Thousands of Californians move to Idaho every year. Who are they?

BOISE, Idaho -- Living outside of San Francisco, Chris Paczocha and his wife had always leaned conservative, but they kept quiet about their beliefs, aware that most of their circle was more liberal.

But 2020 was a turning point. Paczocha and his wife were frustrated by growing unrest stemming from Black Lives Matter protests and six months of COVID-19 restrictions the family believed were overly strict. They worried that masking and social distancing were causing psychological harm to their young daughter.

“She can’t even see her friends smile,” Paczocha told the Idaho Statesman. “There was just a clear deterioration of quality of life.”

In September of that year, the family took the plunge: Paczocha had been laid off because of the pandemic, his wife sold her business, and they moved to Idaho, where they hoped to find a haven for their conservative beliefs.

They’re not alone. Though many Idahoans have pushed back against California newcomers, fearing they were liberals who would turn deep-red Idaho into a less conservative state, polling data shows that the Californians who move to Idaho tend to be just as Republican — or more — as people born and raised in Idaho, said Jeffrey Lyons, a professor at Boise State University who has helped to conduct its annual public policy survey.

Over 17,000 Californians moved to Idaho in 2023, the most recent year tracked in U.S. Census data. They represented over one-fifth of newcomers to the state that year. In 2021, they represented nearly one-third.

Many are wealthier and more educated than longstanding Idaho residents, Lyons said. In 2024, nearly 25,000 of California’s highest earners — those earning $200,000 or more each year — left their home state. Idaho ranked in the top 10 destinations for high earners like these, according to SmartAsset, a financial technology company.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, newcomers tended to be retirees, Lyons told the Statesman. During the pandemic, that shifted to be young families with school-age children.

And they are decidedly conservative. As of June, about 77% of registered voters in Idaho who were previously registered in California were Republican, according to voter registration data tracked by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office. Of the Californians who moved to Idaho since 2015, 65% identified as Republican, according to Boise State polling data Lyons shared.

More Californians have moved to Ada County than anywhere else in Idaho, according to voter registration data tracked by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office. And since 2012, the county has gotten redder and redder, the Statesman reported in 2024.

Polling data offers little insight into newcomers’ level of political engagement. Anecdotally, though, Lyons said he has a sense that the Californians coming to the state are more likely to be politically active.

Thad Butterworth, the chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, offered a similar reflection in 2024.

There’s “a very large contingent of people who are coming from some of these states where they felt like they were not listened to by their government, by their party,” Butterworth told the Statesman. “The new contingent, they want action. They want to see things moving. They want to be able to look at the end of the day and say, ‘We moved the ball forward.’ ”

Why are Californians leaving California?

In her 10 years as a real-estate agent in the Treasure Valley, Jennifer Louis has heard the same thing over and over from West Coast transplants — those looking to move to the area from California, Washington or Oregon. Most focus on a lack of safety in their home states, especially around their handling of homelessness.

Louis, who moved to Idaho from California in 2014, recounted one client’s perspective that she said was representative.

“One of the main reasons why people are moving here is because Idaho is how California was back when we were young. It’s calm and peaceful,” the client told her. “Kids are still free here like it used to be in California. They can have a good childhood.”

Statewide, there’s a market for folks with these beliefs. For years, right-leaning real estate firms have pitched conservative residents of blue states on the idea of moving to Idaho.

One such company calls itself “a real estate firm for the vigilant”; another offered homes with “integrated ballistic and defensive capabilities,” the AP reported in 2022. In 2024, an Idaho firm offered free listings to liberals leaving the state and told the Statesman it would offer conservative clients moving in a free AR-15. Facebook abounds with groups, some with thousands of members, offering real estate listings and advice for Californians moving to Idaho.

A 2019 survey by the University of California at Berkeley found that about half of the state’s registered voters were weighing leaving the state. Among Republicans polled, that number jumped above 70%.

High housing costs were a driver across the board, Berkeley researchers found, but Republicans were especially likely to cite high taxes and California’s “political culture” as their top reasons to consider leaving the state.

In a 2019 survey of Treasure Valley residents, Lyons found that newcomers to the area rarely cited politics as an explicit reason for moving. But often, their answers were “correlated” with political leanings, he said.

“What they’re saying is, ‘I moved here for a safe community,’ ‘I moved here for a family-friendly community,’ ” he said.