Americans are voting with their feet and the results are in: red states are winning.

An incredible 46 million people moved to a new ZIP code over the year to February 2022, the highest annual total since Equifax, a credit agency, began tracking moves in 2010. Republican-leaning red states gained the most residents — led by Florida, Texas, and North Carolina — while the blue states of California, New York, and Illinois were the biggest migratory losers. The most popular pandemic-era moves were from New York to Florida and California to Texas — so much so that U-Haul ran out of moving trucks leaving California last year.

Given the chance to flee high-cost cities, Millennials did so in droves. Superstar metros like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago were the hardest hit by pandemic-era outmigration, according to Moody’s, and Americans ages 25 to 34 years old made up the largest share of movers. And where did they go? As the pandemic wore on, they migrated to lower- cost, fast-growing hubs with a high quality of life, such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix..........