leftugee

plural leftugees

1. USgovernmentOne who leaves a liberal blue state to live in a conservative red state, (often) doing so in favour of fewer regulations and lower taxes.

   Just as a refugee resettles to escape hardship, a leftugee does so to flee the punitive financial environment created in their state by big government.

   2019 December 27, Jason Orestes, “'Leftugees': Red states must defend themselves from the blue-state exodus”, in Washington Examiner

   3 more examples

   But the fact that leftugees move in pursuit of more-affordable housing or to escape chronic traffic jams does not mean they all prefer a pure “red” policy model of low taxes and fewer services. To the contrary, blue-state migrants may nudge the politics of their new homes — and the new congressional districts to be drawn around them — leftward, while avoiding the worst liberal excesses they left behind.

   2020 January 6, Charles Lane, “Want more bang for your vote? Move.”, in Washington Post

   There's dispute over whether the newcomers will change state politics in the South, as they may have in North Carolina, which elected a Democratic governor in 2016, or are “leftugees” fleeing liberal policies who will embrace conservatism.

   2020 January 6, Tim Henderson, “Some states face political changes as newcomers arrive”, in Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, page A6

   Forbes.com had a stark March 2021 headline for what's happening around the country: “America's Mass Migration Intensifies as ‘Leftugees’ Flee Blue States and Counties for Red.”

   2022 January 23, “Color these (new) Tennessee former blue-staters red”, in The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee, page H7