Republican States Are Creating a Southern Economic Powerhouse

Six predominantly Republican controlled states in the southeast now make up a higher share of U.S. GDP than the traditional northeastern powerhouse, including New York, according to federal data.

Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate the states of Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas overtook the northeast during the coronavirus pandemic, and remain on an upward trajectory.

The data is a boon for the Republican Party, which dominates politics in most of the six states, enjoying a near monopoly of power in several of them. By contrast prominent Democratic controlled states, including California, New York and Oregon, have been struggling, with all three recording a population fall in 2022 according to census data.

According to analysis by Bloomberg, based on U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the six southeastern states made up 23.8 percent of U.S. GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022, versus 22.4 percent for the northeast. The publication defines the northeast as including "Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, D.C., Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York."

While this partly reflects long-term trends, going back at least to 2010, the pace of chance dramatically accelerated when the coronavirus pandemic struck America in 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the northeastern states still had the edge, comprising 23.1 percent of GDP versus 22.6 percent for the six in the southeast. However by the fourth quarter of 2021 the southeastern six had pulled ahead, and went on to gain further ground in 2022.

Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina are all governed by Republicans, with only North Carolina having a Democrat as governor.

Five of the six states also elected Republicans to represent them in the Senate, with the only exception being Georgia.

A Bloomberg analysis of Internal Revenue Service data concluded that the southeast U.S. received more than $100 billion in new income from 2020-21, with the northeast losing $60 billion during the same period. The financial publication also reports the southeast having produced over two-thirds of U.S. job-growth from early 2020, and contains 10 of the 15 top growing American cities.

In the year to July 2022, Florida recorded population growth of 1.9 percent, making it the fastest growing state, with Texas seeing its population increase by 1.6 percent. By contrast the Democratic states of California, New York and Illinois shrank by 0.3 percent, 0.9 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.

The population of San Francisco fell by 7.2 percent between 2020 and 2021, then by another 0.3 percent from 2021 to 2022, with the pandemic and crime being widely blamed.

Speaking previously with Newsweek Sam Karnick, a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, a conservative leaning think tank, argued law and order is a key factor in people moving from Democratic to Republican controlled states.

He said: "Populations in Democrat-controlled states are falling because of an exodus from big cities. The reverse is happening in Republican-controlled states. Although taxes are an important factor, there was not nearly as much blue-to-red state movement before 2020. The deciding element appears to be the rapid rise of violent crime in Democrat-controlled cities across the nation.

"The 2021 National Crime Victimization Survey shows that the rate of violent crime has been rising in urban areas, though not in suburbs or rural areas. This tracks with the population movement from Democrat-controlled states to Republican ones."

The top two candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, former president Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are both currently based in the Sunshine State.