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Last year, Obama and Trump tied in the Gallup poll.

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA This week, 13News has been getting questions about President Trump and whether a national poll found him to be the most admired man in the country.

The questions are related to reports of the president winning an annual poll conducted by the analytics company Gallup.

Every year, Gallup asks Americans which man and woman in the world (not just in the U.S.) they admire most.

This year, Donald Trump won the survey with 18% of Americans citing him as the most admired man.

Barack Obama came in second with 15%, ending a record 12-year run by Obama as the nations most admired man in the Gallup poll. Last year, Obama and Trump tied.

President-elect Joe Biden (6%) and Dr. Anthony Fauci (3%) finished in third and fourth place in the 2020 poll, followed by Pope Francis, businessman Elon Musk, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, basketball player LeBron James and the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, according to Gallup.

Critics of the president wonder how he won the most admired man poll during a year when Trumps national approval ratings have been historically low, while his supporters point out he just earned more than 75 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, shattering the old record for an incumbent president.

In explaining the 2020 results, a Gallup statement said: Even though Trump is unpopular now 39% approve of his performance his dominant performance among Republicans, contrasted with Democrats splitting their choices among multiple public figures, pushes him to the top of the 2020 most admired man list.

So while both the popular vote count and Electoral College vote count show Trump lost the 2020 presidential election by large margins, Gallup confirms he did win the companys annual most admired man poll by being selected by 18% of Americans.

As far as the nations most admired woman, former First Lady Michelle Obama won that title for the third year in a row with 10% of the vote. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (6%) finished second with First Lady Melania Trump placing third (4%).

The rest of the top 10 most admired women list includes television personality Oprah Winfrey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Secretary of State and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Queen Elizabeth II, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

If you have a question for the 13News VERIFY Team, email us at VERIFY@wthr.com.

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VERIFY: Did Donald Trump win the title of 2020s most admired man? - KIIITV.com

I think it's safe to say Donald Trump reached new lows when it comes to the art of presidential scandals. Among the president, his immediate family and the less than savory cohort he's surrounded himself with, the scandals of the last four years have run the gamut from absurd to deadly to absurdly deadly.

Biden will need to raise the bar once he takes office, and he cant be given a pass just for being better than Trump.

The good news is that President-elect Joe Biden could basically walk right over the bar for ethical conduct Trump has set and clear it without missing a step. Unfortunately, though, that's no way to judge a president against the worst of the worst. Biden will need to raise the bar, and he can't be given a pass just for being better than Trump.

This isn't a case of whataboutism. Holding Biden's White House accountable isn't about papering over Trump's misdeeds. In fact, there's little that Biden could do that could erase or justify Trump's commitment to enriching himself, violating the rule of law and otherwise debasing the presidency.

But memory is a funny thing, especially when it comes to presidents. Comparisons are generally made between the current officeholder and the most recently departed.

That's meant that Trump has constantly been compared to Barack "No Drama" Obama. Biden will likewise be held up to Trump's performance.

Trump is something of an anomaly in that his shadow casts backward, as well. That has left Democrats yearning for the Obama years and their relative simplicity in a way that Republicans didn't once George W. Bush left office, even as Bush's approval ratings rose after his term. Biden tapped into this nostalgia throughout his campaign, constantly reminding voters of what the Obama-Biden administration achieved.

Holding Bidens White House accountable isnt about papering over Trumps misdeeds.

And yet, things weren't exactly idyllic back then. The Obama White House committed plenty of its own sins, even if none of them were of the monstrous tenor of Trump's child separation policy. Pursuing the targeted killing program in Pakistan and Yemen, continuing the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, ramping up deportations, investigating and prosecuting reporters all were policies that deserved harsh scrutiny, scandals that warranted outrage or both.

Biden, like Obama, should be held to the previous standards set for presidents, leaving Trump as an outlier. But here's a very, very important caveat: The Republican Party cannot be allowed to be the sole arbiter of what is and is not a scandal in the Biden White House.

Almost all controversies in Washington are exploited politically it's to be expected of all but the most heinous scandals. Both parties' members know that to be called out for "playing politics" is about as stern a set of empty words as exists on Capitol Hill.

What I'm saying, though, is that Republicans have for years exaggerated and embellished Democrats' supposed offenses for political gain. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a particularly rich target remember Benghazi? Even as evidence mounted suggesting that many of the allegations against the Obama White House in response to the 2012 attack in Libya were conspiracy theories, Republicans still took every opportunity to talk up the "four dead Americans" whom Clinton had supposedly left to die.

