If a northern Colorado county wants to leave the state and join Wyoming, Gov. Mark Gordon said he’d welcome the hundreds of thousands of new residents.

A group of residents in Weld County, Colorado, have launched an effort to put an initiative on the county’s 2021 ballot that could start the process of having the county annexed into Wyoming; the idea has been batted around by conservative leaders in the county for years, but picked up steam last year when some Weld County officials became frustrated with the State of Colorado’s COVID-19-related restrictions.

“Colorado is moving faster and faster to becoming a little sister of California,” leaders of the Weld County, WY group wrote following November’s election. “The Denver/Boulder liberals continued their relentless attacks on the rural communities throughout Colorado.”

The idea remains a longshot — shifting the boundaries of the two states would require approval from both the Wyoming and Colorado legislatures, among other hurdles — but the discussion has generated buzz in recent days.

When Denver-based KOA News Radio hosted Gordon on Tuesday to talk about the economic impacts of the Biden administration’s new restrictions on oil and gas development, the hosts threw in a final question about Weld County’s potential move to Wyoming.

“We would love that,” Gordon responded. “From time-to-time, states have said, ‘Gosh, we love what Wyoming is doing,’ and so, we’d be happy.”

However, after the Casper Star-Tribune reported Gordon’s embrace of Weld County’s secession movement, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis fired back.

“Hands off Weld County, Gov. Mark Gordon,” Polis responded on Facebook; he called the county a “thriving” part of Colorado.

“Weld County residents are proud to be part of our great state,” Polis wrote. “I do hear from so many Cheyenne residents, on the other hand, that they are culturally, economically and socially more connected to Colorado than Wyoming …”

Moving Weld County from the Centennial State to the Equality State would have a significant impact: With some 324,500 residents spread between communities like Greeley, Longmont, Thornton and Erie, Colorado, the addition of the county would boost Wyoming’s current population of 578,750 by roughly 56%.

Whether a majority of Weld County voters would support a move to Wyoming also remains to be seen. The Colorado Hometown Weekly, which covers a portion of the county, reported Wednesday that “most Erie residents contacted Monday said they thought the issue strange and weren’t interested in leaving Colorado.”

Park County, Wyoming, commissioners were among those talking about the news on Tuesday.

“I don’t see it happening,” said Commission Chairman Lee Livingston, “but it would be interesting to see what it looked like if it did [happen].”

Livingston joked that, “I’m all for it if we can give them Teton County.”