What you're seeing here isn't a column. It's an excerpt from the Almanac of American Politics, a large chunk of the section included in that book about Idaho.
The Almanac has been around since 1972, tracking politics in great detail (mainly at the congressional and statewide level)for all 60 states. In July, the Almanac will be publishing its 2024 edition, with some 2,200 pages offering fully updated chapters on all 435 House members and their districts, all 100 senators, all 50 states and governors, and much more. I still have many of the editions published since then, and over the last couple of decades I've been in the group of people to whom sections related to specific states have been asked to review and suggest changes. (I've not had many to suggest.) Lou Jacobson, who has worked on these chapters for some years, has worked for PolitiFact, Sabato's Crystal Ball and U.S. News and World Report and is a veteran national political handicapper.
Readers can receive a 15 percent discount if they purchase the 2024 edition through the Almanac’s website -- https://www.thealmanacofamericanpolitics.com/ -- and apply the code RSIdaho15 at checkout. The offer is good through August.
Here's some what the Almanac has to say about Idaho (an Oregon excerpt will appear tomorrow):
Tucked near the northwest edge of the continental United States, far from any major metro area, Idaho has seen its population nearly double since 1990. But the migration of newcomers to both livable Boise and resort areas like Sun Valley hasn't added many Democrats: Idaho has remained solidly Republican for more than a half-century, although the GOP is increasingly divided between an establishment wing and the far right.
Idaho was the last North American area on which European fur traders set eyes. Then in the 1840s, New England Yankees led by ministers made their way west on the Oregon Trail through southern Idaho. The state's northern panhandle, an extension of Washington's Columbia River Valley, was first settled by miners seeking gold and silver, then by loggers seeking timber. Mormons moving north from Utah settled in the eastern part of the state, while Basque immigrants and their descendants made a significant impact on Idaho and its politics. Federal water reclamation projects first authorized in 1894 attracted the most settlers; inexpensive hydroelectric power has historically supplied between 60 percent and 80 percent of the state's electricity needs. Idaho Power has said it will use fully clean sources of energy by 2045, thanks in part to its 17 Snake River hydroelectric plants. Wind power currently accounts for about 16 percent of the state's electricity generation.
This infrastructure transformed the barren Snake River Valley into some of the nation's best volcanic, soil-enriched farmland, which along with warm days and cool nights proved ideal for the Burbank russet potato and, more recently, for a fledgling wine industry. The number of wineries in the state has increased from 40 to 70 in just over a decade, and the website Vine Pair reported that Idahoans consume twice as much wine per capita as Californians do. Today, Idaho ranks fifth in the nation for the percentage of state gross domestic product coming from agriculture, and even adjusting for inflation, total receipts from Idaho farms have grown by 57 percent since 1997, compared with 35 percent for the nation as a whole. Idaho ranks first nationally in potatoes and barley and second in sugar beets and hops, the latter contributing to a thriving microbrewery industry. Today, sales by the state's dairy industry are more than three times as large as that for potatoes; Chobani has a large yogurt plant in Twin Falls that has been a major driver of economic growth in south-central Idaho.
The state is big: The town of Montpelier in the southeast is closer to Farmington, New Mexico, than to Bonners Ferry in the northern panhandle. And the wilderness is never far away. Towering over the state capitol in Boise is the vast peak of Shafer Butte. Not far away are the sharp peaks and broad valleys of the Sawtooth range; the impassable mountains of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the largest U.S. wilderness area outside Alaska; and the 425 miles of the Salmon River. Having so much wilderness comes with a downside; according to the EPA, nearly 1 percent of the land in Idaho on average has burned annually since 1984, a pattern that is projected to worsen in the coming years. Wildfires have contributed to poor air quality. In 2022, three Idaho areas—Boise, plus the regions in Idaho adjoining Logan Utah, and Spokane Washington—ranked in the American Lung Association's list of top 25 nationally for short-term particle pollution. Meanwhile, a drought in 2021 led to a national shortage of potatoes the following year. In 1953, an eighth-grade dropout named J.R. Simplot perfected the process of freezing French fries; with a handshake, he sealed a contract with a little restaurant chain called McDonald's and was on his way to becoming the biggest potato processor in the world, and a billionaire. In the 1970s, Simplot was the primary financier of a startup called Micron Technology, which, along with Hewlett-Packard, spawned a booming high-tech sector in the state. In recent years, Idaho has been at or near the top of state rankings for patents per capita. It's a tradition that reaches back into the early years of the 20th century, when a Mormon farm boy from Rigby named Philo T. Farnsworth came up with many of the concepts that laid the basis for the invention of television. The value of Idaho's electronic-component exports now exceeds the value of its potato exports, trading one type of chip for another. The Idaho National Laboratory in the eastern part of the state is one of the nation's major hubs for nuclear, cyber security and critical infrastructure research.
