Powerline 3/20/2026
The most important contemporary phenomenon for our politics and, perhaps, for the future of our country is the ongoing sorting of our citizens into red and blue states. The dynamic is pretty simple: people are leaving blue states for red states, with the single exception of those whose first priority is lavish welfare benefits, who therefore seek out blue states. This might seem like a terrible deal for the blue states, and of course it is, in the long term.
But meanwhile, things are not all bad for Democratic politicians. They are getting rid of a lot of pesky businessmen and others who tend to vote against them, and are replacing those exiles with welfare-dependent voters who have little choice but to support the party that is writing them checks. Even the dullest-witted Democratic politician can chart the rate of his state’s decline against his own schedule for retirement. At that point, who cares? Apres moi, as someone once said, le deluge.
There are two data sources on movement of people from state to state. The Census Bureau releases the raw numbers each year, but with little information about who is going where. The IRS data are much more informative–they tell you the age of the people moving and the income of the household’s main taxpayer. So you can tell who is moving from place to place. Unfortunately, the IRS releases data more sporadically, not necessarily every year. Happily, it has just put out its data for the year 2023; that is, the people who moved between 2022 and 2023.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity has compiled the numbers:
More:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/03/blue-flight-continues-apace.php