Idaho May 2024 Primary Election Live Updates

The morning after Idaho's May 2024 primary election, Boise State Public Radio's Troy Oppie breaks down the results with BSPR politics & government reporter James Dawson and Boise State professor of political science Jaclyn Kettler.

Transcript:

TROY OPPIE: Glad to have you listening to Morning Edition this morning. I'm Troy Oppie. This is Idaho's NPR news station, Boise State Public Radio news. We have election results and analysis to pore over. Our. James Dawson is here with us. And joining us as well this morning is Boise State professor of political science, Doctor Jaclyn Kettler. Thank you to both of you for being here this morning.

JAMES DAWSON: Morning, Troy.

JACLYN KETTLER: Good morning.

OPPIE: Let's start with the the big news of yesterday, a Chuck Winder, the Senate pro tem, ousted. He was going for a ninth term, and voters in West Ada County said, "No, we like the newcomer, Josh Keyser." Jimmy?

DAWSON: Yeah. That's right. I mean, Chuck Winder has been in the Senate for 16 years, you know, by the end of his term. Uh, hard to beat that level of, you know, experience. That's he's been around forever. Um, both in the Senate. He was chair of the Idaho Transportation Board. Ran unsuccessfully for governor in the 90s. So this is a big loss to the traditional conservative wing, losing that experience, losing that person who, you know, presumably might have run again for a pro tem spot even though he's been under pressure these past two years.

OPPIE: Uh, Megan Blanksma, who was the the House majority leader and was ousted from that position during the session by her colleagues, was also unseated in the primary yesterday. Uh, Jaclyn, what does this shift in leadership mean for the GOP?

KETTLER: Yeah, I think that we're going to see a lot of changes coming into this next session, especially in the Senate. We've got multiple open leadership positions with Senator Abby Lee retiring in the House. We have, as you mentioned, Representative Blanksma was ousted during the session. But it's I mean, we're seeing a fair amount of turnover again this year. And so it's going to really open up some questions on what things are going to look like in the next session.

OPPIE: Uh, Jimmy, what other races stuck out to you and results stuck out to you yesterday?

DAWSON: A lot. Which one didn't, right? Yeah. Uh, so, of course, at the very tip top of the Panhandle, you've got the most expensive legislative race this year, which was Senator Scott Herndon losing to former Senator Jim Woodward, who Herndon beat two years ago. That was a 52 to 48% margin there. That one was big.

You had another rematch in Canyon County with Republican Senator Brian Lenny over Jeff Agenbroad former senator there. It was a lower margin of victory for Senator Lenny in that. But he did come out ahead 56% to 44% closer to Boise and Garden City and kind of northwest Boise district 16, the Democratic primary there. Todd Achilles is, you know, kind of the somewhat incumbent there. He's been there for a couple months, easily wins that four-way race. You know, trying to replace Colin Nash, who is a Boise City Council member. And then in eastern Idaho District 32, Representative Wendy Horman fended off her two primary challengers to win the GOP nomination there.

OPPIE: Another interesting note: The House, the chair of the House Education Committee, a representative, Julie Yamamoto, lost her bid for reelection in the primary yesterday. Voters and right-wing forces within the GOP party had been targeting her for several cycles.

DAWSON: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they had a billboard up in Nampa, Caldwell saying, help us replace Julie Yamamoto, call us, email us, get ahold of us. This was a right-wing PAC that was throwing a whole lot of money towards far-right candidates this year and the past couple cycles as well. But saying we'll help you run to take out Julie Yamamoto and they they eventually did.

OPPIE: And targeted presumably because she had stood in the way in many, many different ways of the school choice options and legislation along the way. The last several sessions. Jaclyn, how do you see this shift playing out in that push for school choice from some state legislatures legislators?

KETTLER: This is a policy issue. I think that we're definitely going to see some of these school voucher type programs probably have more success moving through further in the legislative process because several kind of opponents were defeated and several candidates who are receiving a lot of funding from pro school voucher, school choice, types of policies won. So I think this is one policy area where the turnover we've seen in this, what what we're seeing in this primary election is probably going to have a pretty big impact.

OPPIE: I want to talk a minute about spending, Jimmy, you referenced it in the race in district one between Scott Herndon and Jim Woodward in District 24. Uh, Clint Hostetler won a primary race over Chenele Dixon with nearly 59% of the vote. Dixon in that race had amassed $67,000 or so. One of the larger totals spending was way off the charts in in this election. Jaclyn, how did you see this playing out and affecting these races?

KETTLER: In really interesting ways in that, as you've noted, we saw huge amounts of spending seemingly not matter as much in some races, for example, a lot of money being spent against speaker Mike Moyle. He won pretty easily. But then in other races, I think we're still going to kind of be digging into where did perhaps some of the money, particularly on negative advertising, help it? Maybe it wasn't so much that it swayed voters, but maybe it helped voter turnout. So I think there's some mixed results here and something that we'll continue to dig into.

OPPIE: I do want to note both Ada County commissioners that were on the ballot running for re-election retained their GOP nominations for those seats. Ryan Davidson defeated Clyde Dorner with nearly 59% of the vote. Tom Daly led a crowded GOP field with about 38% of the vote yesterday. Serial candidate Branden Durst in that race trailed Daly by about 5,000 votes on social media last night. He said he'd be examining the results to see if, quote, the illegal votes made a difference, unquote. But he did not provide evidence to back up that claim.

