Blue States Bleed Families While Red States Gain Ground
“One big reason that Red States tend to do better on the Family Structure Index is that they often offer more affordable homes to ordinary American families.”
Married families with children are leaving blue states for red ones in large numbers, reshaping where families live and where population growth takes hold.
From 2019 to 2024, about 840,000 married families with children moved from blue states to red states, compared to 470,000 who moved the other way, a net gain of roughly 370,000 such families for red states. Over that same stretch, red states gained about 600,000 children, while blue states lost roughly the same number through lower birth rates and outmigration.
South Carolina has climbed from 45th to 28th in a national measure of family stability over the past decade, and Florida and Mississippi have also moved up, while New York, Illinois, and Hawaii have moved in the opposite direction, losing residents and seeing the share of prime-age adults who are married fall.
The report tracks those shifts through the Family Structure Index, which measures marriage rates, the share of children living with married parents, and fertility across states, and finds that domestic migrants skew married compared to the populations they leave behind, with many heading toward states with lower costs of living and fewer barriers to homeownership.
States in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains regions dominate the top of the rankings, including Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota, where larger shares of adults are married, and more children live in married-parent households. At the bottom, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Louisiana post lower shares across those same measures.
“Families are increasingly seeking out social and political settings that allow them to thrive.”
In many blue states, housing costs have surged far beyond incomes, as zoning limits, tight supply, and regulatory costs restrict new construction and drive prices higher.
“One big reason that Red States tend to do better on the Family Structure Index is that they often offer more affordable homes to ordinary American families.”
Homeownership has dropped back over time. Among prime-age adults, the share who own their homes has fallen from 67% in 1980 to 48% in 2025, and married adults still account for the majority of homeowners. Those gaps are widest in higher-tax, higher-cost states, where entering homeownership has become more difficult for younger families.
The national picture has shifted as well. The Family Structure Index has fallen from 100 in 2000 to 87.3 in 2024 as marriage rates and fertility decline.
Blue states are not just losing residents. They are losing families, children, and future growth, as rising costs, heavier tax burdens, and tighter housing markets push households toward states where building a life costs less and starting a family is still within reach for more Americans.
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Many of the left-leaning states that families move from are filled with people who look down their noses at the others, saying, “I wouldn’t want to live among THOSE people.” That’s fine. We don’t want you living among us either. Stay put in New York, Rhode Island, California, and Massachusetts.
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I can understand your sentiment but I’ll put up my conservative bona fides against yours any day of the week. And even though I am a resident of a state so blue that the entire R delegation can fit into a Chevy Suburban, my state rep is a solid law & order republican that I’m proud to support. My point being that if I moved to Florida or Texas or another red state, I’d simply make it redder irrespective of the state I’m leaving. Oh, and note well in the context of this article, my governor is a lesbian (just ask her!) so her priorities vis-a-vis nuclear families are nil. And she gets booed at Red Sox games, too.
Ma. does love their Red Sox.
My state representative doesn’t even live in my district.
I have no representation but I’ll never leave Rhode Island. All I can do is try to change it for the better and that’s not an easy task.
A move would make the new Red State destination more populous in comparison at Census time which moves the needle on apportionment of Congressional Districts (handy to control HoR) and for Electoral College votes to keep d/prog whackos out of the WH.
A move would also deny all sorts of different tax revenues to whatever Blue State you reside in as well as lower the relative economic performance of the Blue State while increasing both in the new Red State destination.
North Carolina is full.
Texas is OVERfull
Florida is full.
North Carolina is full of leftists…
Conservatives fleeing blue states are more than welcome in TN IMO.
We fought and lost… local conservatives never had to fight at all. We did our homework and LOVE the right to guns and right to life and limited government.
If you don’t want leftists invading… pass laws against abortion and trans crap… it’s like deet for leftist mosquitos.
They will turn those states blue if you’re not careful. They know they live in pig pens without understanding why.
headlines 5 years from now
blue state refugees voted dem in their new found land of freedom red states
gop authorizes 5 billion usd to study why this is
Montana and Idaho… yep.
All you have to do to keep the migration to red voters is pass strict abortion laws.
I read a meta study about ten years ago that concluded it could predict with very high accuracy which way, left or right, an individual would vote based on only four criteria: male or female; religious or unreligious; married or unmarried; college educated or HS educated.
