There are a good number of Okies on here and Mastodon. Welcome!
I actually think Oklahoma is a few years away from a blue tipping point, similar to the effect Denver has had on Colorado, where the urban majority has rapidly tipped things blue.
The awful superintendent is low key the best thing to ever happen to education here—there is a bubbling reaction even within the right to react to him and Stitt’s policies. And turning around education is the only thing needed to stop “blue” families from declining job offers here. Which would cascade the social landscape rapidly.
Northern Michigan is about to have the same temp as Tennessee in the next decade. Blue states won't be frigid for much longer and red states are about to swim in the humidity. Still, it varies quite heavily more by terrain than by lat/long.
Our weak link is schools. Either people react to this bad superintendent, and schools finally improve—or some geniuses go the opposite way, and exploit this move to charter/private schools as opportunity to somehow make the first ultra-affordable private schools, which would relieve pressure from overcrowding and fix the public schools by proxy.
I just escape that jail, moved to California, it's actually shocking how much nicer it is.
There's a streep aweaper that comes through the neighborhood once a week, so the streets are extremely clean, and like, the roads are actually well maintained. Just from the like, extremely surface level things.
My husband and I thought about Arizona, or Virginia to get away from one of the highest CoL areas in the country.. but eventually decided to focus on Connecticut instead, because we don't want to be in a red state. With the exception of CA, none of the liberal states are sunny and all of them are expensive!
Because warm states were better for a slave-based agriculture economy and the liberal/conservative divide (whose relationship to political parties has changed over time) comes, in large part, from cultural differences that emerged before the Civil War.
It's likely also due to the populations living in southern states, another big part of the population in southern states are those who had jobs in the mining industries or people retiring, the biggest things the republicans are pushing are bringing back mining and making sure that people get to keep their money(such as lower taxes) where as democrats are pushing for a cleaner environment(so miners blame them for losing their jobs), and major infrastructure plans that could take a while to pan out(so people retired see that and don't want higher taxes as they already got their grain and don't want to pass it on).
This is an over generalization and there is other major factors but these two groups are significant sections that the republicans are appealing to where as democrats aren't such. Democrats might be able to get big wins if they could campaign on programs to help mine works get new jobs and revitalize the economies in mine towns and maybe some more programs for people that have retired so they feel they are getting more then what they're putting in.
It has a Republican governor and house but the Senate is Democrat. I'm sure Republicans are trying to enact restrictive abortion laws but calling Virginia a red state is inaccurate.
What are you talking about? Colorado has 300 days of sun a year, mild winters (depending on area. Mountain towns see the snow longer than Denver). Also Eastern WA and Oregon are hot as shit and sunny as well.
Maybe you missed the part about trying to find a lower cost of living area? Unless you go to the highest crime, poorest areas of those states, real estate is insane. We did consider Pueblo, CO, but it's trumpville and actually more expensive than most parts of CT.
I was seriously considering a move from Nashville to Minneapolis last year, but after a lot of soul searching about it, I realized that the length of winter there would mean giving up most of my favorite hobbies, especially motorcycles, for a substantial portion of the year, and I'm not willing to do that.