Trump handily wins Idaho delegates

Editor’s note: The caucus sites were closed to the media, but the reporter went to her own polling location.

BOISE — Idaho’s first Republican presidential caucus in more than a decade took place Saturday with GOP frontrunner Donald Trump garnering Idaho’s delegates.

Preliminary results reported at 5 p.m. MST show Trump garnered more than 84% of votes cast with 67% of precincts reporting. Nikki Haley came in second with 13.5%. At that time, Trump had 22,813 votes. There are more than 580,000 registered Republicans in Idaho.

All counties simultaneously held the event, with voting locations opening at 11 a.m. PST and 12 MST.

Experiences varied across the Treasure Valley.

At the District 16 site at Foothills Christian Church, in Boise, there were no lines at 12:30 p.m. MST, and voters moved quickly through the process of showing their photo ID, signing their name in the polling book, and taking their ballot into a room to vote: in total, this could be completed in 10 to 15 minutes.

Inside the voting room, two large projector screens played candidate videos from Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. On the chairs were flyers urging voters to reject an initiative proposal to create top-four open primaries.

Sandra Castro said her experience voting was “fabulous.”

Marvina Strong said it was “Great .... Went quickly, easy, no confusion.”

But some voters in Nampa had a much different experience. Idaho Federation of Republican Women President Tracey Wasden said she witnessed issues with parking and accessibility at her location at Lone Star Middle School. Wasden, who is also a precinct committeeperson for District 12, observed a number of people with mobility issues struggling to walk around the building to the entrance, and she waited in line for 45 to 50 minutes before she was able to vote.

“When I got there, both parking lots on both sides were full, and people were already leaving because they couldn’t stand in line any longer,” Wasden said.

At her location, she said voters were able to enter the building at noon but weren’t able to vote until 1:30 p.m. She said ballots weren’t provided until after the whole opening process, which included a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, and the candidate videos.

She said several hundred people waited in a room to be able to vote, which caused some congestion. Wasden spent about an hour and half there.

“It was an absolutely absurd, ridiculous situation,” Wasden said.

Natalie Holsten, a Nampa resident and freelance writer for the Idaho Press, said she missed out completely on an opportunity to cast her ballot.

“I tried to participate in the Republican caucus today at Skyview High school in Nampa,” Holsten wrote in an email. “The flyer I got in the mail about it said doors open at noon. There was no ending time listed. When I drove by the school around 12:30 it was packed, so I thought I’d go home, drop off my daughter, and return.”

“When I got back to the school around 2:25, they were already wrapping up. A group of about 30 to 40 of us were outside, banging on the door, asking them to let us in.”

She was told the caucus closed at 2 p.m., but she and the other people outside didn’t have access to that information. The Idaho GOP website and caucus information doesn’t include end times at locations.

“People were very upset,” Holsten wrote. “One person said their friend was at Lakeview and they were open till 3. One man hollered, ‘Welcome to China!’ There were several who were clearly confused and angry about what was happening.”

After the Idaho Legislature inadvertently eliminated the state presidential primary during the 2023 legislative session, the Idaho Republican State Central Committee voted to hold a caucus. GOP Chair Dorothy Moon had opposed a bill that would have fixed the issue because she was against moving the primary to May, which the bill would have done.

There were proposals for the Legislature to call itself back into session, but agreement couldn’t be reached on whether lawmakers would convene to vote on a March or May primary. No special session was held and so the GOP caucus moved forward.

Republicans who registered by Jan. 1 could participate.

There was one round of voting and ballots were counted by hand at each caucus site and reported to the party headquarters, according to the caucus rules.

Candidates who earn more than 50% of the vote receive all of Idaho’s 32 delegates. If no candidate receives more than half the vote, delegates are awarded proportionally to the votes received by each candidate who earned at least 15% of the vote; no delegates are awarded to those with less than 15% of the vote.

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 X @EyeOnBoiseGuido.