“On the Holmes Front” with Frank Holmes
Newly sworn-in President Donald J. Trump, once promised if voters put him in the White House, “you’ll get sick of winning—but we’re gonna keep on winning.”
But there’s another side to his statement: For MAGA to keep on winning and winning, the Left must keep on losing—and that’s just what is happening.
One of the largest Democratic states in America may be about to lose a lot of its population and, in the zero-sum game of politics, their loss will be the Republicans’ gain.
A huge bloc of counties in deep-blue Illinois have said they want to secede from the state and join ruby red Indiana.
In all, between 20 and 30 counties want to leave Illinois and join their neighboring state. In the latest move in November, seven Illinois counties—Iroquois, Calhoun, Clinton, Greene, Jersey, Madison, and Perry—voted to join the movement and ask Indiana to accept them.
…And Indiana political leaders have gotten serious about changing the U.S. map for the first time since the 1950s.
Today, the Speaker of the Indiana House prioritizes his bill to relocate the state line if Illinois agrees. https://t.co/F6muDQbI4X pic.twitter.com/QJFrpbCXeU
— state secession (@state_secession) January 15, 2025
”To all of our neighbors to the west, we hear your frustrations,” said Indiana Speaker of the House Todd Huston, who is (of course) a Republican. ”Instead of seceding and creating a 51st state, they should just join us.”
Huston is ready to put his money where his mouth is: He introduced H.B. 1008 which, if it passes, will establish an “Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission.” The commission would “discuss and recommend whether it is advisable to adjust the boundaries between the two states.”
Next Tuesday. H.B. 1008 will come up for its first hearing before the Indiana House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee.
Would Illinois let the renegade counties leave? Republicans think they can talk Springfield into signing the divorce papers.
”We think there might be some interest in the Illinois Legislature to do that,” said Huston.
Democrats don’t like the idea. “It could make us a laughingstock,” said Democratic Indiana State Rep. Ed DeLaney.
“It’s a stunt. It’s not going to happen,” said Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat whose family has long and deep ties to former president Barack Obama.
“Indiana is a low-wage state that doesn’t protect workers, a state that does not provide health care for people when they’re in need, and so I don’t think it’s attractive for anybody in Illinois,” said Pritzker.
But the news is in: Illinois residents are already leaving.
Illinois has led every state in the country among people moving out of state—except last year, when Gavin Newsom’s California took the top spot.
All in all, 60 percent of moving trucks rented in Illinois were outward bound; only 40 percent moved into the state. Meanwhile, Indiana has had positive population growth.
“Typically, well run states don’t have families flee the state en masse, Gov. Pritzker,” said the Illinois Republican Party.
Typically, well run states don’t have families flee the state en masse @GovPritzker https://t.co/igMxTDnyQ8
— IL Republican Party (@ILGOP) January 15, 2025
The move would give Indiana two million acres of new farmland.
Iowa Senator Mike Bousselot, a Republican, wants his state to purchase the southern counties of Tim Walz’s Minnesota—much as the abolitionists used to purchase slaves’ freedom before the Civil War.
He would buy all the counties that border Iowa: Rock, Nobles, Jackson, Martin, Faribault, Freeborn, Mower, Fillmore, and Houston in Minnesota.
“When the Iowa Territory originally existed, we went further north into what is currently Minnesota, and many of those counties were originally going to be a part of the state of Iowa,” said Bousselot.
“It’s a real land deal.”
Liberal Oregon also sees a growing “Greater Idaho” movement: counties who want to leave Portlandia and hitch their future to the conservative state of Idaho.
Republicans in blue states have gotten sick of being dominated by a few Democratic cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, and Portland.
They want leaders who share their values and policies aimed at bringing about their dreams.
In the early 1990s, the Baltic republics—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—announced their independence and left the Soviet Union, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
In 2016, the voters in Great Britain listened to Nigel Farage’s pleas to leave the European Union (EU).
Will 2025 be the year a few dozen counties heed the Hoosier call and leave the Land of Lincoln for a future in a red state?
Will Illinois be alone?