Since 2015, the U-Haul Growth Index has been shining a light on domestic migration trends by looking at where people picked up one-way truck reservations and where they dropped them off—a clever if imperfect proxy for relocations. As in recent years, red states such as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee topped the rankings for drawing new residents in 2025, while blue states such as California, Illinois, and Massachusetts filled out a majority of the bottom spots.
Because votes in the Electoral College are determined by a state’s total representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and because House seats are apportioned based on population, these changes could have huge political implications.
Two recent analyses—one from the political scientist Jonathan Cervas at Carnegie Mellon University and the other from the American Redistricting Project—looked at how Electoral College seats are likely to shift based on the results of the 2030 census. Although their predictions differ slightly, both found on net that traditionally Democrat-voting states stand to lose votes and traditionally Republican-voting states stand to gain them. Both expect four seats to migrate from California to Texas, for example.
If the projections are correct, Politico reports, Democrats’ route to victory in the 2032 presidential race and beyond may become narrower. The party would likely have to pick up more “purple” states to compensate for amassing fewer seats from blue stalwarts in order to reach the 270 Electoral College votes required to secure the presidency.
There is an important caveat in all of this, however: While many of the states that are growing are currently seen as safe red territory, the people relocating from blue states may be bringing a more moderate or even progressive outlook with them. In other words, today’s Republican-voting states could be tomorrow’s swing states.
Some places that look like safe bets for one party or the other weren’t always so. California has given its electoral votes to the Democratic presidential candidate in every cycle going back to 1992—but from 1952 to 1988, it went Republican in all but one presidential year. And while Florida has come to be viewed as a solid red state, it swung for Democratic nominee Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. With the Sunshine State gaining as many as 1,000 new residents per day according to some estimates, its political leanings may change along with its demographics.
Just as the population surge in some Republican-run states was turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic, future migration patterns may also shift in unexpected ways. Woe to those who try to extrapolate trends about human behavior more than half a decade into the future.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline “The Electoral College Gets Redder?.”
