I asked Grok how the red states and blue states performed economically between 2000 and 2026. It only gave me up until 2024, but if trends continued, the red states have continued to close the gap and may actually be higher income economies than blue states.

Approx. Real GDP CAGR 2000–2024 Yearly Red-leaning group ████████████████ ≈ 2.3–2.6% Blue-leaning group ██████████████ ≈ 1.9–2.2% U.S. overall ███████████████ ≈ 2.1%

Approximate cumulative real GDP growth (total multiplicative increase)

These are simple compounds of representative average annual rates over 24 years:

Red-leaning group (~2.4% average annual): Growth factor ≈ 1.77 → ~77% total cumulative real growth.

Blue-leaning group (~1.9% average annual): Growth factor ≈ 1.57 → ~57% total cumulative real growth.

U.S. overall (~2.1%): Growth factor ≈ 1.65 → ~65% total cumulative real growth.

Slightly higher/lower averages shift the totals meaningfully because of compounding:

2.5% annual → ~81% cumulative. 2.3% annual → ~73% cumulative. 2.0% annual → ~61% cumulative. 1.8% annual → ~53% cumulative.

Today