Idaho is a state located in the northwestern corner of the United States. It has a population of 1.7M people and is governed by a Republican trifecta at the state level. At the local level, Idaho has an array of political candidates from both major parties, as well as several third-party candidates. These candidates compete for seats in local government, ranging from city councils to county commissioners and school boards. Each candidate has their own unique platform and goals they are trying to achieve for their constituents. Because of Idaho's conservative leanings, Republicans typically outnumber Democrats in local government; however, third party candidates have had some success in recent elections due to their willingness to address certain issues that may not be on the main party agendas.
The political climate in Idaho is strongly conservative.
In Idaho 33.0% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 63.7% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.4% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Idaho remained overwhelmingly Republican, 63.7% to 33.0%.
Idaho voted Republican in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Idaho is strongly conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Idaho, Idaho: R R R R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Idaho
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 62,913 contributions totaling $4,957,628 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $79 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 21,930 contributions totaling $7,517,260 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $343 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)