Republicans are having more babies than Democrats, and the difference has only increased in the Donald Trump era.
Several reports, along with data from the National Center for Health Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show a clear relationship between red and blue counties and their fertility rates.
Not only do fertility rates get higher the more a county votes for Republicans, but the contrast with Democrat counties is growing stronger over time.
‘We need a culture that values our children intrinsically.’
According to a data analysis by the Institute for Family Studies, Trump support equals more families. For every 10% increase in Trump votes in 2024, there is an expected fertility rate increase of 0.09 in a woman’s lifetime.
The IFS also noted that in counties that had less than 25% of their votes going to Trump, like D.C., the median fertility rate was 1.31. In counties with a more than 75% vote share for Trump, the median fertility rate was 1.84. Of course, 2.1 or above is the ideal replacement rate, but the contrast is still large.
Moreover, the gap in fertility rates has grown by 85% in the last 12 years.
In the Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney era of 2012, there was an 8% fertility difference between red and blue counties. According to the IFS, that difference has more than tripled to a 26% difference in 2024.
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Image courtesy ifstudies.org
In counties with more than 100,000 people, the “most Democratic” voter turnout correlates with a drastically lower fertility rate than the rest of the country, with a 1.37 birth rate. While moderate Democrat numbers are closer to the American average, the swing is big toward the “most Republican” counties, which average a 1.76 birth rate.
The Republican fertility advantage can be directly attributed to marriage, says Grant Bailey, research associate at IFS.
“Republicans (and conservatives) marry at higher rates, and married adults have much higher fertility rates than do singles,” Bailey told Blaze News. “With that said, even within marriage, conservatives have more children than their liberal peers.”
Bailey explained that even many married liberals never have children, and that drives an even bigger divide between the fertility rates across party lines.
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Image courtesy ifstudies.org
“It’s no secret that birth rates have been in free fall worldwide for decades and that continuing on our current course will spell economic and social disaster for many,” Erika Ahern told Blaze News.
Ahern, an author at CatholicVote and a mother of seven, said that increasing a family’s demand for children requires “a shift in how we as a society value children and family altogether.”
Ahern added, “Instead of emphasizing the cost and inconvenience of children, we need a culture that values our children intrinsically.”
According to CDC data, the top 10 states with the highest birth rates in 2023 were Republican, and the bottom 10 were Democrat.
South Dakota is the only state with a birth rate above 2, at 2.01. Nebraska, North Dakota, Alaska, and Louisiana round out the top five.
On the bottom end, Vermont has just a 1.3 birth rate, the worst in the nation. Other than Oregon, which ranks 48th on the birth rate list, the Northeast dominates the bottom of the rankings. Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are all near the bottom, with birth rates of 1.4 or below.
In 2022, Vermont, Wyoming, and Delaware had the fewest births by state in the country, with five states having fewer than 10,000. This can be attributed to population size for all but Vermont, which came in last on the CDC’s fertility rate rankings for 2022.
California had by far the most births of any state in 2022, approximately 420,000, but nowhere near the highest fertility rate; it was 11th worst.
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