The combination of technology jobs and natural beauty has driven the state's population growth. Idaho led the country in the percentage of population growth for each of the five years ending in 2021, falling to No. 2 behind Florida in 2022. If such growth continues, Idaho could gain a third House seat after the 2030 Census, an increase it hasn't seen in over a century. Today, 42 percent of Idahoans live in the Treasure Valley around Boise; Ada County, which includes Boise, grew by 30 percent between 2010 and 2021, fueled by such amenities as the 200-mile-long Ridge to Rivers trail system. Between 2020 and 2021, three suburbs of Boise -- Meridian, Caldwell, and Nampa -- ranked among the country's top 15 fastest-growing cities or towns. Other areas have grown too, especially those attracting a wealthy clientele: Blaine County, which includes the resort of Sun Valley, has grown by 16 percent since 2010, and Teton County, a bedroom community for pricey Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has grown by 21 percent over the same period. In fast-growing areas, traffic and high housing prices have followed the brewpubs and farm-to-table restaurants. But most of Idaho's counties have seen little population change in the past half-century. "All that massive growth you've heard about in Idaho has happened in the space of only a few hundred square miles, a tiny sliver of the state," longtime political observer Randy Stapilus has noted. The number of Hispanic residents in Idaho grew by 47 percent between 2010 and 2022, about double the rate of growth for the state overall. Idaho has welcomed not only Americans from other states but those from abroad, including refugees. The state has absorbed more than 20,000 refugees since the 1970s, mostly in Boise and Twin Falls—first Vietnamese and Cambodians, then Bosnians, and more recently refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Nepal and Iran. In Twin Falls, just 17 miles from a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans, this has periodically spawned controversy. But an anti-refugee ballot measure proposal in 2016 failed to secure enough signatures, despite fake Russiancontrolled Facebook accounts trying to stir up an anti-refugee rally. The Mormon population may be a reason for the state's tolerant streak, due to its international missionary outreach: Idaho has the second highest percentage of Mormons of any state.
In its early years as a silver-producing state, Idaho backed populism and opposed the gold standard; from statehood up to 1990, the state cycled between periods of Republican dominance and partisan competitiveness. It elected prominent national Democrats such as Sen. Frank Church, an intelligence watchdog and 1976 presidential candidate, and Gov. Cecil Andrus, Jimmy Carter's Interior secretary. But since 1990, Idaho has become staunchly Republican: Since 1964, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 37 percent of the vote. Idahoans like to see themselves as pioneering entrepreneurs who, rather than seek federal help, want to get a bloated, bossy federal government off their backs. The U.S. government owns 63 percent of Idaho's land, and many Idahoans strongly oppose federal policies that limit road building and grazing on public lands, and they don't like the idea of breaching Snake River dams to protect salmon (in the process, depriving potato farmers of water). Idaho has elected only Republicans to the governorship since 1994 and to the Senate since 1978. With one exception in 2008, the GOP has won every election for Idaho's two House seats since 1994.
