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Greater Idaho: Why Idaho Wants To Take Over Oregon And Eventually Washington and California Too
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Mar 31, 2025
Oregon often feels like a progressive state, but once you get outside of Portland and Eugene, and especially beyond the Cascade Mountains, it gets very conservative. Because of this cultural difference, there's been a concerted effort to move the borders of Idaho to encompass many of Oregon's eastern counties. Here's why Idaho is angling to potentially take over many conservative counties in Oregon, Washington and even California.
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Oregon's borders have been set since 1859, and Idaho's has been set since 1890
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Despite this, over the last couple of years, there's been a concerted effort to get Idaho
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to expand and take over large parts of eastern and southern Oregon. Here's why Idaho is looking to expand its border to take over much of Oregon
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Welcome to Geography by Jeff. Today we're going to look at an interesting situation brewing between Oregon and Idaho
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where one state is proposing to take over a large swath of land from the other
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This has never happened in the recent history of the United States and likely won't happen this time as well
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but it is raising some interesting problems. And it also hits pretty dang close to home for me
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But before we get to today's episode, be sure to check out the podcast on the very same subjects you love
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just more in depth. Join me and geography professor Hunter Shobie as we explore the wonderful world of geography with you
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New episodes premiere every Wednesday, and you can listen right here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
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Before we get to the idea of Greater Idaho, it's worth revisiting the political history of the
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region at large. You see, Oregon and Idaho were once part of the same territory, the Oregon
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Territory. This was a vast region that covered present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts
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of Montana and Wyoming. But in 1859, Oregon officially broke away from the rest of the
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territory and joined the Union as the 33rd state. Idaho and the rest of the former Oregon territory
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would be reformed as the Washington Territory for a few more years before eventually becoming
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the Idaho Territory. Idaho would be formally reorganized as its own state in 1890. But while
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the states look and feel very different politically today, they didn't start off all that different
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from each other. During the late 1800s and into the mid-1900s, Oregon and Idaho were both very
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dependent on natural resources for their economies, and both had a robust timber industry due to the
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large amount of forests within each state. This bred an economy that was heavily dependent on
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blue-collar workers and the region's politics represented as much. But while the region has
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had an eclectic mix of Democrats and Republicans overall the people living in both Oregon and Idaho would lean more conservative through the decades In fact if we line up the US presidential elections from the year 1900 to 1984 Oregon and Idaho have voted almost exactly the same way
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Idaho actually voted for a Democratic president three more times than Oregon during this period
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But beginning in 1988, a sharp political rift occurs between the two states
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Since then, Oregon has voted for a Democrat president, and Idaho has voted for a Republican president in every single election
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and both states' politics have veered increasingly towards the left and right, respectively
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For Oregon, much of this was driven by the Portland and Eugene metropolitan areas
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as young urban professionals from around the country moved to the two cities over the last few decades
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This has fueled a wave of progressive politics that brought in the likes of legal cannabis
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zoning reforms around housing density, environmental and wildlife regulations, and an increase in natural land conservation
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Though it should be pointed out that Oregon's biggest and most effective land conservation effort
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was signed and promoted under a Republican governor. Idaho has been the opposite in almost every way
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While the major city of Boise and the state continue to grow at large, primarily due to people moving from California
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the state continues to get more and more conservative. In fact, a recent survey suggests that most people who move to Idaho
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are moving there because of the conservative nature of the state. While 30 years ago, Idaho had a Democratic governor
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and even a Democratic U.S. representative as late as 2011, the state has not had any meaningful
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national democratic politicians in a long time. And it's for this increasing divide
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that we see the greater Idaho movement get its start in Eastern Oregon. And there's a geographic reason for this
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Today, Oregon and Idaho are very different from each other in terms of politics
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Oregon has a democratic governor, two democratic US senators, and a majority of democratic house of representatives
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Idaho is the exact opposite in almost every single way. And this has led to some for calling for an expanded Idaho
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But before we dive into exactly what greater Idaho is, if you're enjoying this video, hit that subscribe button
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More fun geography videos are just a single click away. Oregon and Idaho's borders have been set for well over a century at this point
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Despite this, there's been a concerted effort by conservatives within the rural eastern side of Oregon
