Though Gov. Ron DeSantis is no longer in the presidential race, the popular Republican governor nevertheless is still on the receiving end of a steady stream of MSM hit pieces, perhaps due in part to the string of judicial and legislative victories he's seen in recent weeks.
Because good news for Ron DeSantis and Florida is apparently bad news for America, if the claims from his critics on the left and in the media were to be believed, anyway.
The latest example comes courtesy of NBC News, which would like its readers to know that a lot of people left the Sunshine State in 2022 per Census data:
The Sunshine State isn't always as sunny as it may seem.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 31, 2024
Hundreds of thousands of new residents have flocked to Florida with the promise of beautiful weather and no income tax.
But nearly 500,000 left in 2022, according to the most recent Census data. https://t.co/hrwCb7QR8i
Left out of the tweet teaser, however, was that Florida's net migration was something to brag about - which one wouldn't know unless they'd clicked on the link and of course scrolled down a few paragraphs, and then read between the lines:
Florida has had a population boom over the past several years, with more than 700,000 people moving there in 2022, and it was the second-fastest-growing state as of July 2023, according to Census Bureau data. While there are some indications that migration to the state has slowed from its pandemic highs, only Texas saw more one-way U-Haul moves into the state than Florida last year. Mortgage application data indicated there were nearly two homebuyers moving to Florida in 2023 for every one leaving, according to data analytics firm CoreLogic.
In fact, the actual NAR data for Florida is better than NBC News let on in their article:
This is the data @NBCNews linked to, and it’s even more damning than the story admits: FL is #1 in the nation for net migration, with 373K more comers than goers. But they still wrote a story about the goers! Click click click https://t.co/kGwS8xxzVP
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) April 2, 2024
Stats/data guru Nate Silver also countered the NBC report with more inconvenient facts:
In 2022, Florida ranked 18th in domestic in-migration — which I define as the share of a state’s population that lived in another state a year earlier, and 1st in international in-migration. But it was just 38th in domestic out-migration — the share of people who left for another state.2 Sure, in a state with 22 million residents, you’re going to find plenty of leavers, like the half-dozen people the NBC story interviewed. But this is not a typical pattern.
He later noted on Twitter that "The NBC News story purporting to show a lot of 'mover's remorse' in Florida was BS. The state has a *low* rate of out-migration. People come there, and stay."
I should also note that while some of the people leaving Florida said they were leaving due to alleged cost of living issues, others said they had grown tired of the state's conservative leanings. But I mean, if you're moving to Florida you've kinda sorta gotta expect it to be that way now, so...
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