How Principled Leadership Made North Carolina No. 1: Lee Schalk in The Washington Examiner
As the new leaders in net domestic migration and with job creation surging, don’t expect the North Carolina economy to cool down any time soon.
ALEC Senior Vice President of Policy Lee Schalk authored an op-ed in The Washington Examiner about the principled economic policies and key leadership that helped North Carolina rank No. 1 in the nation for state-to-state migration.
Amid the recent winter storm, the Tar Heel State experienced a new milestone. For the first time, North Carolina ranked No. 1 in the nation for state-to-state migration. Principled economic policy and leadership made it possible.
According to new Census Bureau data released late January, North Carolina gained 84,000 residents from other states between July 2024 and July 2025. During this time, powerhouses Texas and Florida netted 67,300 and 22,500 new residents, respectively. It’s the first time in decades that any state has gained more new residents than Texas or Florida.
North Carolina didn’t become the top destination for the American dream overnight. In fact, its economic turnaround can be traced back more than two decades. It’s a story worth telling, and state leaders nationwide should take note.
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“Over the decade and a half that has transpired since Republicans took control of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time in over a century, what we have seen is a real transformation of North Carolina state government, and that transformation has led to a real transformation and really a rebirth of the North Carolina economy,” Berger told Carolina Journal in a recent interview.
And he’s right. Thanks to leaders who turned their principles into policy, more than 750,000 Americans have relocated to North Carolina on net over the past decade. As the new leaders in net domestic migration and with job creation surging, don’t expect the North Carolina economy to cool down any time soon.