For some years, I've helped out in a peripheral way with the editing of Idaho and Oregon sections the Almanac of American Politics, the top single-volume reference book on that subject. A few months before publication, they send some of the text from the upcoming edition, and I post it here. Here's one of four sections from the book. Enjoy. - rs
For more than five decades, the Almanac of American Politics has set the standard for political reference books. In September, the Almanac will be publishing its 2026 edition, with more than 2,000 pages offering fully updated chapters on all 435 House members and their districts, all 100 senators, all 50 states and governors, and much more.
Below are excerpts from the new chapters in the 2026 Almanac on the state of Idaho / Oregon and Gov. Brad Little / Tina Kotek, written by Louis Jacobson. Jacobson — a senior correspondent for PolitiFact, a senior columnist for Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and a contributor of political coverage for U.S. News & World Report — has written for eight editions of the Almanac since 2000. For the 2026 edition, he served as chief author.
Readers can receive a 15% discount if they purchase the new Almanac at its website and use the code Ridenbaugh2026 at checkout.
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The population of Idaho—tucked near the continental United States' northwest edge, far from any major metro area—has nearly doubled since 1990. But the migration of newcomers to both livable Boise and resort areas such as 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, saw its first white settlement when miners came seeking gold and silver; white loggers seeking timber followed. Mormons moving north from Utah settled in the state's eastern part, while Basque immigrants and their descendants significantly influenced Idaho and its politics. Federal water reclamation projects first authorized in 1894 attracted the most settlers, producing inexpensive hydroelectric power. Today, Idaho ranks fifth in the U.S. for percentage of energy generation that is renewable Idaho Power has said it will use fully clean sources of energy by 2045, thanks partly to its 17 Snake River hydroelectric plants. Wind power accounts for about 16 percent of the state's electricity generation, though several counties have moved to limit or ban on solar and wind energy production, and on his first day of his second term, Donald Trump moved to temporarily block a large-scale wind farm, the Lava Ridge Wind Project. Meanwhile, the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls expects to deploy its first portable nuclear microreactor by 2026, with the aim of replacing diesel power for isolated communities.
Cheap water power 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. 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 world's biggest potato processor. Today, Idaho ranks sixth in the nation for the percentage of state gross domestic product coming from agriculture, and since 1997, agricultural GDP has expanded by 2.9 times in Idaho, compared with 2.5 times for the nation as a whole. Idaho ranks first nationally in potatoes and barley, third in sugar beets and second in hops, the latter contributing to a thriving microbrewery industry. Idaho also ranks No. 4 in dairy sales; the state's dairy receipts are now 2.6 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 Environmental Protection Agency, 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 because of climate change. Wildfires have contributed to poor air quality. Three Idaho areas—Boise, plus the regions in Idaho adjoining Logan Utah, and Spokane Washington—rank in the American Lung Association's list of top 25 nationally for short-term particle pollution.
In recent years, Idaho has been at or near the top of state rankings for patents per capita, 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. In the 1970s, potato magnate Simplot traded one type of chip for another, becoming the primary financier of a startup called Micron Technology, which, along with Hewlett-Packard, spawned a booming high-tech sector. Micron is undergoing a $15 billion expansion of its campus southeast of Boise to build new chip manufacturing capacity, bolstered by $6.14 billion in federal CHIPS and Science Act funding. Nearby, Meta is building an $800 million data center. Not to be left out, food processor Lamb Weston is expanding a plant in American Falls that can produce more than 1.1 million pounds of french fries per day. Compared with the eve of the pandemic, average wages in Idaho have risen by 36 percent, well above the national rate of 23 percent, and although wages are lower in Idaho, so is the cost of living. The state's construction boom has prompted some worry about the availability of construction labor, particularly if Trump fulfills his promise to deport illegal immigrants en masse. The dairy industry has expressed concern about that prospect, too. Meanwhile, another tech company, Intuit, said that it was closing a campus near Boise, cutting 1,800 workers.
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 from 2017 through 2021, and is still in the top five. If rapid growth continues, Idaho could gain a third House seat after the 2030 Census—the first time in its history. Today, 42 percent of Idahoans live in the Treasure Valley around Boise; population in Ada County, which includes Boise, has grown by 34 percent since 2010, 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 17 percent since 2010, and Teton County, a bedroom community for pricey Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has grown by 23 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.
Hispanic residents account for 14 percent of the state's population, and Idaho has welcomed not only Americans from other states but also people 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. The Mormon population, concentrated in the state's south, may be a reason for its tolerant streak, given 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. But since 1990, Idaho has become staunchly Republican. 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). Since 1964, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 37 percent of the vote. 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.
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 regulations. Meanwhile, the northern panhandle has a history as a hotbed for extremist activity. In the 1970s, the white supremacist Aryan Nations was based around Coeur d'Alene, northern Idaho's largest population center; it was eventually forced out. The Ruby Ridge standoff between U.S. Marshals and a far-right family played out a bit further north in 1992, and 31 white nationalists affiliated with the Patriot Front were arrested in 2022 on charges of conspiracy to riot at a Coeur d'Alene LGBTQ+ pride event in 2022. 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. The party's right wing 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 (Coeur d'Alene). Some activists mounted armed protests at local officials' offices and homes. The GOP's internal divisions played out in primaries in 2022, with establishment Republicans generally prevailing. But regardless of which wing of the Republican nominee came from, Democrats took no more than 37 percent in any major race.