There were tabs and cross tabs and intersections, but basically came down to this:
The most right of center? Religious, married men & women who are HS educated. Aka, the deplorables
The most left of center? Unreligious, unmarried women who are college educated. Aka, the karen.
Yes, some stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
Unmarried, non-religious, college-educated male here. Three of the four criteria from that “study” predict I’d vote Democrat.
I don’t like Republicans because most of them aren’t “right of center” enough; they’re “right of center” on about half the issues and far too often side with the Democrats (i.e. against my own opinions) on things that matter to me.
Am I a statistical anomaly? Or did the “study” greatly oversimplify the complexities of the human mind and decision-making process? Could be both.
That said, I do agree stereotypes exist for a reason. The vast majority of “Karens” IMO are older, non-religious, “educated” females, single or divorced or in contentious marriages with passive husbands.
(As an aside, I’m somewhat surprised age wasn’t deemed relevant, and neither was college major. It seems to me, older Americans and STEM majors are more likely to lean Right, while younger Americans and “Liberal Arts” and education majors tend to lean Left. Just my observations.)
We noticed it big time from Olympia Wa to NE TN.
Anecdotally-
Where we fled from: Older parents, 1-2 kids max.
My wife works at the school here in TN. The number of families with 5 kids is astronomical. The parents are younger.
I don’t think it is all about housing costs, but that has a lot to do with it. You are also talking about the Bible belt and family is valued here.
Incidentally- the area we fled from is one of the fastest growing places in the country now despite being a homeless crime ridden leftist hell hole. I think its the flight from Seattle. Same is true for Bonney Lake- though that area votes red.
What exactly is the map trying to convey?
I guess the states where Biden dumped illegals to help seize political power when they are granted citizenship.
I was wondering the same thing.
The map is clearly AI crap.
RI and LA are not in the same boat. Neither are CA and FL.
UT is not any sort of an outlier on either end,
virginians are buying up weapons in record numbers in fear of abigals spanbergers edict that guns will be confiscated etc expect those grandfathered into law
ahahahahahaaaaaa
why would anyone expect a wannabe totalitarian force to care about “grandfathered” in laws!!???!
thats how this story ties in…that somehow the exodus of leftys…just not as hard leaning leftys are fleeing the blue states…when many times its just the corporate tax evaders moving to red states so workers and people that wanna work will and do follow
Bass Pro is conveniently 5 miles across the border in Bristol TN for when they start going after mags and ammo 😉
Maybe they should actually vote
maybe they are and the lying msm tells us differently
you have to have some major swag to even challenge the msm and for a while we all thought foxnews was that swag…but its not
The cheating is beyond ridiculous
Sure, higher registration and turnout by the ‘good guys’ is always welcome. VA is home to lots of Federal employees, Federal retirees, their families and neighbors many of which are plenty mad at GoP efforts to downsize gov’t and interrupt their snout in the public trough. Those people were motivated and showed up as did their allies in public sector State gov’t unions. VA is at best purple. Winsome Sears is not without her own controversy and I suspect some limited amount of hatred as a ‘Black’ female, Veteran, 2A advocate who rebounds the d/prog political plantation. In addition DJT not backing her early in the race or holding campaign events and get out the vote rallies in VA also played a role.
I just read that blue states are considering an exit tax. Imagine wealthy liberals proudly claiming “I voted for this!”
And, of course, New Mexico ranks 50th. We are dead last in everything but crime.
Including unconstitutionalities committed by the governor that are so blatant that other high state officials refuse to enforce them.
But it is beautiful
“Blue States Bleed Families While Red States Gain Ground”
Only if you assume that “gaining people” and “gaining ground” are the same thing.
exactly
Well, ok, but what’s the deal with that silly map up top?
Were those colors generated completely at random?
Yup. I leared my states on a plastic jigsaw map just like it. Colorado was red. Tennessee was blue. California was yellow. Arizona was orange. Rhode Island as green, when it wasn’t lost in the rug somewhere.
Okay … but how will they VOTE?
A lot of Red States are turning decidedly purple because of how many people from Blue States relocate and continue voting for the same policies that fouled the nests they came from. “I love it here in flyover country! It would be perfect if only they’d enact [expensive Blue-State boondoggle].”
Red States getting more population is only a win if they stay Red.
When you look at it properly, red states taking in blue state refugees is not really any better for us than all states taking in Central American refugees.
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