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Analysis | Where 2024 voters moved since 2020 — and how they registered

Published

2 years ago

April 11, 2024

Analysis | Where 2024 voters moved since 2020 — and how they registered

Between any two presidential elections, there is an enormous amount of churn in the electorate, both nationally and at the state level. A lot of this is obvious: People die, young people turn 18 and register to vote (and then often don’t vote again for a decade or two), people lose or gain interest in candidates or issues.

There’s another factor, too, that often goes underrecognized. Over the course of four years, a lot of people simply pull up stakes and move. And that, at least in theory, can have an effect on the outcome of an election.

This is not easy to track. The Census Bureau collects data on interstate moves year over year, but in the aggregate. We can’t see, for example, whether someone moved from one state to another and then back. And we can only guess at what the political effects might be. Is someone moving from Ohio to Michigan adding a Republican vote to the latter state or is it a Democrat seeking slightly bluer climes?

We have another set of data that offers us a better lens into this question of partisan flow. L2, a political data vendor, tracks individual registrations over time, including after people move across state lines. An analysis of that data offers a picture — albeit an incomplete one — of the influx and outflow of state residents by party.

There are two caveats that are worth keeping in mind.

The first is that not every move is captured in this data, even among voters who were registered in both states. In many cases, of course, people moving across state lines will register to vote for the first time in the new state; they won’t be reflected in this data. Nor will people who couldn’t be matched to their prior registrations (generally because they didn’t complete a change of address form with the post office).

The other caveat is that this analysis includes partisanship data that’s modeled by L2. In some states, registration is nonpartisan. In those states, L2 uses other data — voting patterns or demographics — to estimate partisanship.

With those qualifiers in place, we can simply jump into the data. What we were interested in was less the numbers of people going from state to state (given the qualifier about those numbers) than the patterns of that movement. For each state, we calculated the number of Democrats, Republicans and third-party or nonpartisans that moved into a state since 2020 and the number of each group that moved out. Then we presented those totals as a percentage of the state’s total population.

This was the result. Thicker bars on the left side than the right indicate more arrivals than departures. The bars are generally ordered by size: If the Republican bar is on top, more Republicans than other groups were coming or going.

There are a lot of nuances to pick out of those charts; we’ll leave you to that.

Let’s drill down on the question we started with, though — considering how this might affect the presidential race. Comparing the net change among partisans (that is, those arriving minus those leaving) to the 2020 vote, we see that more-Democratic states were often those with bigger positive inflows of Democrats, though it’s cloudy. That partisan correlation was much stronger in more-Republican states.

In the middle there we see the swing states that flipped around in 2016 and 2020. We can pull the eight closest states in 2020 out and see that the net change by party varies. In Georgia, there’s been a bigger positive change for Democrats; in Florida, strongly for Republicans.

But what are the actual numbers, you demand. Well, in Georgia, the net advantage (comparing parties after subtracting outgoing voters from incoming ones) was a gain of about 18,000 Democrats. In Florida, it was 124,000 Republicans.

But again, this is just a sliver of movement. The Census Bureau’s data on moves from 2021 to 2022 shows 50 percent more inflow to Florida than there were new arrivals tracked by L2 over all four years. In Georgia, the Census Bureau’s one-year total is more than twice the L2 numbers. People are missed — including people registering for the first time.

There’s one other point worth making: People who have newly moved are less likely to vote. Here’s other data from the Census Bureau, looking at the 2020 election.

There are a lot of reasons for this: They haven’t registered yet, for one, or they may not know where they are supposed to cast their ballot. People who move frequently are less likely to own homes and skew younger, and younger people vote less often.

In other words, do not use these numbers to make bold predictions about how this consistently close presidential contest will end up. Use them, instead, as a reminder to register and vote.

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Washington

HIGHLIGHT | Lawrence Dots a Pass to Washington for a 6-Yard TD

Published

17 minutes ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

HIGHLIGHT | Lawrence Dots a Pass to Washington for a 6-Yard TD

DE Dawuane Smoot, LB Foyesade Oluokun, TE Brenton Strange, S Eric Murray, and S Antonio Johnson speak with the media after practice on Thursday ahead of the Wild Card Matchup vs. Bills.

0:00 – 2:28 – DE Dawuane Smoot

2:29 – 6:24 – LB Foyesade Oluokun

6:25 – 9:25 – TE Brenton Strange

9:26 – 11:32 – S Eric Murray

11:33 – 13:46 – S Antonio Johnson

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Washington

Iran warns Washington it will retaliate against any attack

Published

12 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Iran warns Washington it will retaliate against any attack

DUBAI, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Iran warned President Donald Trump on Sunday that any U.S. attack would lead to Tehran striking back against Israel and regional U.S. military bases as “legitimate targets”, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told parliament.

Israel is on high alert for the possibility of a U.S. intervention to support a nationwide protest movement in Iran, sources said.

Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

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Washington

Washington National Opera cuts ties with the Kennedy Center after longstanding partnership | CNN Politics

Published

2 days ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Washington National Opera cuts ties with the Kennedy Center after longstanding partnership | CNN Politics

The Washington National Opera on Friday announced it is parting ways with the Kennedy Center after more than a decade with the arts institution.

“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the opera said in a statement.

The decoupling marks another high-profile withdrawal since President Donald Trump and his newly installed board of trustees instituted broad thematic and cosmetic changes to the building, including renaming the facility “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

The opera said it plans to “reduce its spring season and relocate performances to new venues.”

A source familiar with the dynamic told CNN the decision to part ways was made by the opera’s board and its leadership, and that the decision was not mutual.

A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center said in a statement, “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship. We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”

Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, who was appointed by Trump’s hand-picked board, said on X, “Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety.”

Grenell added, “Having an exclusive Opera was just not financially smart. And our patrons clearly wanted a refresh.”

Since taking the reins at the center, Grenell has cut existing staff, hired political allies and mandated a “break-even policy” for every performance.

The opera said the new policy was a factor in its decision to leave the center.

“The Center’s new business model requires productions to be fully funded in advance—a requirement incompatible with opera operations,” the opera said.

Francesca Zambello, the opera’s artistic director, said she is “deeply saddened to leave The Kennedy Center.”

“In the coming years, as we explore new venues and new ways of performing, WNO remains committed to its mission and artistic vision,” she said.

The New York Times first reported the opera’s departure.

Founded in 1956 as the “Opera Society of Washington,” the group has performed across the district, taking permanent residency in the Kennedy Center in 2011.

The performing arts center has been hit with a string of abrupt cancellations from artists in recent weeks including the jazz group The Cookers and New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers who canceled their performances after Trump’s name was added to the center – a living memorial for assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

The American College Theater Festival voted to suspend its relationship with the Kennedy Center, calling the affiliation “no longer viable” and citing concerns over a misalignment of the group’s values.

American banjo player Béla Fleck withdrew his upcoming performance with the National Symphony Orchestra, saying that performing at the center has become “charged and political.”

The Brentano String Quartet, who canceled their February 1 performance at the Kennedy Center, said they will “regretfully forego performing there.”

CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center on the additional cancellations.

The opera said, “The Board and management of the company wish the Center well in its own future endeavors.”

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Nicky Robertson contributed to this report.

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