Ohio Isn’t the Heart of It All. Texas Is, as Are the Rest of the States in the Iron Curtain "Boom Belt"

Like the countries stuck behind the powerful embrace of the Soviet Union, pro-Big Labor, high total tax burden states like Ohio form another Iron Curtain that runs from Ohio to Maine (+ IL/CA/OR/WA).

Growing up in Westerville, Ohio, in the 1980s, the motto of Ohio, “The Heart of It All,” seemed to be everywhere and in many ways it felt like that was true. In 1980, Ohio held twenty-five Electoral Votes with twenty-three U.S. House seats. At that time, Ohio was the sixth largest state in America, with Florida sitting in the seventh spot. The heart of the automotive, steel, and tire industries were in Ohio along with Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ohio served as the headquarters for thirty-five of the Fortune 500 public companies. Sure, it had been sixty years since an Ohioan had become president, thereby making Ohio the state of presidents with eight born or raised here. It had been eighty since the Wright Brothers launched the era of manned flight. Nonetheless, with half of all Americans within 500 miles of Ohio, it truly WAS the heart of America.

Fast forward forty-six years, the same numbers vividly illustrate Ohio’s decline, with most of the decline shockingly occurring under Republican governors with Republican legislatures—only two Democrats covering twelve of the forty-six years served as governor with Republicans controlling the Ohio House from 1995 to today (with a very brief two year flip in 2007-2008) and controlling the Ohio Senate since 1985.

Today, we are down eight Electoral Votes, with just fifteen U.S. House seats. We dropped down one population spot, with another drop or two likely after the 2030 U.S. Census, as Florida went from seventh in 1980 to third by 2026. Florida has more than doubled Ohio’s population. So, while Florida went from 9.746 million resident to 23.462 million people; Ohio staggered along from 10.797 citizens to just one million more at 11.900 million folks—in forty-six damn years, people!!!! More than half of Ohio’s eighty-eight counties have lost people and jobs since 2000. The heart of the automotive, steel, and tire industries along with most other key industries has been shifting south and west for decades. We are down to twenty-eight “old economy” corporate headquarters, with no corporation choosing to move to Ohio in recent years. Our private sector is barely larger than it was in 2000. No state looks to Ohio for guidance on what to do to thrive.

A potential bright spot historically appears just over the horizon should J.D. Vance win the presidency in 2028 to become Ohio’s ninth.

It seems like every week, the Wall Street Journal or Fox News carries a story about yet another corporation moving to Texas, with SpaxeX, Tesla, ExxonMobile, and Chevron among the latest. As reported:

Texas is emerging as the nation’s leading economic engine and corporate America is following its lead, with companies rethinking where they call home. Beyond attracting investments, creating jobs and encouraging long-term growth, Texas saw a 10.1% increase in economic output per-capita from 2021 through 2024.

With the state’s thriving economy, the corporate exodus to Texas is no coincidence. Texas’s economy continues to outpace the national average and ranks No. 1 in job creation. In March alone, 26 new projects were announced in locations across Texas, which are expected to create more than $20.5 billion in capital investment and 1,241 new jobs.

Supported by its pro-growth policies that advance freedom for companies and consumers alike, Texas is opening a new frontier in its growth story: attracting companies’ legal incorporations and their headquarters.

Maybe I missed it, but I’ve not seen one story in as far back as I can recall about a company moving its headquarters to Ohio. It is not just Texas winning the economic race among the states. In a recent article, “A new economic iron curtain is falling across America as trillions in wealth flee to the ‘Boom Belt,’” it was noted that:

A new economic iron curtain is falling across America as the “Boom Belt” — an 11-state powerhouse in the U.S. Southeast — shatters records and challenges the traditional financial dominance of New York and Chicago.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined forces in Miami on Tuesday to celebrate a $9 trillion gross domestic product (GDP) region that is now outpacing every other quadrant of the country in population, jobs and capital investment.

…

The governors spotlighted how Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas now generate $9 trillion in annual GDP, trailing only the U.S. and China globally, while absorbing 70% of all U.S. population growth in the last five years.

The migration has been fueled by more than just sunshine; it is a tactical retreat from a wave of tax-the-rich proposals sweeping through blue-state legislatures including California, New York and now Washington.

It isn’t just Blue states from which companies are fleeing. Heck, even Vivek Ramaswamy’s company, Strive Capital, opted to move from Ohio to Texas as part of this iron curtain Boom Belt. Unlike Ohio, states like Texas are being aggressively proactive in luring companies from the high tax and regulatory Blue states, but companies in Red states are listening to the siren call from the Boom Belt, too. Per a recent story:

Abbott has made attracting out-of-state businesses a cornerstone of his economic strategy, a push that has paid off as Texas continues to draw firms and executives to relocate from higher-tax states. Just last week, Dell Technologies announced a unanimous decision by its board to change the company’s legal home from blue enclave Delaware to the Lone Star State.

…

Texas’ economic output per person jumped more than 10% from 2021 to 2024, according to federal data. Meanwhile, liberal states like California saw far smaller gains over the same period.

Abbott is leaning into that growth as he works to lure firms and capital away from states like New York.

Have you read a single news story about Governor Mike DeWine’s strategy to lure companies to Ohio? I certainly have not. Can you imagine him being even modestly persuasive in a room of top executives with his oversized suit and owl-like glasses? If there ever was someone born a foot from home plate it is DeWine who inherited an estimated $100 million from his parents as he fiddled away as a career politician accomplishing hardly anything of note in sixty years. I won’t even waste my time yet again detailing how ineffective JobsOhio has been at getting Ohio’s private sector off the floor mat it has been comatose on for two decades.

Look, I know the Establishment loves to dismiss or ignore me as a disgruntled Cassandra. Fine. But not one of those critics has spent a fraction of the time as I have over the last seventeen years analyzing the data and putting that data out for everyone to see with their own eyes at www.opportunityohio.org. Let me do that here with the latest charts that Opportunity Ohio produces every month with brief explanations on each one.