Idaho election follows conservative trend

Idaho’s general election largely followed national trends, and dispelled any implications that recent in-migration from neighboring states is moving Idaho to the left.

At the top of the ticket, President-elect Donald Trump won in Idaho, and in legislative races, Republicans added three more seats to the GOP supermajority in the Statehouse. Idahoans also decisively defeated an initiative to change the state’s election system.

“When you look at Idaho politics, there’s all this conversation over the past 10 years of all the growth in Idaho, and is Idaho changing? Are people from California making Idaho more liberal?” said Jeff Lyons, a Boise State University political science professor who focuses on state politics. “And it’s just year after year, these election results keep telling us, there is tremendous growth in Idaho, Idaho is not getting more liberal. If anything, it’s trending, perhaps slowly, more conservative.”

Idaho’s pick for president was no surprise, but Trump earned slightly more votes in the Gem State this go-around than he did in 2020. On Tuesday, 66.9% of voters picked the former president, and in 2020 he received about 63.8%.

Idaho has four regularly competitive districts in general elections, and in those, Republican candidates picked up the District 15 Senate seat, District 29 House B seat and District 26 House A position.

“We are saddened by the election results, both nationally and in our state, but we are also very grateful to the thousands of volunteers and donors who stepped up to fight for our values and our communities,” Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow and House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel wrote in a joint statement. “We knew from the start we had a significant headwind running into a presidential election year, but Democrats are tough, hard working, and we never back down. We organized. We put in the blood, sweat and tears, and thank goodness we did, because things could have been worse.”

Combined with primary results, there will be 25 new, or new-ish faces, including formerly elected officials who returned this year and some who had been appointed to fill vacancies. In the Senate, there will be six Democrats compared to 29 Republicans.

In the House, there will be nine Democrats and 61 Republicans.

Members of the Idaho Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative wing of the Legislature, wrote in a news release they were “thrilled” with the election results. The caucus celebrated Trump’s win and the votes on the two statewide ballot measures.

“We are especially pleased that Idaho decisively rejected Proposition 1 and also voted to uphold the sanctity of our elections by ensuring that only citizens can vote,” the news release said. “This, along with further Republican gains across Idaho, demonstrates that our state is indeed growing more conservative.”

While 25 new officials is less than a quarter of the 105 total members of the Legislature, it may make a particular difference at the committee-level, where fewer votes can make a difference in whether a bill advances or dies.

The election results may result in a shift in one major topic of debate over the past few years: school choice, and whether state funds should go toward private education.

The issue has divided Republicans in the chamber for the last few years, and none of the proposals brought forward have passed, often dying in committees by narrow margins. However, a number of Republicans who had been opposed to these proposals were defeated in their primary contests.

In the general election, the Republican candidates in District 26 and 29 who unseated Democrats were in favor of these types of school choice proposals and the Democrats were opposed.

Voters also weighed in on Prop 1 — which would have changed the state’s election system — and the constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 5, to add that people who aren’t U.S. citizens may not vote in Idaho.

More than 69% of voters rejected Prop 1 — more than the percentage who voted for Trump. The initiative faced strong opposition from the Idaho GOP and current elected officials, including Gov. Brad Little.

“Opponents of Prop 1 did a very good job of linking the proposition to partisanship, making the argument to voters that if you are conservative, you should vote against Prop 1,” Lyons said.

Idaho GOP Chairperson Dorothy Moon celebrated the defeat of Prop 1 at the Republican election watch party Tuesday night, and thanked several individuals for helping oppose it.

The group that ran the initiative, Idahoans for Open Primaries, included a number of formerly elected Republican officials, such as former Gov. Butch Otter, former attorney general and state Supreme Court justice Jim Jones, and former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb.

The results on the constitutional amendment on non-citizens voting, HJR 5, also fell along partisan lines, with 64.9% voting in favor.

“If you look at precinct maps, it tracks very close to partisanship,” Lyons said of the amendment vote, “which is kind of what we would expect, because immigration has become such a large issue in the national conversation.”

Lyons said Idaho’s results largely matched many other results in an election year that favored Republicans. President Joe Biden’s favorability rating sits at about 40%, not far from Trump’s at the end of his presidency, and many people were not happy with the party in power. This trend wasn’t unique to the U.S. either.

“Looking across democracies across the globe, there was just a lot of pushback against incumbents in general,” Lyons said. “So those sorts of currents, and those sorts of tides tend to favor one party or another, and this year was a year where we had a sitting Democratic president who was relatively unpopular, and I think that some of that energy from the national level definitely does trickle down.”

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.