The Columbus area is blue. Most of the biggest cities in Ohio are. It's the countryside and rural areas (Ohio has a lot of small towns) that are deep red.

Yes but increased population will increase the number of blue which tilts the whole state in favor of blue. Yes, there will be shenanigans(voter intimation, making blue areas harder to vote) from the red side like we see in other currently purple states but those tactics become more ineffective the more blue voters you have so this can only be a net positive.

I suspect part of the appeal is it's not permanently blue.

People always complain about the downsides of all these blue areas but at the end of the day there is still a massive population that continue to live there. For example: Exodus from California is mainly limited to people making less than 100k a year. People making more than that actually increased their population in California. So this is mainly a rich vs poor issue. I'm excited at the prospect of transforming some of the rural states into a mindset of progressivism. It will help prevent some of the gridlock that is holding back the country from trying big bold ideas.

I mean it's pretty much known that rich people can avoid nearly any consequence intended or unintended of politicians......

It's why people view the ability to ignore politics as a privilege having the resources to just avoid whatever they happen to do gives you a massive degree of freedom.

Also aren't these progressive policies supposed to have helped people on the lower end of the economic scale rather then forced them out?

>I mean it's pretty much known that rich people can avoid nearly any consequence intended or unintended of politicians......

Its not a long term strategy when the majority suffer. Thats why the blue side have shifted towards pushing European style Democratic Socialism policies and the Red has shifted into authoritarian right style policies.

>Also aren't these progressive policies supposed to have helped people on the lower end of the economic scale rather then forced them out?

What progressive policies? There is no real progressive party in the US. California(and the rest of the states (save for a few districts here and there) has been extremely hostile to real progressives. What we have now on the "left" is a combination of neo-liberal right leaning centrists mixed in with fake leftist social populism.