The culmination of those efforts, including hours of hearings and a whole House committee organized for the sole purpose of hurting Clinton's presidential campaign, issued a final report that found no wrongdoing by any Obama officials after all.

If allowed, Republicans will go back to their pre-Trump ways, hyping the misdeeds of the Biden administration until they look like they're on the scale of, well, the Trump administration's actual offenses. We're already seeing it gear up, as Biden's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget is being criticized for her mean tweets about Republicans. I mean ... now you're going to pretend to care about tweets?

That can't be allowed to happen. Not after four years of ignoring or outright acquiescing to Trump's misdeeds. It's in bad faith, and it should be called out as such. That's going to require a firm reminder from the media and voters any time a member of Congress gets on TV trying to "but her emails" Biden.

If we're going to get the presidency back to any sort of stability, Trump's way of doing business has to be left behind. Democrats needs to be ready to criticize the head of their party in a way that Republicans have been too cowardly to do. And Republicans need to be blocked from memory-holing the Trump administration's existence as they launch attacks on Biden.

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

Originally posted here:
Trump lowered the bar for presidents. Biden needs to raise it. - MSNBC

If 2019 was the Year of Trump, then 2020 was the Year of Covid-19 and Trump. Only the most devastating pandemic in a century could have bumped our loudmouthed president into second place. That is, until Joe Biden also took him down a peg, in a free and fair election with an unambiguous result except in the world of Trump. And oh yes, all of this occurred during the biggest recession since the Great Depression.

Not all of this years ugliness can be charted. In particular, the death of George Floyd certainly should be high on the list of what made 2020 so awful, and so should how President Trump abetted the tensions that have divided America. But that still leaves plenty of material for this, my ninth annual year in charts.

As early as January, experts at the World Health Organization told us the virus was coming. That was followed in March by eruptions in Italy, Spain and elsewhere. Yet we did little under the leadership of a president who kept telling us it would go away. Even after the coronavirus nearly brought the New York City area to its knees, the Trump administration responded feebly. Many parts of the country particularly places where Mr. Trump remained popular refused to take simple precautions like wearing masks.

By fall, the greatest country on earth led the developed world in total cases. More than 340,000 Americans have died, more than the number killed in combat in World War II.

While the human toll remains paramount, the economic collapse was also vast. In just two months, more than 22 million jobs vanished, more than in any other postwar recession. While 12 million jobs have been added to payrolls since April, job growth has decelerated steadily since June. Just 245,000 jobs were added in November, and forward-looking indicators, like new claims for unemployment benefits, suggest the next monthly report, on Jan. 8, could show another loss. The climb back to the employment levels of early 2020 may take many years.

Recessions rarely spread their pain evenly, and thats surely been true in 2020. Workers with less education, younger workers and people of color have been hit the hardest.

At the low point this year, 21 percent of Latinos had lost their jobs compared to 16 percent of whites. Similarly, 28 percent of those without high school diplomas became unemployed. And after years of gains, more women than men lost their jobs. This is all because job losses were concentrated in service industries, such as retail stores, restaurants and hotels, which employ a disproportionate number of these Americans. The stock market, meanwhile, notched double-digit returns, and the net worth of the wealthiest American, Jeff Bezos, has risen by $89 billion since March.

Amid all that, record numbers of Americans turned out to elect a new president. While Mr. Trump retained much of his white, working-class base, other parts of the electorate shifted enough to give Joe Biden a larger popular vote margin than Hillary Clinton achieved in 2016, enough to flip the Electoral College decisively. Mr. Biden made particularly big inroads among moderates and independents; he won 54 percent of independents, a swing of 17 percentage points from 2016.

Mr. Biden also made gains among suburban voters and those in small cities and rural areas, although Mr. Trump still won 57 percent of this last group. The president also did surprisingly well among minority groups: compared to the 2016 results, he improved by 6 percentage points among Black voters, 5 percentage points among Latinos and 11 percentage points among Asians. It turns out, as Jay Caspian Kang and others have written, that people of color are not an electoral monolith.

