The GOP’s GDP Majority

Late last year, Visual Capitalist released a review of each state’s 2023 contribution to America’s GDP. Tallying up Trump’s 2024 states shows these accounted for 51.5% of America’s GDP. Using these same GDP percentages, 2024 was a dramatic jump from Trump 2020 states’ 38.3% of GDP and an even larger leap from 2012, when Republicans won only 33.4% of the GDP. 

In just 12 years, Republicans increased their presidential share of America’s GDP by 18 percentage points – an increase of more than 50%.

Presidential election results are obviously politically important. In addition to determining who becomes president, they often boost down-ballot candidates at the congressional, state, and local levels.  

But the GDP results in presidential elections are also important. Economic activity brings with it population and investment; people and money flow to where the growth is. It can therefore be both cause and effect: Growth occurs because of local conditions, and growth enhances local conditions.

There is a synergy between economics and politics. More people equate to more electoral votes, more members of Congress (red states are currently projected to gain ten House seats after the 2030 census), and more campaign contributions.

To fully appreciate the link between economic contribution and political outcomes, look at America’s past partisan alignments. From post-Civil War to the Depression, Republicans held an obviously dominant economic position by representing America’s rising industrial heartland. The same applied to Democrats during their decades-long New Deal coalition. 

Beginning with the New Deal coalition’s steady erosion and into today, we have not seen a prevailing partisan political or economic majority. Control of the White House, Congress, and America’s economic majority has switched back and forth, following the presidential victor. (Only once has this advantage lasted longer than two consecutive presidential terms: the “Reagan presidential elections” of 1980, 1984, and 1988.)

Based on the Visual Capitalist numbers, as recently as the 2012 election, Democrats won a 66.6% economic majority, almost twice the level of GDP that Republican-won states contributed.

But beneath the surface of obvious partisan tides, an economic tide is now flowing. Republican-won states are increasing their percentage of the nation’s economy. 

While political tides can and do shift (Democrats could win the presidency in 2028, extending the prevailing two-term presidential limit), the economic tide does not appear to show the same ebb and flow going into the future. 

Red state policies are attracting more capital and people: They are growing in population and prosperity. Again, Visual Capitalist shows that among the states with the highest positive net income flows in 2023, nine of the top 10 and 13 of the top 15 voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election. This flow is not ebbing nor likely to: Of the top 10 states, five were solidly red and four were swing states (all won by Republicans in 2024); only one, Colorado, was safely blue.

The turning of the economic tide is due to red states’ more favorable policies, including low taxes, school choice, fewer sanctuary jurisdictions, an emphasis on law and order, less regulation, and more energy development. And these policies also result in more favorable outcomes, such as increasing standards of living. All are conducive to further economic and population growth: again, both cause and effect.

Focusing on taxes alone, blue jurisdictions are going in the opposite direction. Earlier this year, Washington adopted a new millionaires’ tax; Maine, Rhode Island, and Hawaii have done likewise. California has a 5% tax on billionaires’ wealth on its November ballot. All are blue states. New York City and Seattle both have adopted taxes targeting the wealthy; both are blue jurisdictions. All the proposals threaten to drive their targets (and these targets’ capital and tax revenues) out of their states. 

America’s presidential political tides have swung back and forth since 1952, with a party holding the White House for more than two consecutive elections only once. However, this routine shifting could be overcome by an economic tide that no longer appears to be ebbing and flowing. 

Rather, the economic tide shifting toward Republicans appears durable – with blue jurisdictions seemingly bent on accelerating it. If so, it could carry America’s political tide in the same direction for years to come.