This year’s partisan elections have been more difficult than usual to predict, and that’s partly because of the unusual element of this summer’s Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion case.
Outrage from many people - led by women but including many men as well - ensued around the nation (alongside cheering in opposing quarters), in Idaho as elsewhere. And Idaho is one of the places where the new ruling hit most directly, since it had laws on the books sharply restricting abortion set to go into effect as soon as Roe was reversed. (The court cases over those laws go on.)
Once before, abortion played a big role in an election. In 1990, the Idaho Legislature passed, and then-Governor Cecil Andrus vetoed, a bill aimed at giving Idaho the most abortion-restrictive law in the nation. The political result later that year was a big reversal for anti-abortion forces and the best election results for Idaho Democrats, including Andrus’ landslide re-election, in any election in the last six decades.
This isn’t 1990, of course; political Idaho has changed quite a lot since then. And what impact the new abortion regime will have on voting is an unknown.
There’s some polling indication nationally that it’s not the voting motivator now that it was a couple of months ago, and surely the issue seems less visible on mass and social media especially. Or maybe the activity, and the votes, are still there, waiting to be cast, just not as loudly proclaimed as they were in the summer. (That would resemble the 1990 pattern, when abortion didn’t seem to be front-burner until it showed up in the voting results.) In fact, we don’t really know, yet, and won’t until the votes are counted a few weeks from now.
But Terri Manweiler, the energetic Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, has some data points to offer on the subject, as she did when I talked with her a few days ago.
Of abortion, Manweiler said, “I think it’s going to have a huge impact.â€
She is confident on her chances to win specifically against Republican Scott Bedke, now the House speaker, which would seem counter-intuitive given Idaho’s political history of the last three decades. She has intriguing arguments specific to her race, pointing out that Bedke lost most of northern Idaho in the primary to far-right candidate Priscilla Giddings, and his margin defeating her statewide was clear but unspectacular.
She said that some conservative groups in that area - citing the Idaho Liberty Dogs and the Patriot Alliance - have been advising their supporters to vote for no one in the governor and lieutenant governor races. The Dogs’ Facebook page is filled with comments urging their backers to avoid the major parties and “go Independent!†(presumably referring to candidate Ammon Bundy); the group already has been involved in the Boise School Board election and the upcoming College of Western Idaho board election. (There is also the perennial candidate who has named himself Pro-Life on the ballot for lieutenant governor, and he could draw some anti-abortion votes.)
Beyond that, Manweiler points to more general factors that, if they pan out, could improve the odds for a variety of Democratic candidates.
New voter registration is up, she said, particularly in Idaho with about 60 percent of the newest registrants women, with high interest among younger voters. “I’ve been following the numbers,†she said, and they look favorable so far for Democrats.
Voting shows signs of being heavy. An Idaho Capital Sun story reported on October 17, “In Canyon County, for instance, elections officials have already sent out more 13,971 absentee ballots, elections supervisor Haley Hicks said in a telephone interview. That’s more than the 13,924 absentee ballots Canyon County elections sent out for the 2018 general election — the last comparable Idaho general election where the governor and all statewide officers were on the ballot.â€
Don’t misread any of this: The odds and most measures favor the usual run of Republican wins in Idaho, same as it ever was. But: The ironclad rules of politics stay iron-clad only until, you know, the election when suddenly they aren’t.