Americas increasing polarization seems to have become an article of faith. Regrettably, the facts support this worrisome shift. When George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000, 56 percent of the votes were cast in counties that were reasonably evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. This year, evenly split counties accounted for only 42 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, the percentage of votes in ultrapartisan counties, in which one party won by more than 60 percentage points, more than doubled, to 7 percent from 3 percent in 2000.

Below the top of the ticket, the news for Democrats was surprising and simply bad. The party managed to add just one seat in the Senate, with two Georgia races to be decided next Tuesday. In the House, Democrats have lost 10 seats so far with two races not yet called, a rare occurrence for a party whose candidate won the presidency. Once again, the polls fell short; many experts believed Democrats would win the Senate and gain seven or so seats in the House. Worse, the results suggest that the Democrats have a messaging problem; Republican claims that their opponents were socialists who wanted to defund the police and abolish private health insurance seem to have resonated.

A year ago, Mr. Trumps government by tweet seemed to have reached maximum velocity. But never underestimate his ability to take craziness to a new level. In 2020, his yearly total reached nearly 12,000, compared to 7,547 in 2019. On one day in June, he set a personal record of 200 tweets and retweets. In early October, he sent 42 tweets in just two hours while being treated for Covid-19. Along the way, the tone deteriorated. After the election, he pushed fringe views of election-rigging that were so devoid of any legitimacy that Twitter began attaching disclaimers to more of his messages.

Tweets were just a part of the craziness of the Trump White House. Huge staff turnover was another. Of Mr. Trumps 15 initial cabinet members, nine, so far, have not survived his term in office. In the White House, 59 of his 65 top aides have left, many of them before the end of Mr. Trumps first year. Thats more than any other recent president. In certain positions, there was serial turnover; Mr. Trump has had six different communications directors and deputy national security advisers.

Amid the chaos, Mr. Trump managed to make a deep impact on the judiciary. As his term neared its end, he had put 234 judges with lifetime appointments onto the federal courts. Thats far more than Barack Obama managed in his first term and more than any other recent president. A full 30 percent of appeals court judges have been appointed by Mr. Trump, the largest first-term share in four decades.

Updated Dec 30, 2020

The economic relief package will issue payments of $600 and distribute a federal unemployment benefit of $300 for at least 10 weeks. Find more about the measureand whats in it for you. For details on how to get assistance, check out our Hub for Help.

And lets not forget his three Supreme Court appointments, the most in one term since Ronald Reagan. Mr. Trump was aided in this effort by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who streamlined the consideration process last year to allow more confirmations.

Judges are not Mr. Trumps only legacy. Well before the coronavirus upended the economy, Mr. Trump had put the country on track for a return to trillion-dollar deficits, a terrible policy when unemployment was near record low levels. His administration promised that the 2017 tax cut would pay for itself; it never came close. He enabled huge spending increases. Then came Covid-19.

The resulting stimulus bills were essential to keeping the American economy together, but coming on top of an already huge deficit, the additional spending sent the nations ratio of debt to gross domestic product soaring past 100 percent for the first time since World War II. As with so much else, Mr. Trump is leaving this mess behind for others to fix.

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Opinion | The Year in Charts - The New York Times

Millions of lives across America and the world were touched by Donald Trumps unlikely candidacy and presidency.

But some were upended completely, resulting in life-changing or career-ending experiences and instant fame or notoriety as four incredibly tumultuous and norm-shattering years played out.

Here are 20 examples of those who emerged from relative obscurity to become stars of the Trump era.

The lawyer: Michael Avenatti

The smashmouth lawyer represented Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor, in her lawsuits against Donald Trump and relished goading the US presidents children on social media with the hashtag #Basta, meaning enough. He even flirted with running for president. But his relationship with Daniels soured and his fall from grace was complete in February when he was convicted of trying to extort more than $20m from Nike.

The political guru: Steve Bannon

The former naval officer and rightwing media executive went from marginal status to arguably the second most powerful man in Washington. Chairman of Trumps election campaign and briefly White House chief strategist, he was doomed by clashes with the presidents daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Branded Sloppy Steve by Trump, he faded into the background and in August was arrested and charged with fraud over an online fundraising scheme to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

The unexpected politician: Juli Briskman

A split-second decision changed everything. In 2017 Briskman gave the middle finger to Trump as she cycled alongside the presidents motorcade outside his golf club in Virginia. Photos of the incident went viral and the marketing company she worked for swiftly dismissed her. Two years later, Briskman ran for election to the Loudoun county board of supervisors and won, ousting a Republican. It was a neat symbol of how the Trump years caused a political awakening among ordinary citizens.

