Electoral Map Shifts, Republicans Gain

To be honest, that's why I left CA. And I didn't mind the taxes or cost of living that much as my pay would have been adjusted higher for that. The non-functioning state government just pissed me off so much in principle.

What TheBrew said.

There's nothing about a state's location on a map that makes in inherently liberal or conservative; a state's political character is determined by its voters. If a bunch of liberal voters move to a conservative area or a bunch of conservative voters move to a liberal area, that area becomes more liberal or conservative, respectively.

And while the short-term result might be a gain of a few congressional seats among states whose populations have grown but not shifted enough to be markedly different in political character, we're coming off of an election where the House swung by 60-plus seats, following a swing of 50-plus seats in the other direction over the preceding two elections. Those few votes that might change through redistricting are dwarfed by the much larger changes that occur on a regular basis without redistricting.

I didn't say government. I said governance. There is a difference.

Stills works when you replace "government" with "governance".

The democrats had their chance these past two years, and they've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are not fit to lead this country in any way shape or form.

Now it's the republicans turn, and if they fuck it up we need to vote every single person in congress out on his ass and scrap the two part system forever. If neither side can do the job, they shouldn't be allowed to run.

There's a reason Oregonians hate immigrating Californians.

You would think so, but Obama will wake up the sheep in 2012 and the media will cater to him and them just like 2008. Do not underestimate Obama's long term vision and power over the uninformed.

That said, Paul/Rubio 2012.

The liberals aren't the ones moving to Texas. Conservatives like me and my friend are splitting NY (or Cal) with our savings because we don't want to pay for NY's extravagent Public employee unions and other wasteful spending.

Got any data to back that up? Barring anything, I can only go with the default assumption that it is in equal proportion to the ratio within the state (which is very likely to be not true, but it is the only position that can be used in the absence of facts).

EDIT: I posted this before your edit, but anecdotal evidence is still anecdotal. This liberal left CA for more conservative states and I am considering moving to Texas in the future.

Yeah, I'd like to see this broken down by citzenship. My guess is that California's already shrunk quite a bit if you're just counting Americans. They've been hemorrhaging jobs for years now.

Texas continued to show conservative voting throughout local and national elections similar to earlier years (1990 to 2000 and 2000 to 2010) despite having grown substantially both decades. If liberals were moving in and continuing to vote liberals then proportions of the population voting conservative would have decreased in past 20 years.

Texas's culture is almost the exact opposite of New York California and (now) much of places like Oregon's: the government's role is to serve equal opportunity for business to succeed, instead of the government's role is to regulate and moderate the behavior of business to suit the government's need for funding. You must look to the regulations and laws that differ between the Blue states and Red states, Texas environment for bus is far far superior to that of NY, but I'll not derail this into a case study by citations (frankly I don't care if you agree with my position or not, no sweat). Plus, Texas state legislature only meets 6 months every 2 years - by law there is less time for the liberal element in Texas legislatures to impose their liberal mores.

Finally, if liberal voters do find their way into Texas the offensive little practice know as gerrymandering will greatly dilute any voice those misplaced liberals might have found by grouping the few among the many, or finding little pockets of the libs and bunching them all into one district, whichever works better. Which is really the point of this thread - if ever there was a mid-term election that sucks to lose big it's the census-year elections.

Florida agrees!

The 2000 presidential election can attest to that.

I should've specified that I speak of economic conservatives, not the social (religious taboos, etc.) conservatism that it's sometimes lumped with.

I don't have specific studies or surveys, but polls are generally so biased by the sponsorship they are crap anyway. But I hesitated to reply, to post a good part of my reasons because they basically boil down to: economic conservativism is just smarter and right, while liberalism is destined to failure and unsustainability and is just wrong. And time continues to bear them out, on average.


I'd argue that more people - by far - who relocate from places like NY or CAL to Texas are conservative than liberal to begin with because they are fleeing for economic reasons (that's part of what makes them conservatives). Then, a job relocates some people who begin as liberal, but they soon discover and rapidly appreciate how much wealthier they are in their new state, in contrast to their old high-tax, high government service, location. People who start off as liberal, firm idealogues, who are surrounded daily by examples of conservative policies, will take more time, but slowly and more gradually come to discover how conserative economic policies make a much larger pie, to be divided among taxpayer, business and government alike.

Also, the self-perpetuating liberalism - where people say "I don't know anyone who voted for George Bush" that is so pervasive among academia and the big cities has just as strong an impact in the other direction, especially when the day-to-day results are so apparent in every day life. E.g. 70% of all new jobs created in the US since 2008 were in Texas - people in Texas are aware that conservative values is the basis for the superior economic conditions that leads to greater wealth for everyone.

In contrast, when liberal values are embraced in the big cities (like the Houston real estate bubble that blew up a few decades ago) they lead to distress and worse conditions for everyone.

The main issue is that housing and real estate cost so much here. People move to places like Texas because real estate is dirt cheap. It's as simple as that.

I've not tried to buy land in or around any major Texas city but I fell pretty confident in saying the real estate there is not "dirt cheap" in the face of an influx of population that would HAVE to create a seller's market.

We're not speaking of 40 acres of sagebrush on the New Mexico border here.

Dirt cheap is relative. If you're coming from San Francisco--or even Portland or San Diego--most places in Texas are probably "dirt cheap."

My little house--less than 780 s.f.--I consider "dirt cheap" because I paid substantially less than $100,000 for it, but I was talking with a guy who lives in rural Indiana and found out what he'd paid for a house--and how big it was--and got a totally different opinion of "dirt cheap."

That's the other problem--less Lefties coming in and wrecking their new homeland--but people coming from more expensive states and jacking up property values, pricing locals out of the housing market. That happens a lot with Californians coming to Oregon. They see a house for a half million dollars and go "Wow! A steal!"

I heard the same comment a couple of times directed at Sante Fe - that the influx of people with money drove up prices so much with consequence that housing mainly comes in two extremes - very inexpensive mediocre homes and very expensive nice ones. The Texans who said that felt it less likely to happen in TX because there's so much wide open territory, and while it's not infinite, there sure is lots and lots of it.

That's what's going on back in my home area in upstate New York. Rich idiots from New York City "discovered" the area about fifteen years ago and have been buying up land ever since. What used to be fruit orchards and dairy farms are now subdivisions. Land on steep hills that's been forest for the last hundred and fifty years has been chopped up and made into "country" homes. It's sickening to watch, especially since the new people want to change how everything in the county works. They're going to bring in all the same stupid shit that sent them running from NYC to start with.

That is a fair enough. People go where the jobs are. And being under social peer pressure can cause people to flip parties. However don't underestimate the power of habit. As much sense as it might make for someone to vote Democratic or GOP, people will still misidentify themselves into the wrong group and vote accordingly. Unless the other candidate is compelling, people will default to the party they originally identified with when there is an absence of information (this is of course a generalization and not applicable to everyone).

It is very cheap...



...compared to California real estate.


You're going to pay far more for a house in California than you will for the same kind of house here.

I wish I didn't hate a certain Arizona senator so much. Every time I see this thread I want to say "The gains for McCain fall mainly in the Plains."

The real danger in Liberals leaving Kalifoornia is that they just pollute the electorate somewhere else.

I'm expecting it. Northern Liberals are doing basically the same things they were doing 150 years ago only they don't have the slavery issue to kick around this time.

As well being overtaxed, overregulated and seeing a loss of businesses and jobs to other states.