In Canyon County, incumbent commissioners Leslie van Beek and Zach Brooks each won their primary races with just over 50% of the vote and 59% of the vote, respectively. And an interesting race in Valley County where Ed Hasbrouck, the longtime commissioner there and chair of that commission, was not running for reelection. Caitlin Caldwell won a nomination with 43.6% of the vote there over a crowded field.

Do also want to take a look at some ballot issues on before voters last night, specifically EMS emergency medical services bonds in Canyon and Valley counties both failed. Canyon County's was resoundly defeated, and Valley County voters now have failed to cross that supermajority required to pass a bond. Very narrowly lost again last night. For the second time in six months, voters in Valley County approved creating a new EMS district late last year, but so far have not approved the funding needed to pay for that expanded EMS district. And those brand new EMS district commissioners certainly are going to have their work continued to be cut out for them.

Jaclyn, stick with us this morning. We have lots more questions to ask of you as we work our way through Morning Edition this morning. Jimmy, you as well. Thank you both for being here. We will come back to you again at about 6:44 this morning, and we're going to thank some of our underwriters and then join Morning Edition here on Boise State Public Radio news. Thanks for listening. I'm Troy Oppie.

As of 12:50 a.m. Wednesday, unofficial election results show Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Winder has been defeated by opponent John Keyser.

Winder ended the night with 47.71% of the vote and Keyser had 52.29%

Winder previously served as the Senate Majority Leader starting in 2017 and first assumed office in 2008.

Winder told the Idaho Statesman by text that it was a privilege to represent his constituents for 16 years and congratulated Keyser on his win.

Keyser, originally from California, served in the military and was part of the Boise Police Department for a short period, according to his campaign website.

He will go on to face Democrat Andy Arriaga in November.

Canyon County officials were hoping 30% of voters would cast their ballot Wednesday.

A representative for the county says 27,000 voters showed up on Tuesday to vote in the primaries, that’s just less than 25% of registered voters. Leading up to the election, the county rolled out new digital machines for electronic voting and offered two locations for folks to vote early. Roughly 75% of the 11,000-plus absentee ballots sent out to voters in the 2C were returned by election day and almost 3,000 ballots were cast early.

Early Wednesday morning, results show that more than half of Nampa voters supported a $38 million bond to fund transportation updates and improvements, with 56% voting for and 43% against, but bond measures require at least 66% to pass.

Preliminary results also show former Adams County Prosecutor and far-right candidate Chris Boyd largely ahead of former state Rep. Greg Chaney in the Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney race. Boyd, endorsed by Attorney General Raúl Labrador, received 65% of the votes, while Chaney, a private defense attorney, received 35%. The winner will run uncontested in November.

In a four-way Democratic race for House Seat B in District 16, incumbent Todd Achilles easily led the pack with more than 45% of the vote at midnight on election night.

The district includes Garden City and the West Bench, Winstead Park and Glenwood Rim neighborhoods in Boise.

Achilles was appointed by Gov. Brad Little in February to replace Rep. Colin Nash, who left the position to focus on his Boise city council seat. Family medicine doctor Jon Chu garnered about 22% of the primary vote, followed by candidates Nikson Mathews and Wayne Richey.

A 13th Oregon county is voting tonight for it to join Idaho, a movement known as Greater Idaho. As of midnight, nearly 53% of the vote supported the change.

OPB

The movement is simple, move Idaho's border west and absorb close to a dozen Oregon counties into the Gem State. Supporters say those counties more closely align with Idaho's values and culture.

It's not that easy, however. Changing the state’s border would need agreement from the Idaho and Oregon legislatures, as well as Congress.

Incumbent Brian Lenney is currently 10 points above Jeff C. Agenbroad for District 13, which covers Nampa.

Lenney defeated Agenbroad in 2022 for the seat. Agenbroad was previously the senator for District 13 in 2016.

Idaho Education News reported Lenney was endorsed by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, and Agenbroad was endorsed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield.

The winner of the race will go on to face Democrat Sarah Butler, who ran unopposed, in November.

As of just before midnight on Tuesday, incumbent Scott Herndon was about 10 points behind Jim Woodward in the Republican race for State Senate District 1, next to the Canadian border in the Panhandle.

The two also faced off in 2022, when member of the Idaho Freedom Caucus, Herndon, unseated Woodward, who was labeled as a liberal by far-right groups.

Herndon tried and failed to introduce a bill last year that would have eliminated exemptions for rape and incest for Idaho’s abortion laws.

In District 11, representing Caldwell, Kent A. Marmon is currently ahead of incumbent Julie Yamamoto with 56.7% of the Republican side of the vote.

Yamamoto has served two terms, sitting on Education, Environment, Energy & Technology and Resources & Conservation committees.

Marmon was previously on the Caldwell City Council. He also ran for the seat two years ago and his website refers to him as the "Conservative Choice for District 11."

The winner of this race will go against Democrat Anthony Porto, who ran unopposed, in November.

Polls are officially closed in the majority of Idaho, but polling stations will be open for another in the panhandle in the Pacific Time Zone.

Ada County Elections is reporting 63% of all absentee ballots issued have been returned and 7,624 people voted early.

Unofficial election results from all counties except for those in Pacific Time Zone should start coming in shortly.

As results start to come in, the Associated Press will provide results for the U.S. House races.