The comic: Sarah Cooper

Relatively late in the Trumps presidency, comedian Sarah Cooper became an internet sensation by posting videos of her lip-syncs to the presidents remarks, complete with hilarious facial expressions. Her meteoric rise earned her a slot at the virtual Democratic national convention. Cooper told the New York Times: My success is forever linked to this person that I absolutely hate.

The odd couple: George and Kellyanne Conway

The marriage of lawyer George Conway, one of Trumps most ardent critics, and Kellyanne Conway, the first woman to run a winning presidential campaign, was the most intriguing in Washington. George gained attention with sardonic tweets and occasional interviews as Kellyanne staunchly defended the presidents alternative facts and other offences before quitting in August this year.

The soldier: Michael Flynn

The retired three-star army lieutenant-general led a Lock her up! chant about Hillary Clinton at the Republican national convention but spent just 23 days as Trumps national security adviser. He twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia and faced a possible prison term, only to be granted a pardon by Trump. He is now urging the president to declare martial law in an effort to overturn the 2020 election result.

The heroine: Christine Blasey Ford

One of the most divisive moments of a divisive presidency came in September 2018 when psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford appeared before a Senate committee to quietly but firmly accuse Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by Trump for the supreme court, of sexual assault in 1982. I am here today not because I want to be, she said. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty. Kavanaugh was confirmed.

The music man: Rob Goldstone

The Manchester-born tabloid journalist turned music publicist was catapulted into the spotlight by his email setting up a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer in June 2016. Goldstone voluntarily testified to multiple congressional committees, special counsel Robert Muellers team and a grand jury. He later published a memoir and launched a podcast.

The Trump cheerleader: Kimberly Guilfoyle

The ex-wife of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and former Fox News personality became a prominent Trump cheerleader and girlfriend of his eldest son, Don Jr. She spoke often at campaign rallies but her greatest moment came at this years virtual Republican national convention when her high-octane speech (to an empty room) including a primal scream: The best is yet to come!

The reporter: Maggie Haberman

Media columnist Ben Smith wrote that his New York Times colleague had one of the most astonishing runs in the history of American journalism. The hugely prolific Haberman, who joined the paper with little fanfare in 2015, produced many of the greatest scoops about Trumps presidency, during which journalism never seemed more vital. She landed a book deal with publication due in 2022.

The PR: Hope Hicks

A former model, she joined Trumps election campaign in 2015 at the age of 26 and was with him all the way, eventually becoming communications director at the White House. She then left for the Fox Corporation, only to return earlier this year and, in October, she made rare public remarks at a Trump rally in Florida. She also tested positive for the coronavirus.

The witness: Fiona Hill

A coalminers daughter from County Durham in the UK, she became senior director for Europe and Russia in the White House national security council and an eyewitness to Trumps encounters with President Vladimir Putin. Hill became a political star during Trumps impeachment hearings with her cool, meticulous testimony, urging Republicans to stop pushing the fictional narrative that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

The dignified father: Khizr Khan

Before the 2016 election, Khan stood at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia and told how his son, an American Muslim and army captain, died in Iraq, then delivered a searing critique of Trumps threats to ban Muslim immigrants. Spurred into action, he carried out more than 280 speaking engagements in America and beyond, including the Democratic convention in 2020.

The pillow guy: Mike Lindell

The chief executive of pillow maker MyPillow became a major Trump donor and cheerleader at his campaign rallies. He chaired the presidents re-election effort in Lindells native Minnesota. When that effort failed, Lindell reportedly said he had spent more than $1m to bankroll efforts to overturn Joe Bidens victory and called for Trump to declare martial law in Minnesota.

The late-night host: Trevor Noah

The South African comedian had big shoes to fill, taking over from Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Centrals The Daily Show in 2015. But Noah won plaudits not only for his sense of humor but his deadly serious monologues and global perspective on topics such as the Black Lives Matter protests and interviews with figures such as Barack Obama.

The FBI agents: Lisa Page and Peter Strzok

Strzok was among leaders of the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But he was fired from the FBI when it revealed he had been swapping anti-Trump text messages with Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair (she also left the FBI). After lying low, Stzrok published a memoir, entitled Compromised, and Page resurfaced on Twitter.

