The rightward move halts, barely

A mixed bag, but some mainstream encouragement

Of all the primary election results in Idaho this week, the one that jumped out at me was not in a contest for senator or governor or any federal, state or local government office at all.

It was for a humble county-level party precinct committee election, the lowest-level and usually least-noticed contests on the ballot, in just one of many hundreds of voting precincts in the state. Unless you’re really active somehow in politics, you probably don’t know the names of your precinct committee representatives (assuming those spots even are filled where you are). Most people don’t.

But they can be important, and the incumbent on the ballot in this case, named Brent Regan, is the best such example in the state. He has been an elected member of the county central committee since 2014, and much of that time as chair. Under his leadership the central committee has become so powerful in Kootenai County across a wide range of political and social areas as to become a dominating force. Regan for years has been one of the leading figures in Idaho Republican politics, closely aligned with the state party leadership, the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the more hardline conservative legislators and other public officials.

So here’s the shocker: On Tuesday, Regan lost that precinct office to a dental anesthesiologist named Rick Montandon, and possibly (not certainly) with it his chairmanship, by 14 votes.

That was not the only change on the central committee, though a few weeks probably will be needed to settle what direction it will take next, and who will lead it. The committee is scheduled for a full meeting on May 28.

In Kootenai County, many people are likely to see this as the end of a political era. They could be right. But in context it looks more like a break in what has been a steady rightward ideological shift, in that county and in the state. The Idaho primary election as a whole seemed to say much the same.

Some early reaction to the results included pronouncements that state politics - meaning for this purpose the Republican Party - had shifted to the point of going into reverse, heading back toward the center and empowering mainstream candidates and officials. (I’ll use here the “mainstream” and “hardline” descriptions that seem to have caught on of late; substitute your own if you prefer.) You can find evidence for that.

Don’t bother looking for significant evidence in any of the top-of-ballot races, such as they were; the incumbents in the top offices all drew opposition, but none of it was strong enough to come remotely close to seriously threatening any of the incumbents. Look rather to legislative races, and below.

Maybe the strongest such result was the renomination of Senator Jim Guthrie of McCammon, who was challenged from the hardline side (his race reverberated statewide) after he stood up to that faction on the Senate floor.

But there is much more. The hardcore Gang of Eight is down to a Gang of Three after the primary. Around southern Idaho quite a few from that side either lost their seats, or lost bids to defeat mainstreamers.

The story does not end there, however. You may notice that all these races were in southern Idaho. Up north, several premiere Republican contests went the hardliners’ way. Look for example at Senate District 1 (where Scott Herndon beat Jim Woodward, a reversal of their match in 2024, which reversed their match in 2022 …) and Senate District 6, where very hardline Dan Foreman turned back a strong challenge from Representative Lori McCann. The string of hardline wins in the north goes on from there, the Regan precinct loss notwithstanding.

For those Republican mainstreamers wondering whether the hardcore right tide could ever be pushed back, this election doesn’t constitute a loud shout. But it does equate to a measured: Not easily but yes, it can.