New York City native and longtime conservative commentator Sean Hannity has left the Big Apple for the Sunshine state. He announced the move this week on his radio show.
“Now broadcasting our new home in the free state of Florida – that’s both the TV and the radio show because this is where I’m living for the rest of my life,” he said while introducing Guest Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota.
Hannity added that he thinks people in states with conservative governors, such as Florida and South Dakota, benefit from right-leaning policies on taxes and government regulation.
He’s not the only person that’s decided to pack up and move to a Red State. According to data from the U-Haul Growth Index Report released this week, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee were the top destinations for new movers in the nation. Besides North Carolina, those states currently have Republican governors.
States with the least growth were California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, and Michigan. Each of these states has a Democrat governor. California saw the largest net loss of one-way movers, also “following along with Census data,” Audacy reported.
“The migration in this country is staggering,” said Hannity Tuesday.
CBS News reported last month that population growth in Florida was booming, citing state economists. However, the report noted that this growth is expected to taper off through the end of the decade.
A Yahoo Finance report from November said that recent Census Bureau data appears to corroborate the narrative that people are moving out of big cities.
“Between April 2020 and July 2022, New York City’s estimated population slumped from 8.80 million to 8.34 million, a drop of roughly 468,000 residents – nearly 5.3% of the city’s total population. Much of this loss was recorded between 2020 and 2021,” said the report. “Of course, New York isn’t the only major city to see a decline in population. San Francisco lost 7.5% of its residents between 2020 and 2022, accounting for a greater loss of total population than the Big Apple.”
As far as Florida is concerned, Hannity said the climate there also influenced his move.
“Cold weather did play a little part in my decision, I’m not gonna lie,” he told Noem, explaining why he didn’t choose South Dakota instead.