If those answers are even close to accurately reflecting the direction of political migration, a national re-sorting is unfolding on an historic scale and it’s mostly right-of-center voters who are moving, though a few caveats are in order.
First, it’s possible survey respondents exaggerated since it implies that 10.7 million voters will be moving in the next twelve months for a region to which they are more aligned. That’s a large number given that only around 30 million Americans (not just voters) have moved annually for any reason over the last several years, according to the Census Bureau.
On the other hand, in earlier periods moving was far more common, often exceeding 40 million Americans annually in the 1980s and 1990s, so perhaps the survey reflects a coming return to high migration rates thanks to growing political division.
It’s also possible that far more people are moving for political reasons than a survey would uncover. A person who cares nothing about politics might well say, for example, that she moved to Florida for a good job, low taxes and less crime, not recognizing such things are inherently political.
Second, the survey asked about moves to a different region, which may or may not be a different state, so you cannot necessary let the survey characterize all interstate migration. Intrastate political migration happens, too. For example, liberals in southern Illinois may move to Chicago; conservatives in Portland may head to eastern Oregon and liberals in upstate New York might prefer NYC.
Still, what’s striking about the survey results is how much more likely Republicans and Independents are inclined to move for political reasons than Democrats. The survey therefore certainly does seem to confirm that political preference is a major factor behind the recently released new Census Bureau estimates of interstate migration. For 2022, the bureau estimated particularly severe population losses for New York, Illinois, California and other blue states, with Texas and Florida as the big winners. Taking the survey and census numbers together, in other words, certainly seems to indicate that conservatives and independents are fleeing the most liberal states and dominating interstate migration.