Insurgent faction mostly strikes out with voters in Idaho’s 2022 Republican primary

Idaho’s con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can rulers, who have gov­erned the Gem State for twen­ty-eight years, turned back a far-right insur­gency on Tues­day. The state’s pri­ma­ry elec­tion took the form of two rival slates in a one-par­ty state.

Incum­bent Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Brad Lit­tle defeat­ed a chal­lenge from Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Jan­ice McGeachin by a twen­ty-point mar­gin. McGeachin man­aged to car­ry only four coun­ties in the Ida­ho Pan­han­dle, areas that have become a hotbed for white nation­al­ists and oth­er anti-gov­ern­ment extremists.

Ida­ho House Speak­er Scott Bed­ke best­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Priscil­la Gid­dings in the con­test for the Repub­li­cans’ lieu­tenant gov­er­nor nomination.

Gid­dings is one of more than twen­ty state leg­is­la­tors asso­ci­at­ed with the Ida­ho Free­dom Foun­da­tion, an insur­gent group that has gained strength as ex-Pres­i­dent Trump has gained dom­i­nance in the nation­al Repub­li­can Party.

Mean­while, twelve-term U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simp­son turned back a chal­lenge from Bryan Smith, a vice chair­man of the Ida­ho Free­dom Foundation.

Simp­son is a con­ser­v­a­tive, but has on occa­sion bro­ken from the par­ty line.

He vot­ed in the House for an inde­pen­dent bipar­ti­san com­mis­sion to probe the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capitol.

(Sen­ate Repub­li­cans killed the House-passed proposal.)

He cham­pi­oned cre­ation of the Boul­der-White Cloud Wilder­ness Area and has pro­posed a plan to breach four salmon-destroy­ing dams on the low­er Snake River.

Ida­ho used to be a com­pet­i­tive state.

A Demo­c­rat, Cecil Andrus, was elect­ed gov­er­nor in 1970, 1974, 1986 and 1990, tak­ing four years off to serve as U.S. Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or under Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter. Sen­a­tor Frank Church served from 1956 to 1980, and ran for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion in 1976.

The Democ­rats did good deeds.

Andrus cham­pi­oned cleanup of the Snake Riv­er, even enlist­ing pota­to king J.R. Sim­plot in the effort. He held on as Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary until the last hours of the Carter Admin­is­tra­tion in order to cre­ate a Birds of Prey Sanc­tu­ary along the riv­er. Andrus and Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Jim McClure col­lab­o­rat­ed on cre­ation of the Hells Canyon and Saw­tooth Nation­al Recre­ation Areas.

Church was an ear­ly crit­ic of Viet­nam War esca­la­tion, evok­ing a famous demon­stra­tion of Lyn­don Johnson’s tem­per at Ice Har­bor Dam ded­i­ca­tion cer­e­monies. He head­ed the Sen­ate pan­el in the mid-1970s that inves­ti­gat­ed excess­es of the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency. He is the name­sake of the 1.8 mil­lion acre Frank Church Riv­er-of-no-Return Wilder­ness along the Salmon River.

Well, that was then.

The state’s present-day rulers have kept the state min­i­mum wage at $7.25 an hour. Pub­lic social invest­ment is at one of the low­est lev­els in the nation. The Leg­is­la­ture recent­ly passed, and Gov­er­nor Lit­tle signed, anti-abor­tion leg­is­la­tion mod­eled after the Texas statute now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yet, that has not been enough for the state’s far right. “Anti-reg­u­la­tion, anti-pub­lic schools, anti-sci­ence, Ida­ho is the nation­al GOP on steroids,” said Marc John­son, an Ida­ho polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor who was once Andrus’ chief of staff.

Com­pe­ti­tion is bad­ly need­ed. Although pos­ing as a par­ty of fam­i­ly val­ues, Idaho’s Repub­li­cans are no strangers to scandal.

U.S. Sen­a­tor Lar­ry Craig did not seek reelec­tion after an inde­cen­cy arrest in a bath­room stall at the Min­neapo­lis-St. Paul Air­port. A tip­sy Sen­a­tor Steve Symms once stum­bled through a Sen­ate floor speech hon­or­ing Nation­al Sec­re­taries Day. (Both Symms and Craig lat­er became D.C. lobbyists.)

Sen­a­tor Mike Crapo, up for reelec­tion this year, has with­stood embar­rass­ment of a DUI arrest. Future Gov­er­nor C.L. “Butch” Otter endured a sim­i­lar arrest, try­ing to blame tight fit­ting new cow­boy boots for his errant driving.

In her chal­lenge to Lit­tle, Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor McGeachin pro­posed using mili­tia groups to bol­ster ranks of local law enforcement.

She demand­ed that Lit­tle call a spe­cial ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture to remove rape and incest excep­tions from the new abor­tion law.

When Lit­tle was out of state at a Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence, McGeachin issued an exec­u­tive order for­bid­ding any local gov­ern­ment enti­ty from enact­ing a mask require­ment. Lit­tle swift­ly coun­ter­mand­ed the order and called it an “irre­spon­si­ble, self-serv­ing pub­lic­i­ty stunt.”

The far right scored one sig­nif­i­cant Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry vic­to­ry on Tuesday.

Ex-Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Raúl Labrador, a lib­er­tar­i­an and Ida­ho Free­dom Foun­da­tion ally, upset long­time state Attor­ney Gen­er­al Lawrence Was­den. Was­den drew fire when he refused to sign Ida­ho onto a 2020 law­suit by Texas seek­ing to throw out elec­toral votes from four states nar­row­ly car­ried by Biden.

As in most states, the Ida­ho Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office is con­sid­ered a path to the gov­er­nor­ship. Labrador’s win has unset­tling ram­i­fi­ca­tions for 2026 and beyond.