At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.”
“Time is not on your side, flee the city NOW before the coming collapse!” read another ad for 5 acres in Moyie Springs, Idaho, listed for $259,000 by a Sandpoint, Idaho, company called Black Rifle Real Estate. (Motto: “Ready. Aim. Move.”)
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. In Washington, we don’t register by party — everybody is an independent voter. In Idaho, you generally have to affiliate with a party to vote in the primaries, so party choice is right on the government’s registration form.
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates.
The data is only a snapshot and is partial, as not every incoming voter says where they moved from, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. Most of the moves were in the past decade, but it isn’t sorted by date. It generally shows, though, that migrants to Idaho are overwhelmingly Republican — even those coming from some of Washington’s bluest cities.
Fifty-two percent of movers from Bellingham were Republican, 53% of those from Tacoma and 65% from Olympia. From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.)
This is the “big sort,” proven. It’s long been known that the U.S. is separating into silos, driven mostly by vocation (such as Big Tech clustering on the coasts), by age or education (young college grads flocking to cities) or by affordability (the middle and working classes getting priced out of cities). These divisions are reflected in politics. This latest data suggests, though, that which team you’re on politically is now itself a driving force behind at least some of the sorting.
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
The data shows Washington, Oregon and California are all hemorrhaging Republican voters to Idaho (and so probably to other red states as well). They’re decamping most of all from California — 75% of California expats registered as Republican after moving to Idaho. Only 10% registered as Democrats. This from a state that has twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans.
All of this will only make it tougher for the Republican Party to bounce back in these states. The red gets redder, the blue bluer.
What we don’t know is the political bent of people moving into Washington state. (Again, we don’t register by party here.) Last year, 10,600 Idahoans moved here (versus 14,400 Washingtonians who moved there). Were these 10,600 some of the Gem State’s last Democrats fleeing for more liberal pastures? It’s possible some are running from the same right-wing bent of the state — the abortion ban, for instance — that is luring so many Republicans.
There’s now an entire cottage industry of companies catering to this partisan clustering, especially on the right.
“Are you sick of living in a Blue State with high taxes, radical policies, and high crime?” says an ad from one real estate company, Conservative Move. (Motto: “Moving Families Right.”) “Find a new home in a state and community that reflects your values.”
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
Anyway, America’s still a free country (unless you’re a woman trying to get reproductive health services), and people may of course group together however they wish. Still, this can’t be a positive trend in the long run.
The Economist magazine speculates that soon there may be entire parallel economies, where Republicans and Democrats not only segregate themselves into disparate land masses but drink different coffee brands and subscribe to separate cellphone providers, based on red or blue tribalism. (There is already Patriot Mobile, a Christian conservative wireless network.)
Some of the founders warned about the malignant influence of too much partisanship — Alexander Hamilton called it democracy’s “most fatal disease.” And now we’re choosing real estate agents and cell networks based on it.
With political foes, it may be tempting to just say “good riddance” when they move out of your town. But the “Parallel States of America” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
