The U.S. Census Bureau just released its annual state-by-state data on population trends. The statistics cover from mid-2004 to mid-2005. The five fastest growing states are Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Florida, Utah. The states losing population are Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and, if you bizarrely count DC as a state as the Census Bureau does, the District of Columbia. Notice something? The states growing the fastest are red states. All of the states declining in population are blue states.

I noticed something else. All of the states declining in population have high abortion rates. Save for Florida, the top five states gaining in population have among the lowest abortion rates. One of the reasons liberal hotbeds are getting smaller is that residents of such locales are more apt to abort their children than, say, residents of Utah or Idaho. High taxes and exorbitant housing prices certainly contribute to the shrinking populations of northeastern urban centers, but not as directly as abortion. If activist liberals truly want blue states to gain back political clout, a good strategy would include protesting the abortuaries that decimate the populations of such Democratic strongholds as Washington, DC and New York City. But I guess liberals would no longer be liberals if they did this. Such are the self-preservation dilemmas of cannibals.

All in all, this sounds like good news to me. It would seem to indicate that the people leaving the "blue" states are going TO the "red" states, which would tend to indicate, in turn, that many people find it unbearable living among liberals and putting up with the intellectually stifling atmoshpere they create. I would venture it's perhaps a combination of this and a decline in the birth rate due to abortion, as you've guessed, Dan. I'm more inclined to think it's the exodus of the living than it is the snuffing out of the unborn, though. I live in Oklahoma and one thing I've noticed, especially during the eighties and nineties, but a continuous trend, as well, has been the exodus of conservative-minded people to Oklahoma from California, the bastion of liberalism. I'm sure there are other red states that, like Oklahoma, suck away population from blue states, due to those who can't stand to remain residents of them. To be fair, one reason I've heard cited for Californians moving to Oklahoma is to escape the high cost of housing in California, which makes sense, given that Oklahoma has the fourth lowest housing cost in the nation. But, among those in California diaspora are those who also have cited (to me, anyway) that they couldn't take the moral and political climate in California, either.

Eventually, the only groups that will be left in Taxachusetts with be rich liberals and poor and/or immigrant. It will be interesting to see what happens when the tax base that is the backbone of those who pay for all of the utopian social programs for the layabouts in this state shift from middle to upper middle and upper. People who have money are pretty smart with their money and will not want to be in a position to bear the burden. Romney was smart.

So, wait, there's an exodus BACK to Oklahoma from California? Funny how everything balances out.

Has been for some time, now, Homer. It goes in spurts, though. Some of it is "back to" Oklahoma, in that, it is families who once lived here and are returning after so many years of living on the left coast. But, some of it consists of Californians who have realized that Oklahoma is a better place to live, for several reasons. Anyone escaping the left coast has nowhere to go but east. Hawaii is even worse.

I remember hearing in the mid seventies how taxachusetts was going to try to solve their swollen social welfare state by making those benefits just a little harder to get. They assumed that the number of workers would rise but instead the vagabonds just moved on to a "better" state.

P.S. Still waiting Dan. Chris

Mass. is a mess. State can't get enough money fast enough to spend on government projects and social programs. And as the dumba$$ liberals keep voting for the same people and those people become or continue to be complacent and comfortable knowing that they can do what they want, there is no semblance of fiscal responsibility because....IT ISN'T THEIR MONEY THAT THEY'RE SPENDING!!!

Maybe I'm mistaken, but the reason the population is increasing in states like Nevada, Arizona, Utah etc is because of mass immigration. Far from boding well for the Republica Party, it might indicate that liberals will eventually acquire a presidential monopoly on these states as well. For instance, if we were to return to 1980 we would see California as both a red state and one experiencing a population surge. However, California is now considered a default blue state. If immigration continues I suspect in the next 20-30 years we'll see states like Arizona, Utah, Nevada etc bleeding blue.

In 1980, California elected Democrat Alan Cranston to the U.S. Senate. It was a red state largely because its previous governor, Ronald Reagan, was the red nominee. Granted, you don't see California Republicans like Bob Dornan, Bill Dannemeyer, or Jon Schmidt much anymore. Immigration certainly had something to do with that. But Berkeley, Hollywood, and San Francisco predate the current immigration mess. California stayed loyal to the GOP for many years, but I don't think it was ever a conservative state, even if Orange County once was right-wing central.

Utah and Idaho, two of the booming states, aren't exactly immigration magnets, Eric. They're really, really white and the percentage of Hispanics living within their borders is smaller than the national average--despite the Western location of both states. Utah and Idaho have consistently been at the very bottom of state abortion-rate statistics. Much of Nevada's boom has to do with immigration, but not in the way you imply. Californians fed up with the direction of their state, including on the immigration issue, have been moving their for years.

Immigration and abortion effect population statistics in a very direct way. When you look at the numbers I've presented, you can see that there's a pretty clear connection between state abortion rates and state population numbers. You can't make that same claim with regard to immigration. Immigration may boost population in some states. Immigration may drive out some of the indigenous population in other states. California, for instance, is certainly experiencing heavy immigration, yet it's population increased only moderately this past year.