The city of Boise has become solidly blue. Its state legislators are all Democratic and they tend to win in landslides, but step a mile outside city limits and the political tenor changes. Influxes of upscale professionals and minorities have been balanced by the migration
of retirees, as well as more conservative engineers and entrepreneurs who have come from California and other states for a fresh environment and a fresh start—and fewer cumbersome or expensive regulations. Meanwhile, rural Idaho, amid population stagnation, has become redder than ever. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated fault lines in the state, as a vocal
segment of rural conservatives rebelled against public-health restrictions imposed by the more pragmatic Republican governor, Brad Little. Chuck Malloy, a Republican strategist-turned-columnist, told Politico that "Idaho is a two-party state: The Republican Party and the More Republican Party." The latter has an ideological enforcer, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and has sometimes made common cause with the John Birch Society, which won a unanimous endorsement from the Republican central committee of Kootenai County, which includes Coeur d'Alene in the far northern part of the state. Then-Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who
unsuccessfully challenged Little from the right in the 2022 gubernatorial primary, posed with members of the Three Percenters militia and made a video address to the America First Political Action Conference, organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Some activists mounted armed protests at the offices and homes of local officials.The GOP's internal divisions played out in primaries in 2022. Mostly, establishment Republicans prevailed. In the gubernatorial primary, Little defeated McGeachin, 53%-32%, while Rep. Mike Simpson defeated Idaho Freedom Foundation board member Bryan Smith, 55%-37%. In the race to succeed McGeachin as lieutenant governor, longtime state House speaker Scott Bedke defeated state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who was censured after disclosing the identity of an intern who accused a lawmaker of rape. In the race for secretary of state, Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane, the establishment candidate, held off Trump-aligned state Rep. Dorothy Moon. The main victory for the insurgent wing came in the attorney general race, where former Rep. Raul Labrador ousted longtime incumbent Lawrence Wasden in a three-way GOP primary. The right wing of the party has also amassed power in state and local party organizations, and in the state legislature. But regardless of which wing of the party their nominees came from, the Republicans swept every general election in 2022: The highest percentage any Democrat won was Labrador's opponent, former Gem County prosecutor Tom Arkoosh, with a mere 37 percent.
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Despite facing continued attacks from the right wing of his party against his pragmatic approach as governor, Brad Little won a hotly contested Republican primary in 2022, followed by an overwhelming victory in November, securing a second term.
Little is a third-generation Idahoan whose grandfather emigrated from Scotland in 1894 and established a sheep operation that spanned much of southwest Idaho; he became "Idaho's Sheep King," and it wasn't an exaggeration. His son carried on the business, and his grandson worked on the ranch while growing up and after graduating from the University of Idaho in 1977. Little served as president of the Idaho Wool Growers Association, chaired two committees of the American Sheep Industry Association, and chaired the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. But the family eventually sold the sheep operation and moved into the cattle business. They also opened some of their land as an off-road vehicle park.
The family's second business was politics. Little's father served in the state legislature and was a Republican National Committee member; as a youngster, Little helped his father campaign for Barry Goldwater in 1964. Four years later, he sat next to Ronald Reagan at the Republican National Convention. In 1972, Little became a delegate himself. In 2001, GOP Gov. Dirk Kempthorne appointed Little to a vacant state Senate seat, and he proceeded to win election four times. Then, in 2009, Little was appointed to the vacant lieutenant governorship and won the seat on his own in 2010 and 2014. When three-term Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter announced he would not be running again, Little jumped in and received Otter's endorsement.
