Texas? Idaho? The place Californians Are Transferring.

If the candidates fighting to succeed Gavin Newsom can agree on one thing, it is that too many Californians are fleeing the state.

At the start of her campaign, Caitlyn Jenner announced that another private plane owner was “packing up his hangar” for Arizona because he couldn’t stand to see more homeless people. Kevin Paffrath, a YouTube star who runs a Democrat, began his candidacy by giving reasons to trade “broken” California for Florida’s greener pastures.

In a recent debate, Republican candidate Kevin Faulconer said that when you name a state, Californians go there, any state.

Sure, there is some truth to what is known as the “California Exodus”: More Californians are moving to other states than from any other part of the country. But this is by no means a new trend – it has been the case for over 30 years.

And while California’s population declined slightly over the past year and the state lost a seat in Congress, it wasn’t because of sudden mass migration to states like Texas and Idaho.

Our stopped population growth was mainly due to falling birth rates and international immigration as well as a high number of deaths from Covid-19, as my colleague Shawn Hubler has reported.

Even so, during the discussion, I wondered where Californians end up settling down when they leave. So I cracked the numbers.

More than 653,000 Californians moved to another state in 2019, while about 480,000 people moved here from other parts of the country, according to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. (The 2020 numbers are not available, but analysis of other 2020 datasets has produced similar results.)

These were the top destinations for Californians leaving:

States Where You Would Most Like To Meet A Californian:

These are the states that new Californians have moved here from most frequently:

For many Californians, the high cost of living makes staying here almost impossible, experts say. The average home price in Texas is $ 329,000, less than half what it is in the Golden State, according to RedFin, a real estate agency.

Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told me that people moving to California are more likely to have an education, job, and higher income than those who move.

That suggests that high spending is responsible for the departures, but not high taxes as some claim, he said. California tax wealthier people much higher than those on lower incomes, he said.

“If those taxes were the motivation, you’d expect wealthy people to move out,” said McGhee, citing exceptions like Elon Musk, a freshman Texan. “By and large, these are not the people who are leaving the state.”

With all of the scramble over California’s no longer booming population, there is some evidence that we actually prefer it that way.

A poll by UC San Diego published in July found that a fraction of Californians believe the state would benefit from continued population growth over the next decade.

A far higher proportion – more than one in three Californians – had a different view: California would be better off if it shrank.

For more:

• Elon Musk’s departure to Texas last year fueled the state’s longstanding rivalry with California. Read more from my colleagues.

• Californians are also moving within the state, mostly from urban areas to remote suburbs. Four of the ten metropolitan areas in the country with the highest percentage of supercommuters (people who travel 90 minutes or more to work in any direction) are satellites of San Francisco. See The Times’ full listing.

• The SFGate website has a whole series of people who have left the Bay Area for the South, the Pacific Northwest, or in a van. Read more under “Fluchtmarkt”.

If you’re reading a story, make it this one

On Wednesday, Texas passed the strictest abortion law in the country, banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. The new regulation amounts to an almost complete ban on abortion and forces clinics to turn away women on the first day.

Read the Times article on Texas law.

Texas already had some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, resulting in clinic closings. Texas has about 24 abortion clinics, up from about 40 before 2013 when the state imposed a previous round of regulation.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group campaigning for the right to abortion, about 3 percent of women in California live in a county without an abortion clinic. In Texas, that figure was 43 percent before the new law.

What we eat

Try this spin on a Salade Niçoise for a late summer get-together. The recipe comes from Fanny Singer, author, art critic and daughter of Alice Waters, the owner of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse.

Where are we going

For the past decade, writer Barbara Jane Reyes has taken the same road trip: from her home in the Bay Area to the Santa Cruz Mountains, down to the Monterey Peninsula, and over the Bixby Bridge to Big Sur. Read about her trip in The Times.

Tell us about the best places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll share more in the upcoming issues of the newsletter.

Your callback questions answered

If Governor Newsom is removed, how long will the new governor be in office?

The new governor would serve for the remainder of Mr. Newsom’s term, which would last until January 2, 2023. (California has a regularly scheduled gubernatorial election next year.)

Read answers to other frequently asked questions about the California recall.

Tell us what else you want to know about the callback. Email your questions to CAtoday@nytimes.com.

And before you go, some good news

Angela Braren, 38, comes from a Christian family and mostly consists of carpenters, farmers and workers.

Gauri Manglik, 32, is a practicing Hindu from a family of doctors, business people and politicians.

The two women met two years ago at a queer party in Oakland and have been together ever since. Despite their diverse backgrounds, Manglik told the Times, “Together we will start our own family.”