Biden’s Boise trip is the first Idaho visit from a sitting U.S. president in six years
Editor’s note: Details of President Joe Biden’s trip were released Sunday evening. Click here for that story.
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When President Joe Biden visits Boise on Monday, he will revive a decades-long trend of sitting U.S. presidents visiting Idaho. Biden is slated to go to the National Interagency Fire Center on a wildfire-focused tour of the West that will include stops in Colorado and California.
His visit will mark the first time in six years that a sitting U.S. president has been to the Gem State. The last visit was in January of 2015, when then-President Barack Obama visited Boise State University for his only presidential stop in Idaho.
Former President Donald Trump never made it to Idaho while in office. His absence disrupted a streak of visits that dated back to a 1964 visit by Lyndon B. Johnson, Idaho Statesman reporter Rocky Barker noted in 2015. Trump joined presidents John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover as leaders who visited Idaho prior to their terms, but never while in office.
Many past presidents visited Idaho to enjoy the area’s outdoor recreation opportunities. George W. Bush visited Tamarack Resort in 2008 during the final year of his presidency to mountain bike with then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne before addressing military families at the Idaho Center.
Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, visited Idaho several times while in office, including a trip in 2000 to talk to firefighters in McCall working on the Burgdorf Junction Fire. George H.W. Bush also came to Idaho frequently, jogging on the Boise River Greenbelt and fishing the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
Richard Nixon stopped by the Gem State just once during his presidency, while Gerald Ford vacationed in Idaho often. Jimmy Carter had a well-known Idaho politician on his Cabinet — Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus — and as president he floated the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in 1978.
While this trip marks Biden’s first presidential visit to Idaho, he came to Boise in August of 2019 as part of his presidential campaign. As vice president, he visited Boise in 2009 to attend the Special Olympics World Winter Games.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 2:54 PM.