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to move the border of Idaho to encompass their counties effectively moving the border rather than themselves The logic behind this movement essentially boils down to Oregon being too progressive for the culture in eastern Oregon Granted over the last few decades Oregon has
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become a more politically progressive state, much of which is driven by the people who live in
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Portland and its suburbs, Eugene, Salem, Bend, and generally everywhere west of the Cascade
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Mountain Range. This urbanization on the western side of the Cascades was driven by the simple fact
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that there was a greater abundance of water, better soil for agriculture, and is where the state's largest and densest forests were
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which led to the original industry in the state. The eastern half of the state has always been drier
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more sparse, and generally less economically viable. It's a bit more complicated than this
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but generally people move to the western side of the state in greater numbers than the east for these reasons
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And that has seen a power imbalance that's now lasted for well over a century. As such, beginning in 2019
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a plan was created to get eastern counties to begin voting on whether they wanted to remain in Oregon or move to Idaho. If these counties got
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their way, the border of Idaho would shift to cover most of Oregon. Notably, however, organizers
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behind this campaign are leaving out the semi-large cities of Bend and the Dalles, as well as the Warm
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Springs Reservation. Clearly, they have very particular ideas about who's allowed in their
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new clubhouse. But none of this stops with just counties in eastern Oregon. If this were to
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succeed, organizers have plans for Idaho to begin taking over parts of eastern Washington, the
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remainder of Southern Oregon all the way to the coast, and large parts of Northern California
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Idaho would, in this scenario, become a gerrymandered conservative megastate, carefully designed to ensure maximum conservative control. Thankfully for these three states
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they're not in any real danger of Idaho taking them over. The likelihood of this actually happening is very, very low. And that's because
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short of Idaho actually starting a military invasion of Oregon, all of this would need to
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be agreed upon by Idaho state politicians, Oregon state politicians, the United States Congress
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and then signed by the President of the United States. That's a pretty tall order, but it did
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just get a little bit shorter. As of February 2023, the Idaho House has passed a resolution
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to set up talks with Oregon for the movement of these counties to Idaho. While this isn't a full-on
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approval of Idaho taking over the counties it does signal that Idaho is pretty keen on absorbing them and that would make a certain amount of sense for the gem state Eastern Oregon has a lot of potential mining opportunities that are far more scrutinized under Oregon environmental protection laws
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Idaho, however, has no qualms about natural resource extraction. One key resource that's
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been recently discovered in Oregon is a large quantity of lithium, the material that powers
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basically everything we love. But current laws make pursuing mining opportunities in Oregon a
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challenge, if not impossible. But while Idaho might want this land, Oregon certainly has shown
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no inclination of giving it up. Oregon is currently controlled by Democrats in the state house
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Senate, and governor, and all three have been pretty vocal about not giving up any land to Idaho
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This is despite Oregonians in Portland and Eugene effectively subsidizing the entire eastern side
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of the state. The reality is that progressive Oregonians value natural areas in the east such
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as the Painted Hills, Wallowas, and the Steens Mountains. Which is great because Idaho absorbing
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much of Oregon would not be a good thing for the country at large. In an era of increasing political polarization, Idaho taking over large parts of eastern Oregon
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would set a terrible precedent. Many states have already internally gerrymandered themselves to
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create one-sided political battles. But this would be next-level gerrymandering. For one
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if successful, what would stop Idaho from trying to gobble up larger and larger parts of Oregon
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Washington, California, and even Nevada? And then what's to stop other conservative states
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from wanting to take over conservative counties from progressive states nearby. Greater Iowa, greater Arizona
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greater Wyoming, greater Ohio, and so on, essentially further cementing conservative control
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within these respective states. This would also potentially grow their national representation in the US Congress
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while decreasing democratic representation. But also, it simply shouldn't be easy to change a state's boundaries at this point
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certainly not for political reasons as the greater Idaho movement wants. A politically segregated country
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has never led to anything good. Greater Idaho is not likely to happen
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but it should be a worrying moment for progressive states with conservative neighbors. The reality is that most counties in any given state
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are conservative just by them being more rural and less populated. But that's not a good excuse to pick up and move a border
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I hope you enjoyed learning more about the Greater Idaho Movement. If you did, please subscribe to my channel
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And if you wanna watch more of my videos, you can do so here. Thanks for watching, see you next time
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