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Idaho Statesman: Is Idaho ‘Trump Country’? 3.4% of Idaho voters sure think so

Sun., March 10, 2024

By Idaho Statesman editorial board

Idaho Statesman editorial board

Last weekend, Donald Trump received 85% of the votes in the Idaho Republican caucus, meaning that – as expected – he’ll receive all of the state’s 32 Republican delegates to the national convention.

That led Idaho GOP Party chairwoman Dorothy Moon to declare Idaho is definitively “Trump Country,” according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

Trump beat former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who received 13.2% of the votes cast on Saturday afternoon in 210 caucus sites around the state. Trump didn’t lose a single site. The closest was a 22-13 victory in Bonneville County. (Yes, you read that right: 35 people voted at that site).

It was a definitive victory for Trump.

But let’s take a closer look at the underwhelming numbers.

Of the nearly 1 million registered voters in Idaho, 581,198 are registered Republicans.

How many people voted in the caucus? 39,584.

Of those, 33,603 voted for Trump, or about as many votes as Ed Humphries got in the last Republican gubernatorial primary.

So 6.8% of all registered Republicans voted for Trump, representing 3.4% of Idaho’s registered voters.

We’ll be honest, though, as far as survey results go, that could be a representative sampling. Trump, no doubt, has very high support in Idaho.

We knew turnout was going to be low, but not that low. Moon said she was hoping for 100,000 people, and even that would be only 17% of registered Republicans.

The last time Idaho saw a contested Republican primary was 2016 – when Idaho had 300,000 fewer people than today – and 227,000 voters showed up. That was a 30% turnout among all registered voters and a whopping 62% of registered Republicans. (And back then, Idaho was “Cruz Country.” Ted Cruz received 101,000 votes; Trump got 62,000. My, how times have changed.)

Low voter turnout shouldn’t come as a surprise in a caucus, which is much more restrictive than a primary.

The caucus, which is run by the Republican Party – not any government elections office – is held at a specific time at fewer locations than a primary. Voters in a primary can show up at their precinct polling place at any time from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, cast a mail-in absentee ballot or vote early in person. A lack of absentee ballots in the caucus disenfranchises, for example, members of the military or those on a mission.

While Saturday may be convenient for some, it’s inconvenient for many others, including people who have to work – including Moon, herself, who was working at Idaho GOP headquarters and couldn’t vote in her Stanley caucus site, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

So how did we get here?

Idaho lawmakers last year passed a bill that moved the presidential primary to May – but mistakenly eliminated the presidential primary. (We’ll point out once again that the bill overwhelmingly passed 61-6-3 in the House and 23-11-1 in the Senate, so there was clear legislative intent for a May primary.)

Once legislators discovered the error, they failed to pass a trailer bill that would have re-established the primary, based on arguments, led by Moon, that Idaho needed a March primary to be relevant in the national debate about the presidential selection.

Now that Idaho’s 33,000 Republicans – a number that’s smaller than the population of Rexburg and fewer than the number of people who voted to re-elect Boise Mayor Lauren McLean – have spoken, did Idaho really involve itself in the national dialogue? Did anyone see a candidate ad in Idaho? Did any candidate visit or mention Idaho? Did anyone outside of Idaho care what Idaho’s voters decided?

Moon might be very happy that a tiny sampling of Republicans were able to cast their votes on Saturday. After all, under her leadership, the Idaho Republican Party is disenfranchising its ranks, eliminating women and young Republicans from the executive committee, establishing witch-hunt tribunals for legislators who don’t toe the extremist party line, and releasing a party purity litmus test rating based on the far-right platform.

The caucus, as expected, is a terribly unrepresentative way of determining support for a candidate among voters.

With turnout numbers like March 2’s Idaho Republican caucus, you might as well skip it altogether and simply have Moon issue a decree. We’re sure she’d like that.