficult in 2032.
“There is a year that should absolutely terrify Democrats. It’s not 2024 or 2026 or even 2028. It’s 2032.”
“The population movement right now is a flashing red warning sign for Democrats. The reason is the 2030 reapportionment. Every ten years, the US conducts the census. One big thing done with that data is the recalculation of how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives, and how many votes it gets in the Electoral College. And those numbers move in tandem. You gain two House seats. You gain two electoral votes. If you lose a House seat, you lose an electoral vote.”
“Democratic states are losing population and Republican states are gaining.”
“Here’s one way to think about it. In 2020, Joe Biden won* a 306 to 232 victory in the Electoral College. Then, after 2020, the census was finished and representation was reallocated for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election. Under the new map, winning those same states would have shrunk Biden’s victory margin by six electoral votes to 303 to 235.”
“The next census will happen in 2030, and the map will again change for the 2032 presidential election. And right now, the outlook for that map is a disaster for Democrats.”
“Blue states like California and New York shedding House seats and electoral votes, and red states like Texas and Florida gaining four new electoral votes and House seats each.”
“In 2024, Donald Trump won a 312 to 226 victory in the Electoral College. Under this projection, the exact same state and vote breakdown would swell that margin by 20 electoral votes to 322 to 216.”
“Right now the wind is absolutely blowing away from Democratic controlled states and towards Republican controlled ones. And it’s worth asking why.”
“The red areas of the country are becoming a bigger and bigger share of the pie, and it gets to a flashing red problem for Democrats, both for their political survival and brand identity.”
“For the most part, it is expensive as hell to live in a blue area governed by Democrats. The data is clear eight of the ten states with the highest rent prices are solid blue states, and eight of the ten states with the highest cost of living index are also solid blue states.”
“Having a high GDP or on-paper prosperity doesn’t mean much when most people can’t afford their lives.”
“So why are blue cities and states in such an affordability crisis right now? Well, to start, obviously we’re all thinking it 1, 2, 3: taxes. It’s just the fact that Democratic controlled states tend to impose higher tax rates. Sometimes that means taxes that some GOP states don’t even have, like the income tax.”
“Culture is another part. By now it’s clear that Covid in 2020 presented a particular challenge for blue states and cities. Many of which, took a much softer approach to urban disorder and unrest and are still trying to reverse the damage.”
“On a lot of stuff, Democrats also just tend to be more lax or more compassionate, depending on your point of view.”
“The upside might be that a homeless person is treated with more dignity, or you won’t get thrown in jail just for having a bag of marijuana. But the downside might be that now a public park is inaccessible to families wanting to use it, or people are doing hard drugs on the street without the law intervening, which isn’t actually compassionate to anyone.”
“But more than taxes or culture or anything else. The overwhelming majority of this issue stems from one big fact: housing. It has just become really expensive for people to buy or rent a place to live in many blue states. By any conceivable metric, the US overall is in an affordable housing crisis right now. The average renting American now spends over 30% of their income on rent. The ratio of income to housing prices is at a record high right now, and at its highest in blue states.”
“And we have clear data showing us that this has now become a direct drag on Democrats. An NBC analysis of the 2024 presidential race found that Trump made his biggest gains in the counties that have the worst housing markets. Remember those top ten most expensive states and how eight of them were blue states? Five of those eight were also in the ten states that swung the most towards Trump in 2024.”
“And even when people don’t move out of a blue city or state, the people that stay are increasingly reacting to the high cost of living. By losing faith in the Democratic Party. Again, especially middle and working class people. It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s biggest gains in 2024 were in diverse, working class congressional districts in California and the New York City area, places where the Democratic Party has full control and has failed to address the cost of living.”
“But we also know that there is a way to address this in cities, mainly because many blue cities in red states have done it. Take Austin, which is the seat of a county that voted for Kamala Harris by almost 40 points. It’s seen explosive growth over the past 15 years, partly because the city and state have been very successful in making housing more affordable. That’s not because every landlord there suddenly became a socialist or because they banned Blackrock, but because they fundamentally just built more housing, making more space and lowering the prices.” The City of Austin government proper had very little to do with that, though I’m sure it’s several orders of magnitude easier to build apartment buildings here than in San Francisco, and you see them going up all the time. But Austin is surrounding by bedroom communities in far more growth-friendly counties, and Texas beats the hell out of California for pro-growth policies.
“That’s the kind of thing that makes families move there, companies open there, students stay there. And remember, each one of those people is a tiny little piece of building another electoral vote every ten years. By contrast, cities like New York and LA and San Francisco and Boston are in an absolutely different spot. It is simply incredibly expensive to live there.”
“The Democratic Party sees its political power decrease when fewer people live in the states that it controls, but it is the policies of its own politicians which are preventing more people from living in them.”
The only “growth” that blue state politicians seem to embrace is that of their own bank accounts and the ranks of illegal aliens—the same illegal aliens that drive up the cost of housing for ordinary, non-subsidized citizens. The bluer the city or state, the more likely they are to pursue actively anti-growth policies on the assumption that more people equal more destruction of the environment. And how can Democrats create safe cities when the Soros-backed Democrats they elect are determined to keep violent felons on the street as long as they hail from designated victim groups?
How can Democrats pursue pro-growth policies when so many core ideological constituents are anti-growth?