Red states attracting more young families due to lower housing costs: study

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, March 05, 2026

A new study suggests that states that backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election are seeing overall increases in young children and young families, while states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris are recording decreases, with housing costs playing a large factor in where families settle.

The Institute for Family Studies, a conservative think tank, published a report last week documenting state-level population change patterns from 2019 to 2024. The years examined coincide with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted society throughout much of 2020 and 2021.

Using statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the report highlighted population changes by age group in states that supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election and states that backed Harris.

"Both red and blue states are watching the share of residents who are age 60 or older grow as boomers continue to age into retirement. But blue states are losing 20-somethings, and, relatedly, kids," the report reads.

From 2019 to 2024, the number of children aged 0 to 9 dropped by 1.2% in states that supported Trump and by 4.7% in states that backed Harris. Children ages 10 to 19 increased by 1.8% in blue states and by 4.1% in red states. The population of adults ages 20 to 29 dropped by 4.4% in blue states and decreased by 0.2% in red states, while adults ages 30 to 39 rose by 5.7% in blue states and 7.6% in red states. 

Overall, the number of children younger than 18 in red states increased from 43.1 million in 2019 to 43.7 million in 2024, while the number of school-aged children in blue states has remained consistent at around 22 million in the same period. However, children younger than 5 in blue states dropped from 8.2 million to 7.6 million, the report notes. 

"That’s 600,000 fewer kids under 5 in blue states in 2024 compared to 2019. And nearly half of this number was due to one state alone — California, which saw its total number of kids in this age group fall from 2.45 million in 2019 to 2.16 million five years later," the researcher, Patrick T. Brown, wrote.

The report attributed the increase in population of young families and children in red states and the corresponding decrease in blue states to housing costs. Four of the states and territories with the highest housing costs — New York, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and California — saw five-year declines in the number of children under 6 years old, ranging from just over 5% in New York to over 10% in California. 

All four states and territories backed Harris by double digits in the 2024 election, and all four have median mortgage amounts ranging from 32% to 36% of the median household income. By contrast, most of the small number of states that saw either increases or little to no change in the population of children younger than 6 overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2024 and have lower housing costs. 

Only in three states did the number of children younger than 6 increase: Alabama, Tennessee and New Jersey. Alabama and Tennessee backed Trump by double digits and have median mortgages between 24% and 28% of the median income. On the other hand, New Jersey, which narrowly backed Harris in 2024, has a median mortgage that is around one-third of the median income. 

In five other states, the number of children younger than 6 barely budged: Delaware, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina and South Carolina. Besides Delaware, all five states backed Trump in 2024. Besides Florida, where the median mortgage is close to 32% of the median income, the four other states had median mortgages of around one-quarter of the median income. 

Low housing costs did not necessarily guarantee an influx of children younger than 6. The red states of Indiana, Iowa, Utah and West Virginia all recorded drops in the number of young children despite having median mortgages of one-quarter the median income or lower. The red state of Wyoming, which has a median mortgage of just under 28% of the median income, saw the largest drop in the number of young children (nearly 15%). 

Broken down by region, red states in the Midwest saw a narrow increase (0.8%) in the number of married couples with young children, while blue states in the region witnessed a noticeable drop (4.8%). In the northeast, small increases in the number of married couples with young children were recorded in both blue (1.6%) and red (2.0%) states. 

In the South, red states recorded a 5.6% increase in the number of married couples with young children compared to a 0.2% increase in blue states. In the West, the number of married couples with young children rose by 5.7% in red states, while dropping by 2.6% in blue states. 

"Party identification isn’t totally determinative; some more rural red states, like Kansas, the Dakotas, and Oklahoma, saw a declining number of young kids even as their total population grew in the post-COVID reshuffle," the report adds. "Washington, New Jersey, and the DC metro area are blue overperformers, despite their higher cost of living. But most other blue states are expensive and losing families."

The report concluded with an analysis of metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 people that have the highest share of households with married couples and children younger than 6. It characterized these areas as “affordable places with dynamic job growth” as well as “economically prosperous, with higher-than-average shares of Asian-Americans, or near military bases.”

The Jacksonville, North Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area had the highest share of households with married couples with children younger than 6, at 13.1%. Rounding out the top five were the Fargo, North Dakota-Minnesota Metropolitan Statistical Area (9.5%), the Clarksville, Tennessee-Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area (8.8%), the Greeley, Colorado Metropolitan Statistical Area (8.6%) and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area (8.5%). 

The report recommended that blue cities that have seen their populations of young families decline should invest in "large-scale spending programs to make child care more affordable" or make "safety-net programs more generous." Red states could continue to attract families by “freeing up land and legalizing denser housing in cities and suburbs” in addition to embracing “state-level child tax credits, expansions of school lunch programs, or tangible benefits like paid leave," the report added.