This is an entirely fair point—there's a fair amount of brain drain that can be attributed to "I don't want to live in a red state."

The LGBT thing is anecdotally true in my experience, and in particular, leaving your home state for college is a good socially-acceptable excuse to leave your home state and meet others you suspect are like you at exactly the same time that you're no longer a minor under your parents' control.

Sick leave, parental leave, legal marijuana, assisted suicide, non compete bans, better environmental protections, pro choice, are all desirable to the young people I know and red states go the other way on those policies.

Huh! The fastest growing states in 2018 were: Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Florida and Washington.[1]

[1]https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/estimate...

Population changes are due to more than just migration. Birth and death rates are also significant factors.

That's percentage growth, not numeric growth. So while their population increase was largely due to national migration, those migration numbers didn't need to be very high because they don't have huge populations (except Florida).

Even in FL, anecdotally I know many people who moved there from CA or CO or NY not because they disliked the place they came from, but because they were forced out by influxes of _other_ people who made more money, drove cost of living up, etc. The sentiment is basically "Florida isn't as nice, but its cheap, so we make do because we have to." The brain drain from much of the rest of the country into a few small metro areas is forcing lots of middle-income people from those areas to migrate to cheaper places, and this would seemingly skew the numbers when you're looking at overall population migration.

My theories:

ID/UT/AZ -> Lower/middle class people can no longer afford to live comfortably in California

FL/WA -> People are getting sick of the progressively longer, shittier winters in the midwest/northeast

> pro choice [...] are all desirable to the young people I know

Interestingly, unlike the other issues you've listed, pro-choice support does not vary a whole lot by age. 63% support from 18-29, 59% for 30-59, and about 57% for everyone older than that (https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-aborti...) Whatever causes the difference on that issue is not due to age.

I'm not sure the map backs up what you're saying.

If you look at the 2017 Net Brain Drain it shows the following top gainers: - Texas - Virginia - Illinois - Maryland - Colorado - California - New Jersey - New York - Massachussets

Georgia and North Carolina also showed strong gains (along with many other states). That may be blue-leaning but it's not a landslide.

It's more like people are concentrating in the biggest cities generally, and to the degree that there's a blue-shift its that states dominated by their urban population lean democrat and states dominated by a rural population lean republican, so the cultural change follows the demographic shifts rather than driving them.

How is it not a landslide? Of the 9 top gainers you listed, only one leans republican (Texas) [1]. All others lean democratic.

Of course as pointed out by a sibling, it’s kind of an irrelevant point anyway. The brain migration is away from rural areas (which are red, regardless of state), to big cities (which are blue, regardless of state). That only reenforces the parent’s hypothesis that intellectuals resent the anti-intellectual bent republicans have taken in recent times.

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/247025/democratic-states-exceed...

Illinois at least supports their claim - that it's because of the large cities, not the states as a whole. Take away Chicago and Illinois would be pretty Republican: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Il...

You're picking states, but the report talks about moving to cities that tend to be blue.

My point is that all cities tend to be blue. Look at the electoral maps by county in the last several elections and it’s pretty stark: little blue islands in an ocean of red - but the blue dots are the big cities where about half the country lives.

I think it's partially cultural and partially economic. I left my home state (which scored poorly in this Senate report) because I couldn't get a great education in the state system, nor were there any prospects for the kinds of careers I was interested in (and there still aren't today). I love visiting where I grew up, and most of my family is still there, but the jobs I want are not and will not be there for any foreseeable future.

Seeing your edit, I can understand why you think it's mostly cultural rather than economic, but I definitely think it's both.

I meant to just point it out as a potential other major factor - completely left out of the report because it’s from the republican majority’s office.

> The culture wars the republicans have been running on since the 80s turns off thoughtful people - anti-intellectualism

There was plenty of anti-intellectualism in the US in the 70s. The movie "Revenge of the Nerds" wasn't made in a cultural vacuum. Neither was "Animal House". Sports heros have always been worshiped, not so with intellectuals (other than Einstein).

Much of this changed with Bill Gates. He was derided for being a nerd for years, until he made so much money people stopped laughing at him.

“Nerds” were derided as being relatively single-minded and unsocial, where to be successful in the business world at the time (and still now) meant communication and being able to easily form relationships. The nerds formed a new ladder from which to be successful and thereby respected - they’re powerful enough to take down the not-nerds.

You’re not wrong about anti-intellectualism always being a thing though, point taken!

I left Utah many years ago for exactly these reasons. Salt Lake City is a lot more progressive now than it was then but every time I go back I’m reminded of how much I still feel estranged from that culture. If anything people there seem to be doubling down on their more intransigent beliefs lately.

This is what I saw growing up in rural Ohio. Many HS classmates moved out of state and others moved into the major urban centers of Ohio.

I left Toledo last year and moved to the east coast. I was one of maybe three of my friends who was left at that point. It could be a really great state, but the dying lake and dying industrial economy really wrecked the place. The area needs serious investment, but I'm nowhere in the position to contribute back like that, so I made the jump.

A thing I like to say is that I am proud that I am from Ohio, but I'm also happy I'm not there now.

How can you be proud of where you are from? You had no choice in being born there, and as you said it’s a state without a lot of opportunity, and in any case, you didn’t personally contribute to anything to make the place better. So why be proud of that?

I’m from Florida but it’s not something I’m proud or not proud of. I’m proud of my kids. I’m proud of my work. I’m proud of my multi decade relationship with my wife. Those are things to be proud of.

When a class I belong to does something great, I feel I can only be proud to be a member of that class to the extent that I contributed to the great thing and that we worked together to achieve something greater than ourselves. Even then I’m proud that “we did that thing” not that “I’m a member of that group.”

Just a thought. I know many people are proud of where they are from but it’s irrational to me.

I wonder what it would look like to superimpose over the maps in this article a map of states with the highest rate of climate-change denial?