Population shift from blue states to red states

[Jmman]

I was watching the news the other day and they listed statistics for the shifting population here in the US. The two states with the fastest decreasing populations were California and New York and the states with the fastest increasing populations were red states. At the time I was wondering how these shifts would alter the political landscape here in the US. It sure doesn't look good for the Democrats......



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[Proletariat]

Well you guys have fun with all those illegal immigrants :evil:

 

[her209]

Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: her209
Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

In 50 years the red states will be blue and the blue states ultra violet.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: her209
Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

In 50 years the red states will be blue and the blue states ultra violet.

If the PNAC crew stays in power, all 50 states will be a black hole in the ground.

 

[Steeplerot]

And good luck getting anywhere when the gas prices are 10$ a gallon in those big spread out suburbs.

You drive out a few miles costing you a arm and a leg for some crappy american junk food, I will walk down to the corner for a real mexican burrito. You can keep your red states. (and the clowns too)

 

[PrinceofWands]

That's a very narrow picture however. Let's not forget that 'states' don't have color, it's the dominance of the voting blocs within those statest that determine coloration. If those people who leave blue states are republicans, then yes, it could minimally impact democratic presence (all other things being equal). However, if dem's move into red then it could begin affecting the color of the state entered.

Furthermore, there is a pretty substantial party dealignment taking place. While the hardcore dem's and rep's are moving even further into extremity, the rest of the people are abandoning parties altogether and moving towards a new unaligned voting bloc in the middle. Gven that trend, state coloration becomes only mildly impacting.

 

[Rainsford]

I'm always amused by political ponderings like this, because there is always the unspoken assumption that states are red or blue, and people just assume the political views of the state they live in. In other words, Texans are "red" because Texas is a red state, and Californians are blue because they live in a blue state.

I think the cause and effect here is backwards. Red states are red, and blue states are blue, because of the people who live there, not the other way around. Blue voters moving from blue states to red states probably won't become red voters, they will make the red state more blue. If the entire population of San Francisco moved to, say, North Dakota, it wouldn't become a more populated red state, it would become a blue state.

The problem is that you are trying to identify a fixed democraphic pattern in a fluid demographic. Red states are red only so long as a lot of red voters live there, if the demographic changes, you can't very well expect the election results to stay the same.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
That's a very narrow picture however. Let's not forget that 'states' don't have color, it's the dominance of the voting blocs within those statest that determine coloration. If those people who leave blue states are republicans, then yes, it could minimally impact democratic presence (all other things being equal). However, if dem's move into red then it could begin affecting the color of the state entered.

Furthermore, there is a pretty substantial party dealignment taking place. While the hardcore dem's and rep's are moving even further into extremity, the rest of the people are abandoning parties altogether and moving towards a new unaligned voting bloc in the middle. Gven that trend, state coloration becomes only mildly impacting.

Ah, beat me to it

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
That's a very narrow picture however. Let's not forget that 'states' don't have color, it's the dominance of the voting blocs within those statest that determine coloration. If those people who leave blue states are republicans, then yes, it could minimally impact democratic presence (all other things being equal). However, if dem's move into red then it could begin affecting the color of the state entered.

Furthermore, there is a pretty substantial party dealignment taking place. While the hardcore dem's and rep's are moving even further into extremity, the rest of the people are abandoning parties altogether and moving towards a new unaligned voting bloc in the middle. Gven that trend, state coloration becomes only mildly impacting.

Then again, once the people move out of CA and into the real world, their political views may very well change.

 

[Jmman]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
I'm always amused by political ponderings like this, because there is always the unspoken assumption that states are red or blue, and people just assume the political views of the state they live in. In other words, Texans are "red" because Texas is a red state, and Californians are blue because they live in a blue state.

I think the cause and effect here is backwards. Red states are red, and blue states are blue, because of the people who live there, not the other way around. Blue voters moving from blue states to red states probably won't become red voters, they will make the red state more blue. If the entire population of San Francisco moved to, say, North Dakota, it wouldn't become a more populated red state, it would become a blue state.

The problem is that you are trying to identify a fixed democraphic pattern in a fluid demographic. Red states are red only so long as a lot of red voters live there, if the demographic changes, you can't very well expect the election results to stay the same.

There is some truth to that, but I think it is also apparent that Texas among others will never be a majority Democratic state, just like California and New York will probably never be Republican controlled.....

 

[Forsythe]

I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: her209
Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

Wow you dont even know how we elect a president do you....ever heard of the electoral college? California has 55 electoral votes....Texas 34...Florida 27. Those states count more than unpopulated states...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electoral_map.png

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Wow you dont even know how we elect a president do you....ever heard of the electoral college? California has 55 electoral votes....Texas 34...Florida 27. Those states count more than unpopulated states...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electoral_map.png

You misinterpreted what I said.

 

[Jmman]

Originally posted by: Forsythe
I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

Like I said just looking at the population trends got me thinking about the politicial consequences. Evidently I am not the only one wondering how this will play out.........

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[techs]

Yes, people are flocking to the low wage red states.
Bad for the country economically.
And at some point the blue states(donor) will no longer be able to pour money into the red states(recipient). And then red states will really be in trouble.

 

[Steeplerot]

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Forsythe
I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

Like I said just looking at the population trends got me thinking about the politicial consequences. Evidently I am not the only one wondering how this will play out.........

