He left WA on the ‘Seattle to Texas Express.’ Now he helps others do the same
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The Olympian examines how the nation’s political divide is reshaping the future of Washington state.
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He left WA on the ‘Seattle to Texas Express.’ Now he helps others do the same
Editor's Note: This story is part of a five-part series by The Olympian that examines how the nation’s political divide is reshaping the future of Washington state.
Some Republicans say it’s the new normal: that Washington state residents and businesses are leaving because the cost of living is too high and the political ideology has shifted too far to the left.
Former talk show host Kirby Wilbur, who spent about 20 years sharing conservative opinions at Seattle’s KVI radio station, said he and his wife are among those who have resettled elsewhere.
In an interview last year with The Olympian from his new home in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex, Wilbur said he and many other former Washingtonians have made the move to Texas.
“They thought it was going too far left, and they didn’t see any hope of a reversal,” he said about their decisions.
The Seattle Times reported in May on who is moving to and leaving Washington, looking at annual averages from the U.S. Census Bureau from 2020 to 2024. The data show that of those exiting the state, 22% were born here. Conversely, about 15% of arrivals are Washington natives coming back home.
From 2020 to 2024, the Lone Star State on average received nearly 19,800 new residents annually from Washington, which in turn welcomed roughly 13,300 Texans, according to The Seattle Times, citing census data. That means Texas saw a net gain of more than 6,400 Washingtonians.
In 2022, NPR reported that more Americans are moving to states that match their politics. Some experts say such clustering will lead like-minded groups to become more extreme, and places to become increasingly Republican or Democratic.
“And so politics becomes less about solving our problems anymore,” Bill Bishop, a journalist who wrote a book about this trend, told NPR. “It’s about cheering for our side.”
Washington has also reportedly lost bipartisan districts in recent years, with pollster Stuart Elway noting the once-independent swing state is now solidly blue.
In 2000, there was a 49-49 tie in the state House while the Senate leaned slightly Democratic at 25-24. Today Democrats lead 59-39 in the lower chamber and 30-19 in the upper.
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Kirby Wilbur’s Washington
Wilbur, 71, was born in the other Washington, but moved to Washington state and the Seattle area in 1962. He went to what was then Queen Anne High School and later the University of Washington. He lived throughout the area, making stops in Kirkland and Redmond while raising a family.
Wilbur considers himself a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr., the famous conservative commentator and founder of National Review magazine. He acknowledged he is not fully on board with President Donald Trump’s policies, taking issue with tariffs and the president’s use of executive orders.
“I find it hard as an ex-talk show host to keep my mouth shut sometimes, so I get on Facebook occasionally, and I get criticized by those who think I’m not a real Republican, and I’m thinking, really?” he said.
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From 1993 to 2009 he worked in radio at KVI until he was downsized by the Great Recession. From there he worked for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative organization, and later as chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. He worked in Washington, D.C. for a conservative foundation and then returned to Seattle and KVI to wrap up a broadcasting career that ended in 2020. It was time to retire, he said.
“We decided we didn’t want to retire in Washington because the cost of living was high,” Wilbur said. “Housing prices were crazy, and we saw a general drift to the left politically in terms of crime, homelessness, drugs, taxes, government, regulation.”
The median price of homes in King County in December was $899,950, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service data. Across Texas the median price of a home was around $350,000, according to Forbes data, while in McKinney, Texas, or Collin County, it was closer to $500,000, Zillow data show.
“My gas is about $2.50 a gallon, my car registration is $80 a year and house prices are about half of what they are in Seattle,” he said in August 2025 about Texas-style living.
Business owner says farewell to WA
Former Washington state resident Scott Cameron, 63, previously of Puyallup, is that Puget Sound business owner referenced by Wilbur.
He closed Premier Energy Solutions, a home-based home improvement operation, in October and reopened a similar business called Platinum Exteriors this year in Forney, Texas, which is about 20 miles east of downtown Dallas.
