Florida grew faster than any U.S. state over the last year, the U.S. Census Bureau announced, as tens of thousands of people continue to flock to what governor Ron DeSantis has called “the freest state” in the nation.
The Sunshine State became the fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957 this year after its population grew 1.9 percent from 2021 to 2022. In total, 22,244,823 people now call Florida home, according to the Census Bureau.
“For the third most-populous state to also be the fastest growing is notable because it requires significant population gains,” the bureau said in a news release.
Florida’s 2022 population is more than nine times larger than its 1946 population, according to the Census Bureau. To grab the top spot, Florida had to overtake Idaho, which was the fastest-growing state last year. Nevada has been the fastest-growing state for 36 of the last 76 years, according to the bureau. Nevada’s 2022 population of 3,177,772 is 22 times its 1946 population.
The population boom in Florida coincides with a political revolution that has occurred in the state under DeSantis’s leadership. Americans fed up with strict Covid-19 restrictions in other states flocked to Florida during the pandemic. Almost 330,000 people moved to the state between April 2020 and April 2021, or about 900 per day.
DeSantis, who has touted Florida as a state where freedom reigns, banned businesses from instituting vaccine passports for entry and from requiring employees to be vaccinated. He also prioritized keeping schools and businesses open and banned mask mandates in K–12 schools.
The governor also oversaw the passage of the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, which bans teaching gender identity and sexual orientation to elementary schoolers, and signed the Stop W.O.K.E. (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, banning critical race theory from being promoted or advanced in schools and corporations.
“We fight the woke in the legislature,” he said in his election night victory speech. “We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”
DeSantis’s policies have made him overwhelmingly popular in the state; he won reelection by more than 19 points in November — 46 times larger than his margin of victory four years earlier.
As Florida’s population has grown in recent years, it has shifted from a purple swing state to a reliably red haven for Republicans. The state added more than 553,000 voters to statewide GOP rolls since 2018, after accounting for those who died, moved, switched parties or stopped voting, Bloomberg reported. This left the party with 292,000 more registered voters than Democrats by the midterms.