Californians are arriving in Montana in droves. But they're not welcome.

[fishwax]

24. I think it's much likelier for economic rather than political reasons

It can be a tough place to make ends meet, given the high cost of living. And if you've done okay for yourself, and managed to buy a home in California, you can sell it in that market for what is a fortune in a place like Montana. You can buy a huge house and retire early, or live off the income of a part-time job.

I'm reminded of the 30s, when Dust Bowl refugees made their way to California. Back then there were many in California who didn't want them, just like Montana natives now; And, in parallel to your own comment, Will Rogers (the Oklahoma humorist who had moved to Hollywood and hit it big well before the economic crisis) quipped that the hordes of Oklahomans moving to California had raised the collective IQ of both states. I don't think Will Rogers was right about that, though California did benefit from the Joads and their ilk; historically it probably did make California more liberal and it certainly made Oklahoma more conservative.

Anxiety about the influx of Californians in Montana and states like it is deeply connected to the concern that such migrants will make Montana more liberal. There is similar concern about migrants from Oregon or from the East Coast, but California is the most common, both because the numbers have always been biggest and because it makes a handy slogan: you can find "Don't Californicate Montana/Wyoming/Utah/Colorado etc." bumper stickers throughout the Mountain West.

I grew up in the Rocky Mountain West, with time and close connections in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, so it's a dynamic I'm completely familiar with. I see folks from my hometown on facebook who are clearly right wing, and they're keeping the California bogeyman alive.

As to the politics of it, someone who voted for, say, Schwarzeneger and Whitman in California stands a good chance of voting for Mike Cooney in Montana.

I've known several people who moved from California to the rocky mountain states--both people back when I was growing up and people who, like me, moved away after high school or college but (unlike me) wound up moving back for whatever reason. As a kid, the folks from California or the coast were almost always more liberal than the norm in my hometown. Among my peers, only one of the examples is not at least fairly liberal--that guy is a libertarian who would've held both party candidates in roughly equal contempt. (He moved out of Montana for the Southeast, but I think it was personal and financial things that motivated him in that case, rather than political.)