Why do so many Americans move from blue states to red ones? Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, crows that “a collapse in the quality of life” in blue states is making residents flee. During a debate in 2023, he taunted California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, for his state’s street crime, woke schools and public defecation by homeless people—he even held up a “poop map” of San Francisco for the cameras. “They actually at one point ran out of u-Hauls in the state of California because so many people were leaving,” he gloated.