Calls for Texas to secede from the US are growing louder, with advocates saying it could then stop migrant flows from Mexico without being hamstrung by the federal government.
The Lone Star state may have the country’s noisiest secessionist movement, but it is not the most popular.
That label goes to Alaska, a new survey shows.
Researchers found that more than a third of Alaskans — 36 percent — want the Last Frontier to call it a day and leave the union.
Only Alaskans are keener on busting out of the union than Texans. Pictured: A Texas Nationalist Movement meeting in February
Alaska is the most secessionist-leaning state in the US. It joined the country in 1867
That’s a more popular movement than the 31 percent of residents who seek a ‘Texit,’ as the departure of Texas is known.
It’s not just Republican-leaning states that want out, says pollster YouGov.
Democrat-run California and New York are next in line to abandon ship, with 29 percent and 28 percent of residents favoring secession, respectively.
Oklahomans (28 percent), Nebraskans (25 percent), Georgians (25 percent), Floridians (24 percent) and Washingtonians (24 percent) are also eyeing the door.
At the other end of the spectrum is Connecticut, with just 9 percent of its relatively content residents seeking an out.
Pollster Taylor Orth said last month’s survey of some 35,000 adults revealed ‘significant support’ for carving up the country.
Nationwide, 23 percent of respondents said they wanted their state to opt out.
About half (51 percent) opposed secession, and 27 percent were unsure.
Americans have turned to TikTok to ask the big questions about secession, and what happens if they break away
Republicans favor secession more than Democrats, regardless of whether they live in a Red or Blue state
Paul Roberts, a Seattle Times writer, said the secessionist star was rising.
He put this down to ‘political polarization, rising urban-rural tensions and rifts between states … and the federal government on issues like immigration and border security.’
Younger adults are keener on secession than their elders, researchers found.
And Republicans are bigger fans of splitting than Democrats — regardless of whether they live in Red or Blue states, Orth wrote in her report.
The states with the largest shares of secessionists don’t relate directly to politics, it said.
It’s more to do with a state’s size, population, and maybe even its economy, researchers said.
Secessionist-leaning Alaska, Texas, California, and New York all rank high in terms of population and land mass.
The President of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller, leads a pledge of allegiance at a BBQ eatery in Cypress, Texas
Americans from as far afield as California, Texas, and Washington are posting about secession
They also have enough economic clout to be able to go it alone — apart from Alaska.
Still, the Last Frontier already has enough oil and mining cash to pay residents more than $1,300 each per year.
The state’s influential Alaskan Independence Party has for decades pushed for an in-state referendum, while calling for gun rights, homeschooling, small government and fighting against abortion.
But popular support alone is not enough for states to secede — as was shown by the breakaway Confederacy in the Civil War.
Many legal scholars say the US Constitution does not allow states to opt out.
The pollster found that Americans were less certain of this.
About a quarter said states could secede under the Constitution, while a third said they could not.
Another four-in-ten were not sure.
Support for seceding is related more to a state’s land mass and population size than politics
Texas Governor Greg Abbott says claims that he backs Texit are ‘false narratives’
Texas Republicans are among the most passionate secessionists in the US — fully 44 percent of them support Texit.
Its advocates say the dramatic move — loosely inspired by Britain’s Brexit from the European Union — would help resolve a roiling immigration border crisis and a fight with Washington over who controls the border with Mexico.
That fight, pitting President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott, has laid bare a rupture in America.
Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, says leaving the union is the only way to get a ‘sensible immigration system.’
He recently told AFP that his movement, created in 2005, has never been so close to achieving its goal.
But Abbott poured cold water on the plan this weekend.
Speaking with 60 Minutes, he said claims that he was a Texit fan were ‘false narratives.’
His deployment of Texas National Guardsmen to the border was not an effort to usurp the federal government, but just a way to ‘enforce the law,’ he added.
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