The Mooch: Anthony Scaramucci

The little-known banker and hedge fund founder was hired by Trump as communications director in 2017, despite the objections of the press secretary, Sean Spicer, who resigned in protest. Scaramuccis debut in the briefing room was flamboyantly swaggering and ended with an air kiss to the press corps. The Mooch lasted just 11 days, felled by an indiscreet interview, but re-emerged as a trenchant Trump critic.

The press secretary: Sean Spicer

Trump ran through four White House press secretaries but none captured the imagination like Spicer, with an assist from Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live. His debut briefing in an ill-fitting suit included the false claim that Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd ever. Spicer went on to write books and become a host on the pro-Trump TV channel Newsmax.

The interviewer: Jonathan Swan

The Australian political reporter, formerly at the Sydney Morning Herald, moved to the US in 2014 to work as a congressional aide. He joined the Axios website in 2016 and became a must-read for both political news and palace intrigue. Swan won plaudits in 2020 for subjecting Trump to a grilling rivalled only by Chris Wallace of Fox News; Swans perplexed expressions proved irresistible to meme makers.

The immigrant: Alexander Vindman

The national security aide, whose family fled the Soviet Union when he was three, offered key testimony during the Trump impeachment hearings and, in apparent retaliation, was ousted from his job on the national security council. Vindman announced his retirement in July and is writing a memoir called Here, Right Matters: An American Story.

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From Sarah Cooper to Fiona Hill: the stars of the Trump era who emerged from obscurity - The Guardian

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 09: A person holds a sign that reads, "tax the billionaires, fund the ... [+] workers" in Central Park during the first snow of the season on December 09, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

New U.S. Census Bureau figures released in the final month of 2020 show the multi-year net outmigration of people from California, New York, and Illinois has not only continued, the trend has picked up steam. Anyone who thinks this continued loss of population and income will cause progressive politicians who run these blue state governments to refrain from enacting further tax hikes, however, is unfamiliar with the workings of those statehouses and their occupants. In fact, state lawmakers in Sacramento, Albany, and Springfield have already filed legislation for 2021, or are planning to do so, that would impose further state tax increases in jurisdictions where relatively high tax and regulatory burdens are already cost prohibitive and uncompetitive, which is driving people and businesses away.

Take California, where Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and state legislators enacted a multi-billion dollar tax hike on employers back in June. There will soon be another large state tax hike in California if some Golden State legislators get their way in 2021.

On December 7, California Assemblymembers Luz Rivas (D-Arleta) & Daivd Chiu (D-San Francisco) introduced Assembly Bill 71, legislation that would impose a personal income tax hike on earnings above $1 million. The bill would also hike the states corporate income tax, generating more than $2.4 billion in annual revenue.

There were a couple of significant tax hikes that died in the California legislature in 2020, but stand a good chance of being reintroduced in 2021. One of those proposals is Assembly Bill 1253, which wouldve raised Californias top marginal income tax rate, already the nations highest, from 13.3% to 16.8%. That represents a 26.3% increase in the countrys highest top marginal state income tax rate.

Another tax hike that wasnt approved by California lawmakers in 2020 but could be reintroduced in 2021 is found in Assembly Bill 2088, legislation that wouldve imposed a state-level wealth tax. In addition to levying a first-of-its-kind state wealth tax, AB 2088 generated national media attention due to the fact that the bill seeks to tax people long after theyve left California. Legal experts and California lawmakers themselves have already warned that the proposed wealth tax and the way it reaches across state lines violate the U.S. Constitution.

Like California, New York is a Democratic-run, relatively high tax state that has experienced years of domestic net outmigration. Like their counterparts in Sacramento, New York state lawmakers are also interested in imposing tax hikes in 2021 that ostensibly target the rich.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) suggested earlier in the year that the prospect of 2021 tax hikes in New York would depend on whether Congress sends additional federal aid to the states. Now Cuomos tune has shifted, with the Governor indicating that another state tax hike is in the offing for New Yorkers in the new year no matter what.

You probably will see tax increases in any event, Governor Cuomo predicted for 2021 during an early December press conference. If the federal government does not send enough additional relief to be deemed adequate by Albany politicians, Cuomo warns it would lead to devastating and dramatic state tax increases for New Yorkers that would hurt families and hurt the economy.