There have been many reasons to leave, including the cost of living and taxes, Cameron said.
“I don’t see the brakes being applied,” he said about Washington state. “They are raising taxes, there’s more homeless, they are not prosecuting crimes. I am a gun owner and every time they passed a new (gun-related) law I would buy a gun.”
He said that freedoms feel restricted, adding that “values are going downhill.”
“It’s not the same place I grew up in 40 years ago as a kid,” said Cameron, who is originally from Spokane.
Cameron added that his experience as a business owner with the Washington state Department of Revenue was so onerous that he felt like he was nothing more than a collection agency.
He listed his home for sale in Puyallup for $1.3 million — but in the Forney area he was able to buy a 3,200-square-foot home on an acre of land for $577,000. He also is building a shop on his property that he thinks he can build, including the cost of his home, for a total of $750,000.
The cost of building permits for the shop was $80, including the cost of the inspection. They also were easy to get, he said.
“In WA, the same permit would cost thousands (of dollars) and take months and maybe up to a year to get,” said Cameron in a text message.
He acknowledged that property taxes are high in Texas, but “everything else is cheaper,” including groceries.
Others have made the move
Former Seattle-area resident Shane Savery, 52, also moved to Texas a little more than three years ago. He, his wife and daughter now call the town of Trophy Club home, which is about 35 miles northwest of Dallas, he said.
Savery grew up in Mill Creek. He later attended and studied political science at the University of Washington, and after moving around the area, finally settled in Normandy Park in a home he thought would be their final stop.
Savery considers himself a politically independent conservative, although he grew up in a Democratic household and once interned for Democratic Gov. Gary Locke, he said.
Although he was concerned about graffiti, homelessness and visible drug addiction in the Seattle area, the tipping point for him came when the Washington state Legislature and voters approved comprehensive sex education for all public school students in 2020, a requirement that needed to be in place by the 2022-2023 school year, according to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
He immediately enrolled his elementary-age daughter in a private school. Later, on a trip to Columbus, Ohio, the negative aspects of living in the Seattle area that he took for granted seemed non-existent in that college town, he said. It was a lightbulb moment for Savery, he said.
“Why am I choosing to live there?” he said about Seattle. “We need to change that.”
Their search for a new home began closer to Washington state. He looked at Idaho and Montana, but finally settled on Texas after it was recommended by an acquaintance. Today, he operates a doughnut franchise and his wife works in pharmaceutical sales, he said.
“People are genuinely kind, genuinely interested in you,” he said about the Texas experience, which has prompted him to launch the Seattle to Texas Express Facebook page.
It has more than 500 members, including Wilbur, who use the forum to vent about Washington state and talk about how much they love Texas, he said.
Wilbur has been designated a group expert who can explain different areas of the state, Savery said.
There are cost-of-living advantages to living in Texas, including much lower gasoline prices, but he acknowledged that property taxes are high because of the state’s penchant for building new high school football stadiums. However, he is not against paying taxes, saying that unlike in Washington state, it feels like you get “what you pay for.”
“I don’t see it getting any better,” said Savery about the Seattle area. “Why not live in a place that’s amazing?”
‘Refugee resettlement specialist’
What does one do in retirement? For Wilbur, he earned a real estate license and works with those wanting to leave Washington state. His business card says: “refugee resettlement specialist.”
“There are a ton of people from Washington down here,” he said. “We meet people from Washington all the time. I got my real estate license, and I’ve sold homes to people from Washington and California who are coming to Texas.”
But not everyone is moving to Texas from Washington state, according to migration data supplied by U-Haul, the nationwide business known for renting moving equipment.
Over the past year, the top destinations for those leaving the state are mostly other blue or purple states: Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho and British Columbia, according to the U-Haul data.
Wilbur explained what motivated people he’s met from the Evergreen State to move.
“They just thought it was going too far left and there was no chance for a balance,” he said, “that the Republicans are apparently powerless, and they keep losing elections, and they wanted to come someplace that was more compatible with their values.”
