In early 2022 our next door neighbor was in the process of moving from Blue Washington to Red Montana.^ As he was preparing the house for sale, he was also assisting an elderly friend move from Oregon to Arizona, and they could not get a one-way U-Haul truck. His friend wound up flying to his new home and hiring a moving van to move his furniture. My neighbor told me that, since his wife was already in Montana, he planned to fly to Helena,^ rent a U-Haul truck, drive it back to Washington, load up his stuff and drive to Helena. Thus, it would be a two-way rental, headed west, instead of a one-way rental headed east.* Most U-Haul franchisees would not rent their equipment to COW residents who were moving east.

According to this recent report from U-Haul, Americans are still moving out of Blue States to Red States, which is still causing a problem for U-Haul’s inventory of trucks, trailers, et al.

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MOVING EAST & SOUTH AWAY FROM C. O. W.

Normal Americans are fleeing California, Oregon and Washington. We who live on the West Coast call these three states COW because, when one state comes up with a Marxist idea, one or both of the others will likely copy.

The trend of southern states netting larger numbers of one-way U-Haul customers continued during 2024, with South Carolina topping the U-Haul Growth Index for the first time. Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee round out the five leading growth states. California experienced the greatest net loss of do-it-yourself movers in U-Haul equipment and ranks 50th for the fifth consecutive year.

Growth rankings are configured by each state’s net gain (or loss) of customers utilizing one-way U-Haul equipment in a calendar year. The U-Haul Growth Index is compiled from well over 2.5 million one-way U-Haul truck, trailer and U-Box moving container transactions that occur annually.

“State-to-state transactions from the past year reaffirm customer tendencies that have been pronounced for some time,” stated John Taylor, U-Haul International president. “Migration to the Southeast and Southwest continues as families gauge their cost of living, job opportunities, quality of life and other factors that go into relocating to a new state. Out-migration remains prevalent for a number of markets across the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast — and particularly California.”

South Carolina climbed three spots in the rankings to unseat Texas, which was the No. 1 growth state for the previous three years (2021-23). Of all the U-Haul movers coming and going from the Palmetto State in 2024, more than 51.7% were arrivals. Texas has ranked first or second among U-Haul Growth States each year since 2016. Florida has been fourth or higher every year since 2015.

New York, at No. 47 on the list, has its lowest growth ranking in a decade.

WHY ARE PEOPLE MOVING TO WASHINGTON?

I found that fact that Washington ranked seventh two years in a row for U-Haul customers moving to this Marxist State head scratching. After all, Biden provided planes, busses and small vans to deliver illegal aliens into this Sanctuary State. Thus, they would not be using U-Hauls.

Just as I thought! The US Census Bureau’s state-to-state migration estimates for 2023 shows that Washington is a popular choice among residents of Oregon and California. Liberals are afraid to leave their woke bubble so, when their policies make their nest too filthy to live in, they move to another woke bubble.^^ For decades, I watched people move north from CA to OR, turning its politics bluer and bluer. As I expected, California led the way moving to Washington, with approximately 40,858 people from the Golden State moving two states north in 2023. However, overall, 212,616 moved TO Washington while more, 215,277, moved FROM the Evergreen State.

Staying on the west coast, the second highest total of new Washington residents from a given state came from Oregon. About 29,960 Oregonians crossed the state’s northern border into Washington in 2023. Around 22,000 Washington residents made the trip south to Oregon.

2024 U-Haul Growth States

States are ranked by their net gain or loss of one-way movers in 2024. 2023 growth rankings in parentheses. The red, blue and swing designations are from the 2024 presidential election.

1. SOUTH CAROLINA (4) Red
2. TEXAS (1) Red
3. NORTH CAROLINA (3) Swing
4. FLORIDA (2) Red
5. TENNESSEE (5) Red
6. ARIZONA (8) Swing
7. WASHINGTON (7) Blue
8. INDIANA (27) Red
9. UTAH (13) Red
10. IDAHO (6) Red
11. OKLAHOMA (41) Red
12. ARKANSAS (17) Red
13. MAINE (31) Blue
14. OHIO (23) Red
15. GEORGIA (18) Swing
16. ALABAMA (22) Red
17. VIRGINIA (10) Red
18. MINNESOTA (20) Blue
19. SOUTH DAKOTA (19) Red
20. VERMONT (12) Blue
21. DELAWARE (15) Blue
22. WISCONSIN (26) Swing
23. IOWA (24) Red
24. MONTANA (21) Red
25. KENTUCKY (29) Red
26. HAWAII (25) Blue
27. ALASKA (34) Red
28. MISSOURI (28) Red
29. NEBRASKA (35) Red
30. WEST VIRGINIA (30) Red
31. NORTH DAKOTA (32) Red
32. KANSAS (33) Red
33. NEW HAMPSHIRE (40) Blue
34. OREGON (37) Blue
35. NEVADA (11) Swing
36. WYOMING (14) Red
37. NEW MEXICO (16) Blue
38. RHODE ISLAND (36) Blue
39. MISSISSIPPI (39) Red
40. COLORADO (9) Blue
41. CONNECTICUT (42) Blue
42. MARYLAND (44) Blue
43. MICHIGAN (46) Swing
44. LOUISIANA (45) Red
45. ILLINOIS (48) Blue
46. PENNSYLVANIA (38) Swing
47. NEW YORK (43) Blue
48. NEW JERSEY (47) Blue
49. MASSACHUSETTS (49) Blue
50. CALIFORNIA (50) Blue

While U-Haul rankings may not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well states and cities are attracting and maintaining residents. U-Haul is the authority on migration trends thanks to its expansive network that blankets all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. The geographical coverage from 23,000-plus U-Haul rental locations provides a broad overview of where people are moving like no one else in the industry. NOTE: Not every town has a U-Haul franchise.

ESCAPING THE MADNESS

When this writer was still practicing law, a 30-something woman came to me to discuss divorce. As we were sorting through her options, she told me that they had moved from Rochester, NY to the Portland area (2,700 miles) three years earlier BECAUSE OF politics. She told me her husband & her just couldn’t STAND living in Rochester, where they were born…

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^The main reason our neighbors moved was due to the tyrant governor, Jay Inslee, mandating that all government employees give up their bodily autonomy and submit to The Jab. It was just a matter of time before the wife would lose her job with the City of Vancouver because she would not take The Jab. Indeed, when he told me they were moving, the wife had already moved. She got a job in Helena, working for the State of Montana doing the same type of job.

*Throughout 2021 and 2022 this American heard from friends, neighbors & relatives how difficult it was to move. As COW dug deeper & deeper cesspools for their hapless residents, those wanting to escape couldn’t find U-Haul trucks & trailers. SO MANY were moving east out of COW (moving west isn’t an option unless you can swim to Hawaii) and few were moving west into COW. The U-Haul franchisees had to hire drivers to retrieve their equipment from, for example, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Tennessee and return it to the West Coast. Many U-Haul franchisees would only rent to a COW customer who was driving ROUND TRIP. To get around this restriction, some people flew east to a city in Idaho or Nevada, rented the U-Haul there, drove it to their home in COW, loaded up and drove east to their final destination in a Red State.

^^Democrats made our neighborhood impossible to live in. My husband and I moved from our Portland suburb in 2020 to our long time beach house on the Washington Coast, 130 miles northwest. We discovered that we were not the only riot refugees. Many retirees moved from the Portland Area and the Seattle Area, both of which suffered months & months of riots cheered on by the Democrat politicians and Democrat voters.

The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited.

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