Escape to Idaho: GOP state says two thirds of the 119,000 people who've relocated there in recent years are Republican, as conservatives flee nearby Seattle, Portland and San Francisco

An increasingly fraught political climate has led to more Americans than ever picking up and leaving their homes for areas that better match their beliefs.

Idaho, which has increasingly become a conservative safe haven in the last half-decade (at the very least), reports that of the 119,000 voters who have moved to the Gem State in the last 10 years or so, some 65 percent of them are Republican.

Idaho is a red state, though its partisan makeup is comprised of just 58 percent GOP voters, according to the Seattle Times.

The data, which came from the Idaho Secretary of State's Office, shows that just 12 percent of new Idahoans registered as Democrats, 21 percent as 'unaffiliated,' and two percent selected Libertarian.

Figures support the heavily scrutinized pattern of out-migration from intensely blue cities to areas with more conservative, traditional values.

The Times reported that last year 14,400 Washingtonians moved to Idaho, while just over 10,000 went the other way.

Regional swapping appears to be reaching an all-time high due to increasingly disparate rules of law and governance in red vs. blue regions.

In Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, highly progressive leaders have overseen the softening of law enforcement in ways that make life anywhere from unpleasant to dangerous for some residents.

States like Idaho, which have overwhelmingly conservative state legislatures - laws including abortion bans and those that reinforce the gender binary - have sent some liberals running.

VOA interviewed Tim Kohl and his wife Jennifer who moved last year to a suburb of Boise, Idaho, where he is free to fly his Thin Blue Line flag without fear of recourse - something he could not do in his former city of Los Angeles, where he was a cop for many years.

Jennifer said they were 'scared to put it up,' but felt assured they had chosen the right place for their new home when neighbors began complimenting them on the display.

The couple said they felt like they weren't being served by the government services for which their tax dollars paid.

Garbage, they recall, began to pile up in and around massive homeless encampments, and their taxes went to serving illegal immigrants over US citizens.

Jennifer's mother was one such citizen who was placed on many a waiting list to receive government assistance for which she qualified because of her income level.

Tim's police station, located in the mountains that spread across West Los Angeles, was firebombed during the violent protests that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. 

'Here, the tax dollars naturally goes to the citizens, not the immigrants,' Tim said. 'Most of the people we've met here are from California originally.'

University of California, San Diego professor Thad Kousser said the increasing political sameness among state populations is and will continue making it harder for individuals from both parties to feel invested.

'It gives one party the ability to move a state further when they're doing exactly what their constituency wants,' he said.

Idaho has become such a promised land for conservatives that 12 counties in Oregon have sought to secede from their home state and instead join their staunchly Republican neighbor.

The so-called Greater Idaho movement came after Oregon decriminalized possession of all illegal drugs, leading to huge spikes in crime in its biggest city Portland.

Portland and Oregon's other cities have also become bywords for anarchist, anti-police activity, homelessness, open-drug taking and extremely woke policies on issues pertaining to race and gender identity. 

Many rural Oregonians say those beliefs are too far to the left of their own and want to change their state without moving.

But efforts to join Idaho face an uphill struggle. Even if approved by county ballots, Oregon's state legislatures and the United States Congress itself would have to approve such a move.