Following the declaration of the COVID national emergency in March 2020, blue states rapidly embraced the new command-and-control authority granted them under the pandemic’s “emergency powers.” Their unrelenting lockdowns, mask mandates, and suppression of personal and economic freedom propelled the start of a great national migration. My growing neighborhood in a Tennessee suburb was flooded with blue-state refugees in 2021 and 2022, with very heavy representation from Illinois, but also some from California, New England, and other blue areas. The migration slowed by 2024 and 2025, but a very simple observation indicates to me that the blue state exodus is firing up again. Quite simply, there is once again an abundance of cars with blue-state license plates cruising around my suburban town. (RELATED: Blue States Are Moving Legislation Forward to Restrict How Much You Can Drive) As writers such as Salena Zito and David Marcus have demonstrated, there are cultural trends that reveal themselves not by sitting in a newsroom or talking to politicians, but by meeting and observing real people in the real world. I’m once again observing a lot of those people from blue states slowly driving around the streets of my Tennessee town, looking left and right as they drive, presumably pondering its suitability as a place to relocate. (RELATED: Go South, Young Man, Go South) At the peak of the previous invasion of blue-state refugees, if I were in my garage or doing some yard work, I could tell just by the sound when someone was house-hunting in the neighborhood. A car slowly driving at 10 mph while its occupants peruse the neighborhood has a different sound than that of a resident driving through at 25 mph. I’ve even had several out-of-state house hunters stop when they see me to ask about local taxes and utilities. Almost uniformly, they reveal that they are seeking a lower cost of living and a better culture, barely concealing the fact that they are conservative political refugees. My neighborhood is full of flag-waving patriots, and I’ve also noticed that one of the first things newcomers from out of state do after moving in is to put out an American flag. I take this as them announcing, “Ignore my license plate, we’re on your team.” (RELATED: Blue States’ High Tax State-of-Mind) It’s easy to notice out-of-state license plates, because there are no front plates on cars registered in Tennessee. A car with a front license plate that is driving through my suburb is going to be from out of state, and I know the blue-state license plates by sight now. States like Tennessee are clearly a land of hope and opportunity for regular Americans beaten down by blue-state governance. In recent months, I have started seeing a flood of Illinois plates again, as well as a great many California and New York plates. Unlike the previous great wave, this time there are a lot of Virginia plates too. While Virginia may border Tennessee, my community is about 240 miles from the Virginia state line, and over 550 miles from Richmond and the D.C. suburbs. Virginians driving through my neighborhood aren’t on a Sunday drive. The election of Abigail Spanberger as Virginia’s governor and her efforts to virtually eliminate Republican elected officials in the Old Dominion state may be compelling an exodus of conservative Virginians. (RELATED: The Abigail Spanberger Bait-and-Switch) I’ve also noticed a growing number of vehicles throughout the greater metro area that I would compassionately call “Reverse Okies.” They have license plates from places like California, Washington, Oregon, and New York on their weathered vehicles. A demographic observation of the drivers indicates that they are the “deplorables” or “bitter clingers” that are so despised by prominent Democrats. While we in Tennessee are justifiably worried about our culture being upended by woke Californians, the couple from Modesto in a 12-year old Chrysler minivan, and seeking a new start for their family, is not going to be sending a cross-dressing child to school. States like Tennessee are clearly a land of hope and opportunity for regular Americans beaten down by blue-state governance. (RELATED: Y’all Street Is Eating Wall Street’s Lunch) Amidst this re-shuffling of the American population, there is an important trend regarding blue-state refugees moving to red states — they are voting overwhelmingly Republican. While there is legitimate concern that corporate relocations will bring leftist employees with them, those fleeing blue states of their own volition are making red states redder. An analysis in December 2023 by Fox News showed that of the roughly 20,000 new Idahoans who relocated from the state of Washington, 62 percent of the newcomers registered as Republicans versus just 12 percent as Democrats. For all Idaho newcomers, including a great many from California and Oregon, fully 65 percent registered as Republican versus just 12 percent as Democrat. Back in Tennessee, a study by the Chattanooga Times Free Press in August 2024 looked at the primary ballot preference of first-time voters in Hamilton County (Chattanooga) whose previous address was in California, with a study start date of Jan. 1, 2023. It found that more than 75 percent of the California-to-Chattanooga transplants chose a Republican primary ballot — 83 Republicans to just 26 Democrats. For Illinois-to-Chattanooga transplants, the ratio of Republican to Democrat primary ballots was approximately the same — overwhelmingly Republican. If another great wave of refugees fleeing blue states is ramping up again, as my informal survey of license plates indicates, there will soon be actual data to corroborate my observations. Whether it is a wave or a trickle moving to red states, I am confident that the voting habits of those voluntarily relocating from blue states will be solidly Republican. In fact, those who have escaped the oppression of one-party Democrat states tend to better understand the risk of Democrat rule than many apathetic voters in the states to which they move. READ MORE from Buck Throckmorton: There’s No Reason to Fear an Invasion of Chinese Electric Vehicles Price Gouging, Now Personalized Thanks to Surveillance Pricing and Collusion Under the Radar of the ‘Doomcasting’ Media, There Is Massive Industrial Investment Occurring in the U.S.