From the Revolution Wiki:
As indicated by a map in Monroe's office, the Monroe Republic controls the northeastern United States, with its northern border at the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River, its western border on the Mississippi River, its eastern border at the Atlantic Ocean, and its southern border at the Ohio, Tug and Roanoke Rivers.
The Monroe Republic consists of the entirety of the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Connecticut, West Virgina, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, most of Virginia and part of North Carolina north of the Roanoke River. The Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River are also part of the Republic.
The capital is located at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The walls around the city are thirty feet high, with machine gun emplacements. The only other entrance is through the old SEPTA tunnels, but they are heavily mined. Monroe's main research and development center is at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, where he keeps a fleet of at least six UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. It seems Monroe has another base in Boston as mentioned by Neville.
In terms of internal commerce, trade and communications, it would be the Mississippi River that any so-called expansionist Republic located in the Northwest would be concentrating on -- not the South. In any case, this sort of military dictatorship seems far more likely to have grown out of South Carolina -- which you damned well know would have given its name to its "state" -- at least calling it the Palmetto Republic. South Carolina and the associated heart of the former Confederacy has deep background in all these matters, including militias -- see "well-regulated militia" going back to early colonial times, which were all about keeping the enslaved down on the plantations and not plotting revolution.
All the big military bases and armories are located outside of the northeast, which for obvious reasons was always heavier on shipping than army or air force (though it does have West Point -- but Bass and Miles are marines): U.S. navy, including particularly subs, merchant marine, Annapolis, Game & Fish, fishing fleets, ye olden whalers, cargo ships, packets and so on. The northeast made its living from manufacturing, agriculture, the carrying trade, which the antebellum south so resented (see Erie Canal's great $ucce$$) and finance. In later eras add communications and media. Virginia and South Carolina in particular always sucked off Big Defense for their economy, i.e. other region's taxes.
Without electricity now, no planes to drop bombs, so all those muchly deserted forts and naval bases all along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf would matter again. Weren't all the google whizzes living in California? South Carolina is where Bass and Miles were when the Big Dark rolled over the globe. Why would they go up north to make their own country, when they were in the middle of everything they needed to dominate their world, including their men already used to obeying them? In the very first ep, as they return to base, Bass already has the Monroe brand on his wrist, which lets him on base even though he was off it without his papers. (A mystery, unless the Unquitable Duo had already been planning some sort of coup?)
The more you look at the premises the more they make no sense. Especially as this 'northeast' looks so southern -- because, hey-ho! -- that's where the series is shot, in North Carolina. This could so easily make sense though, if the writers and show runners had basic economic historical and geographical information on how our nation came into being and what it did in all those decades before the Big Dark. It would have made the series so much stronger, and a lot more interesting.
But no, all we want is a lot of blowing up stuff, particularly helicopters. You really think the audience will buy that those notoriously crashy machines could just be expertly flown and operated after 15 years of no maintenance, no pilot maneuvers -- and all that ammo would just so easily work?
And -- what about climate change? Just because it all went dark, doesn't mean that tornadoes, wildfires, droughts and floods, blinding blizzards and hurricanes stopped happening.
But it's television folks, so all we need is big blowups, shootouts and smashing each other in the face, along with ridiculous prolonged faux emotional dialogues between figures who never change how they look, who can't quit each other.
And really, who thought that naming states "The Plains Nation" and "The Wasteland" -- regions chock a block with military bases -- were good ideas? It's also likely that Canada and Mexico have some ideas about all this too ....
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