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Conservatives are fleeing the blue states in favor of the red states.
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And South Carolina is one of the fastest growing states for newcomers.
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Conservatives are tired of the cost of living and politics in blue states.
Conservatives are flocking from blue states to one Republican stronghold in particular: South Carolina.
According to US Census Data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, between 2017 and 2021, about a third of newcomers to South Carolina came from blue states, while a quarter came from red states and the rest from divided states or outside the US.
And the majority of those newcomers — about 57% — are Republicans, the Journal reported, citing data from a nonpartisan voter file provider called L2.
In 2022, the top 10 states from which people moved to South Carolina were North Carolina, Georgia, New York, California, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey and Maryland, according to U.S. Census Data reviewed by The State.
Conservative Move, a real estate company with about 500 agents nationwide, helps conservatives find homes near like-minded people — and South Carolina is becoming a big draw.
The group’s founder, Paul Chabot, told Business Insider that while Texas and Florida are consistently the top locations where its conservative clients move, South Carolina is growing the fastest. He said he has seen a big spike in the number of Americans looking to move specifically to South Carolina over the past two years. Currently, he said, about 5,000 of his clients are considering moving to the state soon.
Many of his customers come from places like California, Washington state and Oregon, he said.
Chabot said the people his company helps relocate are tired of living in Democratic-controlled states where liberal policies make everyday life less affordable — policies like, he said, the new $20 minimum wage law for fast-food workers in California.
Conservatives’ sense of security is another important factor in their decisions to move away from liberal enclaves, Chabot said.
“They want to live in areas where they know they will feel safe, that there will be a police response, that police will be respected,” Chabot added.
A South Carolina real estate agent based in Spartanburg, Brad Liles, told The New York Times that he and his colleagues have come to call the flow of Republican homebuyers in the state “the Great Migration.”
A typical home in South Carolina sold for about $281,000, according to Zillow’s median home price data from February. By comparison, Zillow reported that the average sales price of a home in California was about $673,000, while in Washington state it was about $526,000. South Carolina even has an edge over Texas and Florida, where the median home sales price for the same period was about $316,000 and $363,000, respectively, according to Zillow.
It’s not just about affordability. It’s also about being surrounded by like-minded conservatives, some South Carolina transplants told the Times.
“When I walked into banks, stores or schools, there was always Christian music playing in the background,” Lina Brock, a conservative who recently moved from California to Greenville, South Carolina, told the Times of her new city. “I felt good, I felt welcome. I felt like I was in the United States.”
But the arrival of new residents in Greenville in particular has driven up housing prices, pushing many longtime black residents out, the Times reported. According to a 2023 study from Furman University, Greenville’s black population has declined by 22% since 1990. By comparison, the city’s total population increased 21% over the same period, the Times said.
Chabot said blue states should take a page from the red states’ playbook.
“States are really competing with each other for population right now,” Chabot said. “And so if these blue states want to get better, they need to look at what red states are doing to preserve their populations and their businesses.”
Some blue states are experiencing a loss of residents — for example, in 2022, California saw a net loss of more than 300,000 residents, Forbes reported, citing census data, while Washington state had a net loss of about 15,000 residents, The Columbian also reported. of census numbers.
In contrast, red states like Texas had a net gain of almost 175,000 residents in 2022. And Florida takes the cake when it comes to population growth, with a 1.9% increase from 2021 to 2022, according to the US Census Bureau.
Read the original article on Business Insider
