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Five Oregon Counties Vote to Join Idaho to Seek ‘Political Refuge From Blue States’

Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties have voted to discuss the “relocation” of the Oregon-Idaho border.

Five conservative counties in liberal Oregon want to ditch the Beaver State and join Idaho instead. Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties have voted in favor of discussing a “relocation” of the Oregon-Idaho border because Idaho provides a more suitable political environment. A grassroots organization named Move Oregon’s Border has been pushing the effort and advocating for moving Oregon’s rural counties and some of California’s northern counties into Idaho. Last year, Union and Jefferson counties started the movement “to gain political refuge from blue states,” but their efforts were put on pause by the coronavirus pandemic. “This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon,” said Mike McCarter, who led the petition of the movement. The effort is unlikely to succeed: the state legislatures in both Oregon and Idaho, and ultimately the U.S. Congress, would have to approve it.