Young Families Flock to Red States as Blue States Lose Children, Data Shows

By: Dan Hart, originally published March 2, 2026, The Washington Stand

Data continues to show that red states are attracting more families with young children who move there as a result of more affordable housing and larger job growth than blue states, according to a new Institute for Family Studies (IFS) analysis.

As  reported  by IFS Thursday, an “increasing correlation” is developing between how family-friendly a state’s policies are and how many families are forming within that state. As Ethics and Public Policy Center Fellow Patrick T. Brown observes, blue states are seeing a significant uptick in young people and families leaving and moving to red states, particularly in the years following the COVID pandemic. He notes that even though overall fertility in the U.S. continues to fall, the states that voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 saw an increase from 43.1 million kids under 18 in 2019 to 43.7 million in 2024. But in states that voted for Kamala Harris, the total number of children under five dropped from 8.2 million to 7.6 million over the same time period. In general, IFS has  found  that red states have higher fertility rates than blue states.

Brown further highlighted how deep blue states like California are playing a key role in the loss of children in liberal states, losing 290,000 kids under five. While part of this is due to declining fertility, it is also due in large part to families fleeing states controlled by Democrats. As IFS  previously found, the five states that lost the most families from 2021-2022 were California, New York, Illinois, Washington, and Oregon. Overall, census data released earlier this month found that the five fastest-growing states are all run by Republicans (South Carolina, Idaho, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah), while four out of the five states that lost population were Democratic strongholds (Vermont, Hawaii, West Virginia, New Mexico, and California).

So what is driving families to leave blue states for red ones? Brown contends that a key factor is housing costs. As he observes, “Idaho, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia ended the last half-decade with 10% more married families with children under five than they started with.” In contrast, California, New York, and Illinois lost married couples with young kids over the same time period. Using the affordability metric of median mortgage cost relative to median income, Brown found that the “states with cheaper housing tend to have better luck attracting or keeping parents of young children,” with the large majority of those states being red.

Another factor that Brown emphasized as being key to families flocking to is where job growth is the strongest, including Wilmington, N.C., Charlottesville, Va., and Chattanooga, Tenn. These cities are part of a large shift that is happening “in the  geography of American parenthood,” where ruby blue cities like New York and San Francisco are “los[ing] middle-class families to Sun Belt states and commuter towns.”

Brown further advised red states “to not rest on their laurels” when it comes to staying attractive to young families, including continuing to ensure housing affordability by “freeing up land and legalizing denser housing in cities and suburbs” as well as offering “state-level child tax credits” and other “tangible benefits like paid leave.”

Other experts like Matt Carpenter, who serves as director of FRC Action, say that the data is proof that blue states are paying a big economic and political price for their high tax and regulation policies.

“These findings ought to serve as a wake-up call for the anti-natalist Left in blue states,” he told The Washington Stand. “American families do not have to suffer the bloated state budgets, sky-high tax burdens, and radical anti-family policies of blue states. They can move to a red state with smaller government, more freedom, more affordable housing, and probably some better policies on school choice. Indeed, that’s precisely what’s happening, and the political consequences will be huge.”

Carpenter continued, “The longer blue states persist in this doom loop, the steeper their decline in electoral power will be. Every family relocating from a blue state to a red state brings with them not just much-needed revenue, but their children; future voters who will shape reapportionment and tilt the electoral college toward red states. In other words, this is a zero-sum game. All the additional voters and wealth red states attract is necessarily deducted from blue states. In fact, some of the projections I’ve seen for the post-2030 census electoral college show traditionally red states picking up 10 to 11 votes in the electoral college.”

“This will mean Republican states will be home to more congressional districts and be able to draw those districts,” Carpenter added. “It also means Republican presidential candidates will not have to compete in as many battleground states to win 270 or more in the electoral college. Rather, they will have to hold onto traditionally red states and pick up a battleground state or two.”

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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