Dante Chinni writes Politics Counts as a regular Capital Journal feature. Mr. Chinni is the director of the American Communities Project at American University, which examines different types of communities across the U.S.
The American electorate is not a stationary thing – voters move. And data suggest that as people move, the country’s fastest growing big counties are becoming more politically liberal, particularly in big metro areas in important swing states such as Colorado and North Carolina.
The political impacts of moving populations can be difficult to measure, but they are a hidden force that can remake the electoral map.
So, to better understand those impacts, Politics Counts used survey data from Experian Marketing Services that shows the ideological makeup of movers compared with the rest of the population for every county in the U.S. – whether the movers self-identify as liberal, conservative or middle-of-the-road. We then compared those data to a list of the fastest growing counties in the country of 100,000 people or more from the U.S. Census.
(While this data does not explicitly allow us to measure only movers to new a county, by matching the Experian mover data with data on the fastest-growing big counties, Politics Counts and Experian believe we can create a reasonably reliable metric for seeing how new movers to a county are changing its political leanings.)
The results indicate big counties across the country, particularly in states such as Colorado, North Carolina and Texas, are seeing more liberals moving in. The one big electoral bright spot for conservatives looks to be Florida.
These accompanying maps let you explore the changes. (Click to zoom and mouse over the counties.) Shading indicates when the movers in a county are more liberal, conservative or middle of the road, than the existing population using Experian’s indexes – higher numbers and darker shading show more change. Counties can have low percentages of liberals or conservatives but still high index scores because the movers are more liberal or conservative than the current population.
Counties Trending Liberal
With the index numbers, anything over 100 means it is above average. So in Boulder County, where the Liberal Mover Index is 133, 33% more of the movers in the county say they are liberal than the population that is already in place.
A few notes on those maps. Remember, it’s measuring the difference between movers – people who have moved into a county in the last 12 months – and the county’s pre-existing partisan breakdown. So a place that is overwhelmingly populated by conservatives isn’t going to suddenly change with a few more liberal moving vans pulling into town.
There may be a relatively large influx liberals in counties like Baldwin, Ala., and Beaufort, S.C., but those places are still strongly conservative and, judging by the last presidential election, Republican.
And remember too that these are “self-identified” liberals and conservatives. So some of those numbers above may be about “liberal” or “conservative” movers being more likely to apply that label. People who handle this data at Experian note that liberals have long been less likely to self-affix that tag. Overall, there are far more self-identified “conservatives” than there are “liberals” in Experian’s data.
Still, even with those provisos, the maps offer some insights into who is moving where and the subtle – and not-so-subtle – changes to the political map.
First, the overall data show that many more of the fastest growing counties with 100,000 or more people, are shifting liberal than conservative – more than 70 vs. about 20, respectively. But maybe more important is where the shifts are happening.
Look at the fast-growing counties around Denver gaining more self-identified liberal residents – Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Denver itself. Or look at the counties around Research Triangle in North Carolina, Durham and Wake. You can see the same trend playing out on in the major metro areas Texas – Bexar, Denton, Harris, Galveston and Travis counties.
These numbers fit with the trend the Wall Street Journal reported on in April concerning the urbanizing suburbs trending more Democratic politically. And there is reason for Republicans to be concerned because those are states that are crucial to the electoral map. That is, the places that are growing fastest and turning more blue, are in states that tend to matter every four years.
Where conservatives are concerned, Florida is a big red bright spot. Of the 20 big fast-growing counties that are adding more self-identified conservatives, six were in the Sunshine State – Broward, Collier, Hillsborough, Lee, Osceola and Orange. Does that portend a rightward shift in what has become a true purple state during presidential elections? Maybe, but there are also other factors at play, like age.
Counties Trending Conservative
Older movers may be a big factor behind those reddening Florida counties. New movers in Florida are 13% more likely to be over age 35 than the movers nationwide, according to the Experian data. And adults ages 35 or older are more likely to self-identify as conservative, Experian reports.
Those older movers likely have fewer years left as voters. Florida already has the largest percentage of its population over 65 years old, 17.3%, compared to the national average of 13%.
There are a few counties in this 100 that are growing both more “liberal” and more “conservative” through their movers – Denver, Bexar, Hillsborough. That is, overall, there are fewer movers self-identifying as “middle of the road” in those counties. They are showing a big trend in the American electorate overall, increasing polarization.
Counties Trending Middle
But the overall trend is these numbers is that movers are making these fast-growing places are not just more liberal, they are also making them less conservative. Of these top 100 fast growing big counties, 75 are growing self-identified liberal populations and 65 are increasing their middle-of-the-road populations – again, compared to about 20 that are more conservative through movers.
The larger meaning of these numbers is harder to tease out. It will take time to fully assess the impact of what these movers bring, or don’t bring, to their new homes. For conservatives, however, it’s hard to see a lot of good news in the colors on these maps.
Here is the full data on the 100 fastest-growing counties of over 100,000 people.
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