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Long Distance Migration as a Two-Step Sorting Process: The Resettlement of Californians in Texas

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Abstract

Prominent historical examples point to how population surges from elsewhere have contributed to the social and political reconstitution of local electorates. Population mobility internal to the United States varies over time and across states but has always been impressive enough in volume to raise the curiosity of observers about its political effects. Here we press the question of whether the well-documented stream of migrants relocating from California to Texas has been sufficient to alter the political complexion of the destination state. Including migrants from Florida proves to be an illuminating contrast, showing that the California influx is indeed large, but politically quite mixed. We find that the aggregate effect of this flow on the partisan balance of Texas has been minimal in the short-term. Local effects on the counties and smaller localities in Texas are more noticeable, however, as cross-state migrants are highly selective in their relocation decisions, gravitating toward destinations consonant with their political values.

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Data Availability

De-identified files are available on the Political Behavior Dataverse website.

Notes

  1. A cursory glance at work in the area reveals some research on the impact of migration on turnout (Highton, 2000; Squire et al., 1987), the partisan leaning of individuals (Brown, 1988; MacDonald & Franko, 2008), as well as a studies of migration streams as a force for partisan change within regions and states (Bishop, 2009; Frendreis, 1989; Gimpel & Schuknecht, 2001; Hood & McKee, 2010; McDonald, 2011; Morris, 2021; 2022; Robinson & Noriega, 2010).

  2. Exact matches undoubtedly exclude some people who alter their names (even slightly) upon reregistering. Our procedures also miss a significant number of women who change their names with marriage and then move. A more generous match, using fuzzy matching, or probabilistic matching, would have undoubtedly identified a larger number of migrants than we include in our data. In the end, we judged the threat of false negatives using the strict criteria to be greater than the threat posed by false positives, and remained with exact matching. Duplicate matches were identified using the same criteria and deleted from the data.

  3. Percentages in this summary paragraph are rounded and may not precisely total 100%. See Tables 1 and 2 for data.

  4. It is entirely possible that a relatively even partisan flow to a location can water down the one-party bias of a destination. A persistent flow that is 46% Democratic and 54% Republican will erode a partisan registration edge that is presently 72% Republican and 38% Democratic. With time, a “purple” flow can be consequential in weakening a single party’s dominance.

  5. The correlation between partisan division in primary participation and the partisan division in party registration for California counties, for the same years, was r = .987 for Democrats, r = .968 for Republicans. For Florida it was r = .985 for Democrats, r = .907 for Republicans. At the zip code level, it was similarly high: r = .905 for California Democrats; r = .922 for California Republicans; r = .942 for Florida Democrats, r = .879 for Florida Republicans). This high degree of association between the political allegiances of local primary and general electorates has been discussed in the research of Hirano and Snyder (2018).

  6. Note that we do not gauge the destination’s partisan inclination by using the 2020 voter file’s primary data, because that information could not have been relevant for those moving to Texas in the earlier periods. Instead, we gauge destination partisanship by using the version of the Texas voter file from the period the migrant most likely departed the origin state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Government, University of Maryland, 3140 Tydings Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    James G. Gimpel

  2. Department of Government, University of Texas, 158 W 21St ST STOP A1800, Austin, TX, 78712-1704, USA

    Daron R. Shaw

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Correspondence to James G. Gimpel.

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Gimpel, J.G., Shaw, D.R. Long Distance Migration as a Two-Step Sorting Process: The Resettlement of Californians in Texas. Polit Behav 46, 1837–1864 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-023-09898-3

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