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Shortly after Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, claims about the politician, and his state, started flying.
One came all the way from sunny Florida.
"In 2021, Minnesotans were roughly five times more likely to move to Florida than vice versa," Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, posted Aug. 6 on X. "They were fleeing a state that, under Gov. Tim Walz, turned its back on law and order, increased taxes, and imposed unscientific coronavirus restrictions, harming children and destroying businesses."
Data shows that DeSantis’ figure is close, if a little inflated. In 2021, almost four times as many Minnesotans moved to Florida than Floridians moved to Minnesota in 2021. It was still high in 2022, the last year for which data is available, but the difference shrank by almost half — about two times as many Minnesotans moved to Florida than the inverse.
When looking historically at the two states’ migration numbers, population and migration research experts said some of the significance DeSantis attached to it falls away. For years, more people have moved from upper Midwestern states to Florida than vice versa.
People have varying motivations to move to a state such as Florida, including taxes, which DeSantis mentioned. But experts said it can be difficult to pin population movement on any one policy, person or circumstance. Other Midwestern states, some under Republican administrations, had similar, if not higher, out-migration numbers to Florida.
"Many people from the upper midwest — many of whom lived with cold weather all their lives — look forward to retiring in a warm weather state like Florida, and this doesn't have anything to do with liberal policies," said Jennifer Lynne Van Hook, director of the Population Research Institute at Penn State University.
READ MORE: Politifact FL: Who is Tim Walz? What to know about Kamala Harris’ new running mate
For example, Republican-led Iowa saw migration patterns similar to Minnesota’s, she said. In 2021, 7 out of 10,000 Iowans moved to Florida, compared with 1.6 out of 10,000 Floridians who moved to Iowa.
DeSantis’ office, pointing to U.S. Census data, said that over 2021-22, "up to five people moved to Florida from Minnesota for every person moving out of Florida to Minnesota." This comes out to about four times as many Minnesotans moving to Florida than the inverse.
Tracking the migration
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey tracks the number of people who move from state to state each year. This migration data has been available annually since 2005, though there was no release in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stefan Rayer, director of the University of Florida’s Population Program in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, reviewed 2021 Census data and calculated that about 10,156 people moved from Minnesota to Florida and about 2,712 from Florida to Minnesota — a net gain of 7,444 people for Florida.
This amounts to an in-out ratio (the number of in-migrants divided by the number of out-migrants) of about 3.74 for Florida, Rayer said. In other words, in Florida there were 3.74 in-migrants from Minnesota for every out-migrant to Minnesota, which is close, but not quite as high, as DeSantis’ "five times" figure.
The latest available Census data, from 2022, shows a smaller gain for Florida, with about 9,192 Minnestoans moving to the state and 4,521 Floridians moving to Minnesota — a 2.03 in-out ratio for Florida.
These numbers have fluctuated over the years, experts said, but historically, more people move from Minnesota to Florida than the other way around, matching the migration patterns of several other Midwestern states.
For example, since 2005, Florida has gained a net 9,800 people from Illinois per year, 9,100 from Michigan, and about 8,900 from Ohio, Census data shows. Illinois and Michigan are both Democratic-led, while Ohio is Republican.
But the Minnesota-to-Florida population loss is far lower than any of those states. Since 2005, Florida has gained a net 2,800 people per year from Minnesota.
For most of the 2010s, Minnesota’s population rate grew more slowly than the U.S. as a whole, the Minnesota Reformer reported in July. In 2018, the year before Walz took office, the state’s population growth ran about one-tenth of a percentage point above the national average, the nonprofit news site reported, based on U.S. Census data. That held for several years before being scrambled by the COVID-19 pandemic. "By 2022, when comparable numbers were again available for both the U.S. and Minnesota, both had fallen sharply," the report said. It pointed to more people moving out of the state than into it and said a similar trend was seen in other cold, northern states.
When evaluating migration, population sizes also play a role, experts said: Florida’s population is almost four times as large as Minnesota’s.
When adjusting for population size, the share of Minnesotans who moved to Florida was still greater than the inverse in 2022, Van Hook found. About 16 out of 10,000 Minnesotans moved to Florida that year, she said, compared with 2 out of every 10,000 Floridians who moved to Minnesota.
What drives people to move, or whether certain factors make people more or less likely to migrate to another state, is another story.
"There are of course myriads of reasons why people move from one place to another," Rayer said. "Florida tends to have a positive net migration balance with many states, which is due at least in part to retirement migration."
Richard Florida, a University of Toronto professor who has studied urban migration, told PolitiFact that there’s historically been a pattern of migration from the so-called frost belt, the region near the Great Lakes where heavy snowfall is common, to the Sun Belt, which stretches from Florida to California, generally across the Southeast and Southwest.
"That was driven by factors like climate, of course. But also jobs and affordable housing," he said. "Of course, those things have declined because of the pandemic and the shift in population. In some sunbelt cities, housing prices have risen, and many frost belt cities now number among the most affordable."
Our ruling
DeSantis said Minnesotans were "five times more likely" to move to Florida than vice versa in 2021, and blamed Walz’s policies.
Almost four times as many Minnesotans moved to Florida than Floridians moved to Minnesota, according to 2021 Census data. That held in 2022, but the difference shrank by nearly half.
Experts said this is part of a longstanding migration pattern that isn’t limited to Minnesota or Walz’s tenure. For years, more people have moved from upper Midwestern states to Florida than vice versa. Other states, some Republican-led, saw similar if not higher out-migration numbers to Florida.
People’s motivations for moving to a different state are hard to pin down, so it is possible some people may have moved because they liked Florida’s policies. People who migrate from upper Midwestern states to Florida often move for retirement, lower taxes and warmer climate, migration experts said.
DeSantis’ statement is partially accurate, but it leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.
Our Sources
- Gov. Ron DeSantis, X post, Aug. 6, 2024
- PolitiFact, Gov. Newsom said more Floridians move to California. He’s technically right, but it’s close to equal, June 19, 2023
- U.S. Census, Guidance for State-to-State Migration Flows, Accessed Aug. 6, 2024
- U.S. Census, State-to-State Migration Flows, Accessed Aug. 6, 2024
- The Minnesota Reformer, How Minnesota changed during Tim Walz’s tenure, July 31, 2024
- Center for the American Experiment, Minnesotans are fleeing the state, where are they going? Florida, Jan. 4, 2023
- Center for the American Experiment, Since 2019, Minnesota has the 15th highest rate of domestic out migration in the United States, Aug. 5, 2024
- Email interview, Bryan Griffin, spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis, Aug. 6, 2024
- Email interview, Jennifer Lynne Van Hook, director of the Population Research Institute at Penn State University, Aug. 6, 2024
- Email interview, Stefan Rayer, director of the University of Florida’s Population Program in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, Aug. 6, 2024
- Email interview, Richard Florida, professor at the University of Toronto, Aug. 7, 2024
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