2025 U-Haul migration trends. Orange are the top 10 destination states, blue the bottom 10.
DB2
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With the saguaro cactus in the picture, it looks like they’ve already made it to Arizona.
DB2
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So looking a little behind the numbers, it appears that people make their money in the blue states, then move to the red states to escape the weather.
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Spoken like a retiree. I don’t think U-Haul’s market is focused on the 65+ crowd. By the way, it’s orange, not red.
DB2
I know, right? No political point was being made at all about those states in focus on the graph so ‘chart orange’ it is! 
Pete
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That can’t be legal, right?
JimA
In addition to everything being much too clean.
DB2
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That’s probably true, I would think the younger and less affluent you are the more likely you are to DIY move rather than hire a company, which means they’re probably not escaping “high taxes”. Maybe they’re just escaping the snow?
And I don’t speak Orange, at least not for the next 3 years, so Red it is.
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3 years and 12 days, but who’s counting?
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Yep. I just saw this post and came to comment on the relative affluence of U-haul users. But it was mentioned already a few times. Basically the U-haul statistics are most likely younger people moving away from places where they either can’t afford housing or where they can’t find a job that pays enough to cover their expenses (and in reality these two are the same thing).
This reminds me of something from the 1980s. A few weeks before my sister got married, my grandfather died. After the wedding, we cleaned out my grandparents house (in one of the blue colored states above) in preparation for showing and eventual sale. Some of the stuff still had quite a bit of life in it, so we loaded a bunch of stuff (some furniture, some kitchen stuff, etc) into a U-haul and drove it down to one of the orange colored states above to bring it to my sister and new BIL for their use as a newly married couple in their small rented apartment. I think it’s possible that the table and chairs that we U-hauled down (to Florida) is still in use at some great-grandchilds home.
I wonder if that one-way U-haul trip would have “counted” as “someone moving out of a blue colored state”?
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Here are some Census Data:
Table 2. The 15 Cities With the Largest Numeric Increase Between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, With Populations of 20,000 or More as of July 1, 2023
| Rank | Area Name | State Name | Numeric Increase | 2024 Total Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York city | New York | 87,184 | 8,478,072 |
| 2 | Houston city | Texas | 43,217 | 2,390,125 |
| 3 | Los Angeles city | California | 31,276 | 3,878,704 |
| 4 | San Antonio city | Texas | 23,945 | 1,526,656 |
| 5 | Fort Worth city | Texas | 23,442 | 1,008,106 |
| 6 | Charlotte city | North Carolina | 23,423 | 943,476 |
| 7 | Chicago city | Illinois | 22,164 | 2,721,308 |
| 8 | Phoenix city | Arizona | 16,933 | 1,673,164 |
| 9 | Seattle city | Washington | 16,813 | 780,995 |
| 10 | Jacksonville city | Florida | 16,365 | 1,009,833 |
| 11 | Miami city | Florida | 16,337 | 487,014 |
| 12 | Washington city | District of Columbia | 14,926 | 702,250 |
| 13 | San Jose city | California | 13,634 | 997,368 |
| 14 | Columbus city | Ohio | 12,694 | 933,263 |
| 15 | Las Vegas city | Nevada | 12,292 | 678,922 |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates |
|---|
| Release Date: May 2025 |
There are interesting statistics at the county level.
Most analyses of internal migration patterns look only at state-level data. And what they show is that blue states are losing population to red states, and have been for many years.
I&I wanted to go deeper, so we used the latest Census data on migration between counties, and compared that with how these counties voted in the past three presidential elections. What we found was that millions aren’t just moving out of blue states, but are moving out of blue counties within states…
Blue counties lost population even in states that had big gains. The five Florida counties where Trump lost in his three election bids lost 150,000 people due to net migration over the past five years. This is a state that saw an overall net gain of 890,000.
DB2
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This is the kind of non-partisan analysis you can count on, I’ll say:
We keep hearing how unpopular Trump and his policies are. (Our latest I&I/TIPP poll shows that just 39% have a favorable opinion of the president — See “[Trump’s Popularity Took A Hit In April — Is Iran War Reason Why, Or Something Else?] While that might be what people tell pollsters, their own actions – picking up and moving to a new county or a different state – speak much louder. Millions of Americans would rather live among Trump supporters than those voting for the likes of Kamala Harris.
Fair and balanced, all right. Or maybe it’s just people moving out of urban areas into suburban areas, a trend that’s been going on since … 1950?
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My Father was born in Glendale California when the California population was ~4mil. Wake me up when all of these 30 million intruders are gone.
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This is go news. These people will turn those red US counties into US blue counties this year. Just like in the Hungary election on Sunday where Hungary went from red to blue. LOL!
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It’s clearly not non-partisan, but the numbers are what they are, part of the ‘great sorting’ – and the directions are pretty clear.
Well, upthread you thought it was people “just escaping the snow”. As for urban areas, according to Pew they made up only 13% of R-voters (and 28% of D-voters).
More from the county level research:
- The three heavily Democratic counties in Tennessee lost more than 81,000 people, while the state overall gained 293,000.
- New Jersey’s seven solidly pro-Trump counties gained almost 25,000 people during the years that solidly Democratic counties lost more than 214,000.
- Virginia’s blue counties lost nearly 160,000 to net migration, while its solidly red ones gained more than 122,000
DB2
OK, but you have to be careful about drawing conclusions without any indication of “why”. (I’ve seen too much data turned into terrible research in my career.)
For instance, the conclusion of your extract: “ Millions of Americans would rather live among Trump supporters than those voting for the likes of Kamala Harris.” is unsupported in any way. There is no indication there is anything political about it. In my entire life I have known of one person who moved because of “politics”. The rest - and there have been many - moved for a job, to be near family, to retire someplace warmer, to retire someplace cheaper, etc. (and in approximately that order of frequency.)
I’m not sure how many are moving “from blue area to red areas” for any reason related to the politics of the area. But this is the sort of clap trap that gets conservatives excited, so it sells to those low information people.
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To be fair, Hungary went from corruption red to anti-corruption red.
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It may not be “politics” per se but taxes, regulations, school policies and the like can have their effect.
I’m not sure what you think is going on at both the county and state levels. On the national level, states such as New York, Illinois and California are losing electoral votes and Representatives. After the 2030 census the changes are projected to be even larger.
As Marvin Gaye sang, “What’s Going On”?.
DB2