Raising taxes on upper income households, or at least proposing to do so, is a favored activity among progressive politicians, left-leaning think tank fellows, and pundits. While proposals to raise top marginal income tax rates are certainly a way to make well off taxpayers pay even more into state coffers than they already do, such a move would also reduce the job-creating capacity of thousands of small businesses. A fact never mentioned by California, New York, and other state legislators pushing for personal income tax increases on upper income filers is that raising the top marginal income tax rate also hits small businesses that file under the individual income tax system as pass-throughs, which is how most small businesses do their taxes.

In New York for example, a personal income tax increase on income above $1,000,000 is sold as a way to make the rich pay an even larger disproportionate share of income tax collections than is already the case. But such a tax hike would also hit more than 14,000 sole proprietors who file under the individual income tax system in New York, along with more than 42,000 partnership and S-Corporation CCL owners.

Therein lies the challenge with the soak the rich approach to tax policy that is on display in so many blue state capitals. Progressive politicians put forth bills intended to raise taxes on people as rich as Barstool Sports CEO Dave Portnoy. But they end up punishing the mom & pop small businesses with higher taxes that reduce their job-creating capacity, the same small businesses whose existence Mr. Portnoy and other wealthy people are currently saving with their multi-million dollar charity fund.

Illinois voters rejected a 2020 ballot measure that wouldve repealed the states constitutional requirement to have a flat state income tax. As a result of this voter decision, Illinois lawmakers who want to raise the state income tax in 2021 are going to have to try to do so by raising the income tax rate paid by all Illinois taxpayers.

The push for such an income tax hike is reportedly what Speaker Mike Madigan (D), who has been Speaker of the Illinois House for every year but two since 1983, wants to do in 2021. Madigan is pitching a proposed income tax hike as part of his bid to remain Speaker.

The ongoing loss of population diminishes more than the tax base for states like New York, California, and Illinois. It also diminishes their clout in Congress. California is expected to lose a congressional seat for the first time ever in the post-2020 reapportionment of U.S. House seats. New York is projected to give up two congressional seats. Illinois is projected to lose one seat. A common trend among states gaining congressional seats is that they have no or a relatively low state income tax.

The average top marginal income tax rate for the seven states gaining congressional seats after reapportionment (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon, and Texas) is 4.45%. Meanwhile, the average top income tax rate of the ten states projected to lose congressional seats (Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia) is 6.65%, more than 49% higher than the average rate for states gaining seats.

In addition to having a lower average tax rate than the states projected to lose seats, the seven states gaining congressional seats have stronger worker protection laws. Right to Work states have laws on the books protecting workers from being forced to join and fund a union as a condition of employment. Of the 10 states projected to lose seats through reapportionment, only three of them are Right to Work states (two of those three - West Virginia and Michigan - only recently enacted their Right to Work laws in the last decade). Of the seven states projected to gain congressional seats, most (four) of them have Right to Work.

A sentiment often heard from people who live in the red states that are gaining population and congressional seats is the concern that new transplants who relocated from blue states will vote for leftist politicians who end up imposing the same progressive policies that caused transplants and their employers to leave their previous state of residence. However, there is evidence to suggest that such concerns are overblown.

A poll released by the Texas Public Policy Foundation in January 2020 found that voters who have relocated to Texas supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 47% to 35%. It turns out the non-native Texans supported Trump over Clinton by a wider margin that native Texans, who support President Trump 45% to 38%.

This result is similar to the findings of a CNN exit poll in the 2018 Senate race between Cruz and ORourke showing that native Texans favored ORourke by 3% compared to people who moved to Texas supporting Cruz by 15%, Chuck DeVore, Vice President at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a former California Assemblyman, wrote for Fox News. And an earlier poll by the Texas Tribune and UT Austin found that 57% of Californians who moved to Texas were self-described conservatives compared to 27%liberals.

Business climate denier is a term that some in the California business community have used to describe blue state legislators who dont think the onerous taxation & regulation-driven departure of employers from their state is something to worry about or rectify. That term is also used to describe the blue state lawmakers who will proceed in 2021 as though continuing to ratchet up already uncompetitive tax and regulatory burdens will not have more adverse consequences, both economic and demographic. Fortunately for Californians, New Yorkers, and Illinois residents looking to escape increasingly punitive taxation and regulation, state officials in places like Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas are publicly welcoming new residents who are seeking tax and regulatory relief, along with greater economic opportunity.

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California, New York, And Illinois Lawmakers Already Have New Tax Increases Planned For 2021 - Forbes