Red states rush to open doors to New Yorkers fleeing Mamdani’s socialist takeover

Red state residents have long loved to gripe about New Yorkers invading their territory, so it’s been more than a little striking to see Republican governors openly welcome Big Apple residents who might want to flee before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani forges the city into a socialist paradise.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte last week tapped her own campaign funds to send a billboard truck to Manhattan to urge businesses to uproot and head north to her state.

In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee made his pitch for New Yorkers to see what his state has to offer in music, food and “our business-friendly environment.”

“If you’re looking for an opportunity, you’ve found one in the state of Tennessee,” he said in a video appeal.

In Florida, long a popular destination for fleeing New Yorkers, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he’s ready to take any of the city’s landmarks that Mr. Mamdani may not want — like a statue of Christopher Columbus.

“I’ve already said if they take that from Manhattan, we’ll take it in Florida. Hey, if they want to put the Statue of Liberty in Lake Okeechobee, we’ll get that done as well,” the governor said on Fox News.

Even President Trump, himself a New York-to-Florida expat, said he expects others to follow.

But whether it will happen is still anyone’s guess, and the early data is mixed.

A Miami developer told Fox News Digital this week that he’s been seeing a months-long surge in New Yorkers signing contracts in his area, or about twice the volume from a year earlier. He attributed it to the election.

But Mansion Global, which reports on the luxury home market, said New York’s own market remains hot, suggesting fears of an exodus are overstated.

Still, there’s a sense that some people are primed to consider a relocation.

In polling ahead of the election, JL Partners figured 765,000 of the city’s 8.4 million residents were ready to leave should Mr. Mamdani win. Two million more would consider a move, according to a report in The Daily Mail.

Mr. Mamdani’s supporters were quick to point out that people made the same sort of declarations when Mr. Trump won the White House, yet, save for some high-profile cases, it didn’t appear to pan out.

EJ McMahon, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies the city’s migration patterns, said there’s always a churn in New York’s population, and the rougher things get in terms of push factors, the more people might pack up.

He compared it to a poker game where the bid keeps getting raised.

“There are always going to be people saying, ‘OK, I’m out,’” he said.

Mr. McMahon said there are two groups of people who have traditionally emigrated from the city. One is people starting families and the other are retirees.

The families usually stick somewhat close, moving to the New York exurbs or New Jersey or, if they have the financial means, to Connecticut.

Mr. Mamdani has stormed the political world with his easy mayor’s win, energizing left-wing Democrats and delighting Republicans who say they expect his policies to fail the country’s largest city.

He wants to hike taxes on corporations and his wealthier constituents, and wants to spend the money on universal childcare, housing rental support, government-run supermarkets and a free city bus system.

He has also proposed to nearly double the city’s minimum wage to $30 by the end of the decade.

To win the tax increases, he will need approval from the state, where Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, has rejected the income tax hike, saying it would cost the state residents.

Mr. McMahon said taxes are one factor, but aren’t the only one fueling decisions about whether to leave or stay.

For businesses already on edge and considering a move, they may be swayed by the incentive package a state can throw at them. But Mr. McMahon said when it comes to families’ decisions, “What other governors do matters not a whit.”

It’s largely a matter of Mr. Mamdani and what he does at home.

Where Mr. Mamdani does need to be concerned is chasing away the million-dollar incomes that the city relies on so heavily for its tax base.

“If his policies reverse recent progress on quality of life and crime, if it does things to make this city less attractive to live and work, all under a cover that says you are a bad rich person, it’s wrong that you exist — that will lead to further erosion,” Mr. McMahon said.

Of course, there’s the other side of the ledger, too.

Should Mr. Mamdani succeed in some of his ideas, the internet was awash in folks speculating about new people moving in, taking advantage of the support and freebies the mayor-elect wants to offer, or just to show solidarity with the experiment.

“Time to move to New York,” said one poster on Reddit’s LGBT forum.