(MarketWatch) So, what’s wrong with New York, California and Illinois?
If you ask somebody from any number of red states, they’ll likely you tell you “plenty.” And the latest numbers from the Census Bureau would suggest they’re not wrong, considering some 3.2 million more people left those blue states than came in from other states from 2010 through 2019.
Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a conservative think tank in Dallas, said the data confirms what he’s been saying for years: “Voters around the country are concluding it’s better to be red than dead.”
The blue-state exodus gains momentum https://t.co/iicrnC7lm3
— Merrill Matthews (@MerrillMatthews) January 10, 2020
In a recent opinion piece he wrote for the Hill, Matthews described how voters are increasingly fed up with higher taxes, heavy regulations and the rise of social “wokeness.” These, he said, have come to characterize most blue states.
Matthews cited Election Data Services analysts of Census data in saying that the population shift points to a 10-congressional-seat change over 17 states across the country by the end of the current year.
Specifically, Texas is expected to pick up three seats; Florida two; and Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon one each. Each of these 10 states is projected to shed one seat: Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
But there’s also potential downside for the Republican Party.
Some of the people leaving traditionally blue states “appear to drag their pro-big-government philosophy with them,” Matthews said.