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Red states do have more kids, granted every kid is not going to turn out to be a con, and a lot of free-thinking kids wind up leaving their hometowns to be in the cities. Also new immigrants are turned off by the GOPs treatment of the mexican issue bigtime as are almost all minoritys. (maybe not cubans as they get a free ride from cons)

And then there are the millions of catholic voters who may be citizens depending on how that works out, cons and catholics do not mix, a people scapegoated as criminals doubly so, the immigration thing is a huge gamble they are losing on bigtime.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Forsythe
I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

Like I said just looking at the population trends got me thinking about the politicial consequences. Evidently I am not the only one wondering how this will play out.........

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You might want to check your sources there. I don't know about the middle one, but Washington Times and especially the Free Republic are hardly impartial, they are filled with stupid people who see what they want to see. But, and it seems like I need to remind people of this quite often, LAND DOESN'T vote. Californians that move to Texas are still going to vote the same way they did in Cali, so California will have less influence, and Texas will get bluer.

Overall, I think the impact will be very low, but just to take the wind out of the blowhards at the Washington Times and the Free Republic, let's look at this (equally likely) outcome. Blue states, by and large, have greater population density than red states. Thus, thanks to the electoral college and the makeup of congress, individual votes in blue states are worth less than individual votes in red states. If people migrate from blue to red states, as is claimed here, and we assume the move in representative numbers from one state to the other (in other words, the migrants vote in a similar way to their home state), their votes will actually be worth more in their new home than in their former state. And, since they will vote "blue", their impact on the federal government will be to shift it to the LEFT. Sure, their home states will lose some electoral influence, but again, the way our system is set up, the impact of MORE voters in less populated states is more than the impact of fewer voters in large states.

Sounds weird, doesn't it? But it's actually more plausible than the other idea.

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Forsythe
I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

Like I said just looking at the population trends got me thinking about the politicial consequences. Evidently I am not the only one wondering how this will play out.........

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Ah, okay, sorry. I was reading stuff into this it didn't say. My bad.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: her209
Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

Wow you dont even know how we elect a president do you....ever heard of the electoral college? California has 55 electoral votes....Texas 34...Florida 27. Those states count more than unpopulated states...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electoral_map.png

I think you need to do a little more reading there. her209 said that individual votes cound less, which is correct. The fact that big states have MORE electoral votes makes no difference, because their population is even bigger than that.

I know you don't understand this, so let's spell it out. California has about 34 million people, and 55 electoral votes. Nebraska has about 1.7 million people, and 5 electoral votes.

So on the individual level, 1 million Californians share a little more than 1.6 electoral votes, while 1 million Nebraska residents share almost 3 electoral votes. For those of you who ran out of fingers and toes to count on, that means a Nebraska voter has almost twice the national impact as a California voter.

THAT was the point.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Forsythe

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Forsythe
I don't understand how you can see this politically. It's just the opposite of urbanization, i don't see anything in it, apart from the fact that it's happening.

Like I said just looking at the population trends got me thinking about the politicial consequences. Evidently I am not the only one wondering how this will play out.........

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Ah, okay, sorry. I was reading stuff into this it didn't say. My bad.

Heh, maybe it wasn't political for the OP, but look at those stories. I mean, no way the Washington Times of the Free Republic are biased!

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
That's a very narrow picture however. Let's not forget that 'states' don't have color, it's the dominance of the voting blocs within those statest that determine coloration. If those people who leave blue states are republicans, then yes, it could minimally impact democratic presence (all other things being equal). However, if dem's move into red then it could begin affecting the color of the state entered.

Furthermore, there is a pretty substantial party dealignment taking place. While the hardcore dem's and rep's are moving even further into extremity, the rest of the people are abandoning parties altogether and moving towards a new unaligned voting bloc in the middle. Gven that trend, state coloration becomes only mildly impacting.

Then again, once the people move out of CA and into the real world, their political views may very well change.

Or conversely, once these other states have to deal with drastic increases in population they may be forced to come to grips with the 'real world', forcing political change on their part.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: her209
Votes in states like California and New York don't count as much as votes in other low populous states when talking about presidential elections. With regard to elections at the state and local level where votes are counted 1 for 1, it all depends on the people moving.

Wow you dont even know how we elect a president do you....ever heard of the electoral college? California has 55 electoral votes....Texas 34...Florida 27. Those states count more than unpopulated states...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electoral_map.png

I think it's referring to the fact that New York and California are already concluded to be democratic states, so with their large populations a few million won't matter. Smaller population states receiving a large influx of people could significantly shift that states vote however.

Either that, or just pointing out that your vote matters less in a larger population...ie you become less represented.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
I think you need to do a little more reading there. her209 said that individual votes cound less, which is correct. The fact that big states have MORE electoral votes makes no difference, because their population is even bigger than that.

I know you don't understand this, so let's spell it out. California has about 34 million people, and 55 electoral votes. Nebraska has about 1.7 million people, and 5 electoral votes.

So on the individual level, 1 million Californians share a little more than 1.6 electoral votes, while 1 million Nebraska residents share almost 3 electoral votes. For those of you who ran out of fingers and toes to count on, that means a Nebraska voter has almost twice the national impact as a California voter.

THAT was the point.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

 

[Meuge]

Originally posted by: Jmman
I was watching the news the other day and they listed statistics for the shifting population here in the US. The two states with the fastest decreasing populations were California and New York and the states with the fastest increasing populations were red states. At the time I was wondering how these shifts would alter the political landscape here in the US. It sure doesn't look good for the Democrats......

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You're assuming the population in the red states assumes the "values" (******, I couldn't even say that with a straight face) of the state they move into. Hopefully, that will not be the case.