I don't think people usually move to another state for the sake of a specific change in political ambience. It's usually still about "the economy, stupid". So taxes, yeah, but masks, probably not. If you pore through census data on reasons for change of residence, most of it seems related to jobs or perceived financial advantage.
This table package shows historical geographical mobility estimates and rates going back to 1948.
www.census.gov
The freedom that Americans have to move to another state does often seem or actually is diminished by lack of enough money to enable going for it without feeling like one is jumping off a cliff, but there are times when it seems logical to try, and pending retirement or job loss is one of those times.
The USA has been and is in a time of relatively high interstate migration due partly to ongoing shrinkage of a lot of blue collar manufacturing, but more of it now can be attributed to the boomers aging out of the workforce (voluntarily or otherwise). To the extent they can or have unburdened themselves of ties like elder care and relatively illiquid assets (a business, a home), many do seem bent on relocation for retirement, mostly in search of lower taxes, less harsh weather, cheaper housing.
Word of mouth from friends and relatives still seems a factor for Americans approaching retirement age. Politics might well be an implicit factor there, and the whole thing about "birds of a feather flocking together" is not without evidence. But to say it was politics that draws the flock somewhere in the first place seems a stretch to me. The charts below were drawn from the census data cited near beginning of this post.
Read Move.org’s exclusive report on 2021’s moving trends to learn why Americans moved and which states they moved to during this unpredictable year.
www.move.org