Many observers of the increasingly partisan American political landscape believe the nation has not been this divided since at least the Vietnam war era, with some going so far as to suggest the time period of the War Between The States is a more relevant comparison. Indeed, talk of secession has become more frequent over much of the last decade.
Some Republicans in Texas wanted to split during the Obama regime, many liberals in California wish to separate since the Trump administration assumed power, and libertarians living in or moving to New Hampshire desire to break away from the Union regardless of which party is nominally in power.
In that context, then, come the results of a new survey by Redfin, a real estate brokerage in Chicago, which found that more people moved from “blue” (Democratic) counties to “red” (Republican) counties in the first half of 2017 than from red to blue counties.
Overall, 7.4 percent more people moved out of blue counties than to them. Red counties, in comparison, saw about 1 percent more people moving in than moving out. In more evenly balanced “purple” counties, 3.9 percent more migrants moved in than out.
The trend is more pronounced among swing states, where counties with more Democratic voters lost 9.2 percent more people than they gained. Republican counties, meanwhile, gained 2.3 percent more than they lost. Swing counties in these states saw 1.8 percent more people move in than out.
This is happening for two major reasons, according to Nela Richardson, Redfin’s chief economist. The first is economic. “Housing is becoming less available and less affordable in America’s largest urban counties, almost all of which are blue,” she said. “The second is a longer trend of the self-sorting of Americans by lifestyle and political partisanship, resulting in political polarization.”