The Curley Effect has typically applied in cities, where politics is often called “tribal” because of strong ethnic or racial ties. Today, however, a new tribal politics—an ideological kind—is influencing state fortunes. Many now say that they wish to socialize with, marry, and live near only people with similar political opinions, and these commitments are shaping state migration patterns post-pandemic. Surveys show conservative voters in blue states dissatisfied with their current environments and likely to move, and progressives in the same places intending to stay.

For now, Republican locales are profiting. Not only have Republican jurisdictions been winning the migration battle, luring households with lower taxes and less regulation, but they’re also magnetizing new investment and industries, driving an economic realignment: southern states have surpassed the Northeast in their share of national gross domestic product, for instance. National political power is also shifting.

In an earlier time, starkly diverging economic results and rising social disorder might have provoked political reform within a state. Voters frustrated with left-wing policies might have turned to more moderate Democratic candidates, or even switched parties to vote GOP. But now, the new tribalism is producing a state version of the Curley Effect. The voters most likely to vote for change are leaving blue states like New York and California, making the Left more dominant in those places and reform increasingly improbable. On everything from energy to taxes and regulation to cultural controversies over illegal aliens and spiking crime, blue-state lawmakers are passing radical bills and voters are electing more progressive politicians. How far can some of these states go? Is a course correction possible?