AHC: Make the Pacific Northwest ultra conservative

The issue is the Pacific Northwest is pretty urbanized and urbanization correlates strongly with American liberalism/progressivism.

There were late-19th century proposals to make the Idaho Panhandle part of Washington. Today there's 330,000 folks in the Idaho panhandle. Assuming around ~200,000 folks vote there, you'd see Trump in 2016 get closer to 43% in the state rather than 38%. Plus Johnson got 5% in the state. You'd end up making Washington state have a much stronger conservative-libertarian element.

Oregon is different. Maybe stick more army bases in the east of the state and perhaps get more mormons to settle in the state's east?
 
There were late-19th century proposals to make the Idaho Panhandle part of Washington. Today there's 330,000 folks in the Idaho panhandle. Assuming around ~200,000 folks vote there, you'd see Trump in 2016 get closer to 43% in the state rather than 38%. Plus Johnson got 5% in the state. You'd end up making Washington state have a much stronger conservative-libertarian element.

Back when Idaho progressive politics was a thing, the Panhandle was the most progressive part of the state. Idaho's swing to the right has been accentuated by conservative immigration - had the Panhandle become part of Washington, you might butterfly away ideological migration to that particular area, with the migrants picking the remainder of Idaho instead. This in turn might preserve the Panhandle's left-leaning tendencies a bit better than OTL.
 
As other people have said, if the main mormon settlement was somewhere in oregon not in SLC, then the state would be a lot more conservative.
 
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