The idea of secession is not often brought up in “polite society”, perhaps partly due to its association with the Civil War. But we obviously have a deeply divided country, and many people are not happy with the government that ostensibly represents them. Breaking up the United States into more than one country is fraught with many logistical difficulties – not that they couldn’t be overcome, considering that many countries around the world have done so – but a much simpler solution is possible that preserves the Union, and still can give people a government, at least at the state level, more to their liking.

What if counties in one state decided to leave their current state – you can use the nasty word “secede” if you like —  and join a geographically adjacent state? Leaving aside the constitutionality of this – although I don’t know of any good argument why it would be forbidden – how might it affect the political landscape? In particular, how might it affect the Electoral College, assuming no states are dissolved and no new ones are formed?

To investigate this, I use a map (shown below) created by the New York Times which shows how each county voted in the 2020 presidential election – red for a county that voted for Trump, blue for Biden, and the darker colors indicate wider margins.

There are many regions that do not share the same politics as the majority of voters in their state. Parts of northern California have long considered forming their own new state of Jefferson. But forming a new state means more senators, which can directly shift the political balance and would be harder to be accepted. Counties switching from one state to another do not affect the Senate, and if the number of Representatives is kept at 435, then it might be more politically viable.

So what if the red chunk of northern and eastern California, with population around 3.1 M, seceded to, say, Nevada? They might take a couple of blue counties along the border with them so that the remainder of California is contiguous. Oregon is another possibility for the aspiring Jeffersonians, but much of the red regions of Oregon (population 1.1 M) themselves might want to secede, with a logical landing spot of Idaho, assuming they can’t split off with northern California to form a new state. Ditto for the eastern half (or maybe a little more) of Washington state (1.7 M), which would then more than double the population of Idaho.

Continuing on with this exercise, what other secessions might make sense? I’ve identified more than a dozen other possibilities where a block of red counties could “escape” from a blue state to a friendlier red one. In each case, there might be a few blue counties that must follow along to keep states from having islands of counties inside another state. There are even cases where blue counties could leave red states for “greener” pastures. The only restrictions I impose are that any block of counties moving to another state must be contiguous and adjoin their new state, no non-seceding counties are cut off from the rest of their state, and there are no tendrils of counties that one often sees in gerrymandered congressional districts.

Downstate Illinois has long resented being ruled by the more populous Chicago-dominated north – I know, I was born and raised in Decatur. If counties south of, say, Peoria and Champaign-Urbana, opted to go to Missouri, Indiana, or Kentucky, those states might gain population of 1.3 M, 0.59 M, and 0.14 M, respectively, from Illinois. [Illinois’s capital, Springfield, might end up in Missouri, but the Illinois capital could become the more fitting city of Chicago. If Springfield moved to Missouri, there would also be the problem of there already being a Springfield, MO. There’s also already a Decatur, IN, as well, but we won’t worry about such issues here.]

Regions of eastern Colorado have contemplated going elsewhere – perhaps 1.2 M would switch to Kansas and 0.40 M to Nebraska. Then the western Colorado counties (0.35 M) might defect to Utah.

Counties in western Virginia (1.8 M) are dismayed by the bluing of their state – they could go to West Virginia, reuniting with territory that was originally in Virginia. The tip of Virginia connected to Delaware might also switch there (only 45 k there, however). A few counties in northwest Maryland (97 k) might also prefer West Virginia. The parts of Maryland east of the Chesapeake Bay (1.5 M) might prefer to switch to Delaware since Delaware is less blue than Maryland.

Pennsylvania, although narrowly going for Biden in 2020, might be viewed more favorably by red counties in northwest New Jersey (0.89 M), northern Maryland (0.60 M), and western New York (4.6 M). The blue Buffalo area would also have to go along to avoid being isolated from the rest of New York; there may barely be enough red voters in western New York to provide a majority for agreeing to that change. [Some well-known Glibs would then be in Pennsylvania!] The red area in central New York is surrounded by blue, and I’m not sure where they could go without splitting New York into disconnected pieces; areas around Ithaca and Syracuse are keeping them from connecting to western New York.

Texas might absorb some red eastern New Mexico counties (0.32 M), but could lose the immediate El Paso area (0.87 M) to New Mexico.

There is a cluster of blue counties along the upper Mississippi River. I think the most logical change is to have a number of blue Iowa and Wisconsin counties switch to Minnesota and Illinois. I estimate that Iowa might lose 0.79 M to Illinois and 0.39 M to Minnesota, while Wisconsin might lose 0.86 M to Illinois and 0.72 M to Minnesota.

Finally, western North Carolina (2.1 M) could be alarmed at how their state, although barely going for Trump in 2020, looks like it is turning blue, and switch to Tennessee. Similarly northern Georgia (4.0 M), including two red counties on the outskirts of Atlanta, might also choose Tennessee.

Although individual population changes are mostly small, they do add up. By my estimation, with the changes listed above, the following states that went for Trump would have electoral vote changes: TN (+7), ID (+4), WV (+2), MO (+2), UT (+1), IN (+1), IA (-1), NC (-2), FL (+1), KS (+1), and TX (+1); some of the changes are due to population gain from the 2010 to 2020 census, and not county migration. The states that went for Biden had these gains/losses: PA (+5), NV (+4), DE (+1), MN (+1), NM (+1), NJ (-1), OR (-1), CO (-2), MD (-2), VA (-2), WA (-2), WI (-2), IL (-2), NY (-4), CA (-5), GA (-5), and MI (-1), with the last one due to population loss between censuses. Then Biden’s 306-232 electoral advantage in 2020 shrinks to 289-249.

Furthermore, the population migrations of red voters would have likely switched PA, NV, WI, and DE, now with electoral votes 25, 10,  8, and 4, respectively, to Trump, and North Carolina (with 13 EV) to Biden, resulting in a Trump advantage of 283-255! Since each electoral vote due to House membership represents about 750,000 people, even if several million of the population changes listed above don’t occur, as long as Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin flip to the Republicans, Trump would still win the electoral count.

Obviously there are lots of issues with the above analysis, the foremost being: would all of those counties actually want to switch states, especially when they likely have been making fun of “those people” across the border for generations? Would the migrants fit in with their new state? And then there’s the problem with state capitals moving to other states (Springfield, IL, and Madison, WI, in the scenario above), and cities and counties with the same name as another entity in their new state.

But what this exercise shows is that the way population is distributed in the states can have a profound effect on what happens in the Electoral College, especially if certain areas were to migrate to an adjoining state with more similar political values. You might call it gerrymandering, although the purpose was simply to make more people happy with their state government, not to affect the Electoral College. Of course, migration of people rather than whole counties from one state to another can and does have a similar effect, although not to the same degree.

If you can allow states to dissolve or new ones to be created, it opens up many more possibilities. What would happen to blue cities in a red state, or even blue cities in a bluish state that is otherwise red? Would a number of micro-states be formed? The addition or deletion of senators would be a sticking point to many – not that the idea addressed in this article wouldn’t also be. I may tackle this in another post, assuming I can come up with a suitable framework.

Addendum

Tom Woods has had a number of recent podcasts on the idea of secession: Ep. 2188, “Is National Divorce Anti-Liberty?” , Ep. 2195, “Progressives Try to Suppress Secession Discussion” , Ep. 2221, “Status Quo Bias is our Worst Enemy” , and Ep. 2223, “Smaller is Better” . These discussions were what led me to writing this article.