Massachusetts has a Republican governor, but would anyone call this a red state? Red state/Blue state refers to how states vote in presidential elections not who they elect as senators and governors. In 1980 and 1984 California was a red state and now it is widely written off as a blue state. Is this same phenomenon happening in other western states, like Nevada, Utah, and Arizona? That's how I read the data, so any hint that burgeoning populations in red states is good for Republicans is probably fallacious.

Here's the data:

Nevada 2000 1,998,257
White 1,303,001 %65.2
Hispanic 393,970 %19.7

Nevada 2004 2,301,197
White 1,406,677 %61.1
Hispanic 527,570 %22.9

Arizona 2000 5,130,632
White 3,274,258 %63.8
Hispanic 1,295,617 %25.2

Arizona 2004 5,633,997
White 3,432,419 %60.9
Hispanic 1,584,217 %28.1

Utah 2000 2,233,169
White 1,904,265 %85.3
Hispanic 201,559 %9.0

Utah 2004 2,349,472
White 1,982,781 %84.3
Hispanic 249,091 %10.6

Since whites are the natural home of the Republican Party, not minorities, these trends suggest that these other states will go the same way as California -- blue.

Eric, good catch. I hadn't considered immigration, legal and illegal. This would account for Florida's population gain, as well, or, at least, a part of it, anyway.

By the way, I don't who, on election night 2004, came up with the color coding for the map showing the two parties' results, but I've always thought that red is more appropriate for the states carried by the Democrats, if you know what I mean.

Gary,

I think USA Today came up with the red/blue state divide in the 2000 election, but I don't know why Republicans are red and Democrats blue.

Eric: I agree with you that the presidential election determines the color of the state. California was a red state in 1980. My pointing out political facts beyond the presidential contest was meant to show what kind of a red state California was in 1980, not to deny that it was a red state.

The Hispanic population is growing pretty much everywhere in America, but Utah and Idaho are not exactly Meccas of Hispanics. Your point on immigration doesn't hold there. I don't have the numbers for Florida or Arizona, but my sense is that you are correct that immigration has played a large role in the balooning populations of those states (as have northeastern transplants, retirees, etc.).

Do you really think that Utah, Idaho, or Arizona are becoming blue states? Because that's what you said: "these trends suggest that these other states will go the same way as California--blue." Enlighten if I'm missing something, but the states under discussion are Utah, Idaho, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada. I don't think any of these states will trend Democrat, although it's a possibility that Florida and Nevada will go that way occassionally. If you think Utah and Idaho are becoming blue states, then I don't think you know much about politics. Am I missing something in your ana!ysis, or do you really think that Idaho and Utah will become New England West?

The point I'm making shouldn't be that hard to grasp: the population increase in red states doesn't bode well for the Republican Party because in these states the Republican Party's natural base is declining and the Democrat's increasing. Within the next 20 years I could surely see Florida, Nevada, and Arizona solidly in the Democratic camp. After al l in 2000 Bush (maybe) won Florida, Nevada and Arizona by slim margins. There's nothing that will stop these three states from spilling over into Democratic territory within the next 20 years. I expect Utah and Idaho to remain solidly Republican over the next 20 years, but with narrowing margins.

Red states are growing, but the Republican base is shrinking and eventually the mathematics will catch up with them -- sooner or later.

May have more to do with the said red states higher than average rate of teenage pregnancy. Or people migrating further away from Canadians.

Erice, CBS News also used red and blue in the same way, on election eve 2004, so that's why I'm not certain who designated these colors to represent each party's election results. It is interesting to note that this is the first election I can ever recall in which this has been the case. I have never seen such consistency in representing election returns before and I've been voting since 1972, myself. It has always struck me as strange, since the 2004 election, that all of the networks, including Fox, plus all the newspapers and magazines somehow greed to this red-blue standard for that election. How in the world was such a thing coordinated? You would think that, even if red and blue accidentally happened to be the choice everyone would make, that there would be some variation in the way in which it was used; i.e., some using red to represent the Democrats and blue for the republicans. That the entire media seems to have been in lock-step on this is amazing! But, as I said, the really disturbing thing is the reversal of the symbology those two colors have historically had in American politics. The color red is more often associated with communism than conservatism. In that light, I can't help thinking this was a deliberate choice, made to subliminally create the opposite perception. Maybe I'm just being paranoid and making too much of this, but how does one explain the incredible coincidence that every media outlet followed the same color coding?

Damn! I need a typing tutor!

Evidence supporting Eric's position on Nevada's population boom...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/commentary/2005/dec/25/519871541.html

Gary,

I believe it started with USA Today's post 2000 election map which divided America into red (Republican) and blue (Democrat). Why those particular colors were chosen, I don't know. However, I doubt it had anything to do with Communism. Red and blue are also two of the three colors of the American flag, so maybe that's it.

Probably so, Eric.