Idaho election results: Prop 1 failed. After ‘real grief,’ proponents mull their defeat

BOISE – The biggest focus on election night in Idaho wasn’t any particular congressional or legislative race, nor was it on an amendment to the state constitution.

All eyes were instead on Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would have remade Idaho’s elections by ending the closed Republican primary and instituting ranked choice voting in general elections.

It failed by a wide margin. Voters rejected it 2:1, well below the simple majority it needed to pass.

For Republican officials, who were unified in their opposition to the measure, the results pointed to support for the status quo in Idaho’s elections and a rejection of millions of dollars in out-of-state donations that the proponents were able to attract.

“This means so much to me that we will defeat Prop 1,” Republican Party Chair Dorothy Moon told a crowd of supporters at a hotel in Meridian on election night. “I’m very happy.”

Attorney General Raúl Labrador said it was a testament to keeping “out-of-state money and out-of-state influence out of Idaho.”

Prop 1’s organizers, a coalition called Idahoans for Open Primaries, were optimistic. They collected 97,000 signatures from state residents, close to 75,000 of which were formally verified, and exceeded the required signature threshold. They raised $1.1 million from in-state donors. And they received a surge of donations from national political action committees in the final weeks before Election Day, for a total of $4.4 million from out of state groups.

Luke Mayville, the measure’s spokesperson and lead organizer, in an interview said its failure meant “real grief” for proponents who feel that closed primaries in a Republican-dominated state have led to a hard turn to the right and a more extreme approach to politics.

Organizers attempted to portray their reform as nonpartisan and included an earlier generation of Idaho Republican leaders, such as former Gov. Butch Otter and former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, the treasurer of Idahoans for Open Primaries.

But despite the coalition’s messaging, Mayville told the Idaho Statesman voters appeared polarized on the topic. He partly attributed the measure’s loss to the Republican Party’s campaign against it.

“In the final weeks, it appeared that more and more voters were viewing the proposition in partisan terms,” he said. “As it got closer to Election Day, it became more and more difficult for our campaign to break through that wall and persuade voters that this is a nonpartisan reform that would benefit all voters regardless of party.”

‘Larger forces in our national politics’

Mayville also attributed the result to “larger forces in our national politics,” which displayed a turn to the right across the country in this year’s election. Of the six other states that had ballot measures this year to open partisan primaries or implement ranked choice voting, all failed. Only a Washington, D.C., measure to partially open political primaries and implement ranked choice voting passed.

In Alaska, one of only two states with statewide ranked choice voting, an effort to repeal the reforms teeters on the brink of success: The repeal effort led by fewer than 3,000 votes, but the result was not called as of Tuesday, according to local news reports.

Mayville said it’s unclear whether Prop 1’s loss was a reflection of “this unique political moment we’re living in,” when the country is experiencing deep partisan divides.

“All of this is deeply disappointing, because, after all, our reform is designed to take down the temperature of partisan politics and elect leaders who are less likely to focus on partisanship and more likely to focus on solving real problems,” Mayville said. “It’s proven more difficult than we predicted to break through the wall of partisanship.”

Proponents mull their defeat

In the four months from when Prop 1 qualified for the ballot to the November election, Idaho’s GOP leaders made a concerted effort to emphasize the reform’s latter change: ranked choice voting.

In publicity campaigns and lawsuits filed by Labrador, Republicans painted the reform as a Trojan horse, one that emphasized open primaries while sneaking in ranked choice voting. An Ada County judge roundly rejected claims that proponents had misled voters and noted that the evidence Labrador provided actually “negated” his argument.

Republicans’ messaging appeared to be carefully crafted to read the electorate: A public opinion survey from Boise State University this year found that while close to 58% of Idahoans support an open primary, only 34% said they supported ranked choice voting.

Newcomb told the Statesman that he was surprised by Prop 1’s margin of failure and believes the proposition would have easily passed if it had just opened primaries. But he said he doesn’t regret the measure that was proposed, and that securing tens of thousands of votes in favor of it amounted to an “amazing feat.”

“Most things you do that are big changes take time, and its kind of like baseball – you have three strikes,” he said. “That was strike one.”

Mayville said the decision to combine the two changes stemmed from the reform’s success in Alaska in 2020, when the state passed into law similar alterations to its elections. While some other states have open primaries that send the top-two candidates in each blanket primary to the general election – which removes the possibility of ranked choice voting – Mayville said he thought the Alaska model is better by resulting in general elections “that are far more competitive and that give voters a lot more choice compared to a top-two system.”

Mayville said he isn’t ruling out a future ballot measure effort focused solely on nonpartisan primaries, which the Boise State survey indicated could be more popular among Idaho voters.

Mayville said he believes the organizing effort, which reached tens of thousands of voters, persuaded many Idaho voters that “the system is broken.”

“Whatever we do, we’re not going to stop shining a light on the problem of the closed primary system, and we’re not going to stop working to make Idaho’s government more accountable to its citizens,” he said. “It’s really only a matter of time before a whole lot more Idahoans start demanding reform.”

At the same time, the window to bring ballot measures to voters could close in the future.

Republicans in recent years have moved to restrict ballot measures since the passage of Medicaid expansion in 2018. The party’s platform endorses restricting or entirely eliminating ballot initiatives.

“We’re not ever going to let Reclaim Idaho bring another initiative” again, Moon said on election night.