Little was the establishment favorite, focusing on traditional Republican priorities such as low taxes and limited spending, but he faced two other major candidates in the freespending, attack-ad-saturated 2018 primary: Rep. Raul Labrador, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, and Tommy Ahlquist, a developer running as an outsider. Little got 38 percent, followed by Labrador with 33 percent and Ahlquist with 27 percent. Meanwhile, Idaho Democrats had a competitive primary between Paulette Jordan, a former state House member and former Coeur d'Alene Tribal Council official, and A.J. Balukoff, a businessman, Boise school board member and former gubernatorial candidate. Most Democratic officials backed Balukoff, a moderate, but Jordan ran an insurgent campaign—and a progressive one —that attracted attention and small-dollar donations from across the country. When the dust settled, Jordan defeated Balukoff, 58%-40%. Little ran a largely orthodox Republican campaign, though he supported teacher pay raises and Idaho's version of the Common Core curriculum, while opposing efforts to implement school choice. While Little had been critical of the Affordable Care Act, he said during
the campaign that he would respect the results of a ballot measure to implement Medicaid expansion under that law; the ballot measure passed with greater than 60 percent of the vote. Despite the energy behind Jordan's gubernatorial bid in some quarters, some moderate Democratic voters abandoned her for Little. The Republican won, 60%-38%.
In his first year in office, Little expressed discomfort with some of the provisions of legislation to implement the Medicaid expansion, including a work requirement, but he ultimately signed them into law. Little signed a bill expanding concealed carry to 18- to 20-year-olds in cities. Liberals were pleased by Little's renewal of the state's commitment to accept refugees, acknowledgement that climate change needed to be addressed, and recognition of Indigenous People's Day on what had been Columbus Day. And in 2020, Little signed legislation to raise starting pay for teachers. But Little spurned opposition from major Idaho employers—including Chobani, Clif Bar, HP and Micron—when he signed one bill that would ban transgender girls and women from female sports teams in the state, and another that would effectively prevent residents from changing their gender on birth certificates. Within months, a federal court voided the birth certificate bill.
After the coronavirus hit, Little imposed a variety of restrictions on public gatherings. In April 2021, the legislature failed to override Little's veto of a bill that would have curbed the emergency powers he had used during the pandemic. His actions put him on a collision course
with the most conservative Idahoans, including Ammon Bundy, who had once taken over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon for 41 days, and Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who was elected separately. In May 2021, McGeachin claimed her own authority to reshape policy when Little left the state, issuing in his absence an executive order that banned mask mandates. Little rescinded the order on his return, but McGeachin tried again in October with orders barring mandatory vaccination and coronavirus testing. He rescinded these as well. Such efforts fed McGeachin's primary challenge, which received former President Donald Trump's imprimatur
in November 2021, when he called her "a true supporter of MAGA since the very beginning."
As Little looked ahead to his reelection, his agenda was plenty conservative. He signed the state's largest-ever tax cut, as well as both an abortion ban "trigger" law, in the event that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a separate bill modeled on one enacted in Texas by which ordinary citizens could sue to enforce a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The trigger law took effect when the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision in the summer of 2022, though it faced continuing legal challenges. Chobani, a major employer in the state, responded by saying it would reimburse employees who travel out of state for an abortion (or for a wide range of treatments, such as cancer or organ transplants). Little also signed a bill that allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, and he vetoed a measure that would have banned businesses from requiring coronavirus vaccines, citing "government overreach into the private sector." The legislature failed to override his veto.
The primary drew national attention. In addition to receiving the Trump endorsement, McGeachin established a task force to "examine indoctrination in Idaho education" and mingled with members of the Three Percenter militia. But Little easily outraised her, and not
even the Idaho GOP primary electorate was prepared to select her vision over Little's more pragmatic conservatism: He won almost 53 percent of the vote, well ahead of McGeachin's 32 percent and smaller totals from a few other candidates. Little notched an even more impressive victory in the three-way general election, taking almost 61 percent to 20 percent for Democrat Stephen Heidt and 17 percent for Bundy, who was running as an independent. After losing four counties in his 2018 run, Little lost only one in 2022 -- Blaine County (Sun Valley), which accounted for less than 2 percent of the statewide vote. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Democratic votes for governor plunged from 231,081 to 120,160. In all, the outcome ratified both Idaho's continued status as a Republican state and Little's more mainstream approach.
In April 2023, Little signed a bill that banned gender-affirming care to transgender minors and another bill that banned minors from traveling out of state for abortions without parental consent and that also criminalized adults helping procure an abortion-inducing drug without parental consent.