California
I moved from California to Idaho because my home state changed politically. I love my new conservative community.
- Philip Wiseman and his wife moved to Idaho because they were fed up with California’s politics.
- The retirees made a large spreadsheet to decide which Republican-leaning state to move to.
- They ended up in Eagle, Idaho, and love the conservative values of the community.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Philip Wiseman, a 70-year-old retiree who moved from California to Idaho with his wife in 2021.
They’re part of a trend of conservatives moving to red states. Data compiled by Idaho officials showed 78% of voters who moved from California to Idaho registered as Republicans between 2020 and 2023.
The median home price in the California town the Wisemans lived, Monte Sereno, was $5.5 million in September 2024, according to Redfin, compared to $748,000 in Eagle, Idaho, the town they moved to.
This story has been edited for length and clarity.
We moved to Idaho from Northern California three years ago this December.
My wife is a fourth-generation Californian, and I moved there in 1985. We loved the state. It was the coolest state to live in forever. I worked in semiconductor sales for Silicon Valley firms and my wife worked in healthcare. We got married in 2011 and built a beautiful home in Monte Sereno, just outside of Los Gatos. It was a really beautiful neighborhood and area.
We just were very obviously conservative. We had friends that were like-minded but the city itself and the surrounding area is quite liberal. And we knew that we couldn’t talk politics with our neighbors.
Our best friends across the street put up a Biden sign in the front yard. I thought, “Are you serious?” We have a lot of respect for those people. And then they doubled down on Biden. I couldn’t believe it.
We always say we didn’t leave California. California left us.
Over time the decisions that the politicians and the governors and the district attorneys and all of these people started making were just really wrong. Everything from being a sanctuary state with protections for undocumented immigrants to some of the highest taxes in the country to not prosecuting criminals, among other reasons. It’s just insanity.
Over time, I felt like it was death by a thousand pinpricks. We got to the point where we decided that we just couldn’t put up with it any longer.
We miss our California and what California used to be. It’s still beautiful. You fly over it and you realize, “God, the state is so pretty. It has so much to offer.” But it’s just so screwed up. We had to get the hell out.
We’re sad about it every day. We think about it all the time.
We made a huge spreadsheet to decide which red state to move to
Once we decided to leave, which was a huge decision, the question then became, “Where are we going to go?”
We looked at several different states. My wife put a huge spreadsheet together with average rainfall, average snowfall, average sunny days, average rainy days, average distance from our daughter, who lives in Nevada, to a major airport. It had to be red, obviously, as red as we could find, and we’d love it to have been a state with no state income tax, but more importantly, we looked at what it costs to live there.
Some states we considered were Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, and Florida.
A big spreadsheet later, we ended up coming to Idaho.
I knew a guy that had used to live here and asked him what he thought of the area, and he said it was great and we should look at the Boise area. So we did.
We didn’t know a soul. We came up here and looked around and found a realtor to show us around. We probably made three fact-finding missions up here looking at different areas and neighborhoods. When we finally moved here, we rented for a year, and we looked at neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood.
We ended up buying a house here in Eagle, and we’ve been loving it ever since. We’ve been here just about two years now.
We love the Eagle area because it’s very conservative and there’s a lot of like-minded people. It was easy to make friends here. People are polite and friendly. They wave all the time. We’re both retired now, so this is our forever home.
Eagle is also full of people who moved here from California for basically the same reasons we did. And not just Californians; there are also people from Oregon and Seattle.
I used to love California but things changed as I got older
I moved to California when I was around 30. I just turned 70. When I was a younger man, I didn’t pay much attention to politics. California was wonderful. The beach, the ocean, the food, my career.
But over time, you grow up, you grow older, you grow wiser, you get married, you have a child, and you start noticing things more. The more you pay attention, the more things piss you off.
I think it’s best for conservatives to live in conservative neighborhoods. Liberals can live in their own neighborhoods. It didn’t used to be that big a deal, so I hate to say that because it does suck. But I’m just noticing the fact is all.
California
Mother, daughter found ‘alive and well’ after going missing on Southern California hiking trail
A mother and daughter who went missing after going for a hike on a difficult trail in San Bernardino County’s San Gorgonio Wilderness have been found “alive and well,” the sheriff’s department announced Friday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told KTLA they were uninjured and “walked out on their own.”
Krystal Meyers, 41, and her daughter Alexis Meyers Martinez, 21, were hiking on the Vivian Creek Trail Thursday but didn’t return, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
They were last known to be at the 10,300-foot elevation mark above the High Creek switchbacks at 11 a.m., according to the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue team.
The Vivian Creek Trail is widely considered one of the more strenuous and hazardous routes in the San Gorgonio Wilderness.
The U.S. Forest Service says it’s the shortest and steepest route to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio and requires experienced mountaineering skills.
Officials did not provide any further details about the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — The California Highway Patrol is urging drivers to stay focused on the road as they head out for Fourth of July celebrations.
The holiday weekend can be a dangerous time on our roads as millions of drivers are expected to travel.
CHP Officer Jorge Toro joined Eyewitness News Mornings to share how drivers can stay safe behind the wheel.
Officer Toro also highlighted the importance of sober driving over the holiday.
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He says anyone hosting a party should make sure all of their guests get home safely, ensuring anyone who may be impaired doesn’t drive.
California is returning a stretch of rugged Mendocino County coast to the Indigenous nations whose ancestors once stewarded its shores.
State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The transfer of 136 acres just south of the community of Westport will mark the first time land managed by the California Department of Transportation has been returned to Indigenous tribes.
“This is beyond huge,” said J. Carlos Rivera, tribal chairman of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s enormous from our tribal perspective that we are basically obtaining the land that our people once lived on before colonization.”
California purchased the swath of rocky cliffs and windswept shoreline in the 1960s to expand the construction of Highway 1 and create a scenic viewpoint for highway travelers, according to a California Coastal Commission report.
More recently, public access has been largely unregulated, and summer weekends and holidays have drawn large groups who camp and party on the beach, at times driving through sensitive areas, damaging cultural sites and leaving behind trash, the report states.
Kai Poma plans to conduct cultural and archaeological resource studies and environmental surveys and then prepare a resource management plan for the property, according to planning documents. The nonprofit and the Coastal Commission have drafted a public access management plan that states the land will be open from sunrise to sunset.
Rivera described the entire property as a sacred site. The coastal waters are used by tribal people for seaweed and abalone gathering, and the shores host youth cultural camps, he said. “Protecting the land, it has a deeper meaning for us because we’re connected to the land,” he said.
The effort to acquire the land took years — and required a change in state law. Caltrans lacked the ability to transfer land to tribal governments until 2021, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) that enabled the transfer, according to a news release issued at the time. The law also bars commercial activity on the property and requires public access be maintained.
“With 136 acres now officially transferred into tribal stewardship, one of the most spectacular stretches of the Mendocino Coast will be forever protected,” McGuire said in a statement.
“This agreement, the first of its kind in California, gives these three dynamic Native American tribes the rightful opportunity to reclaim sacred lands and cultural traditions on this special piece of earth. And it’s about damn time.”
The land transfer cleared its last regulatory hurdle June 26 with the approval by the California Transportation Commission, said Neil Thapar, an attorney who works as an advisor and legal consultant to Kai Poma. Caltrans staff will next record the deed transferring the title from the state of California to Kai Poma, which is expected to happen any day, he said.
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