In most of Idaho’s races, there’s one thing voters don’t have: a choice among candidates

When Loree Peery goes door-knocking, she said, many voters are surprised to see a candidate — much less a Democrat — at their door. One resident of North Idaho’s House District 2A, where Peery, a Democrat, is challenging incumbent Republican Heather Scott, told Peery no candidate had ever come to her door since she moved in in 1984.

Peery, a retired nurse and first-time candidate, chalked this up, in part, to positions in North Idaho going uncontested in recent elections. In 2022, Scott ran unopposed for the 2A seat. In 2020, Republicans Steve Vick and Vito Barbieri ran unopposed for a state Senate and House seat in the district.

Peery wasn’t excited about running for office, but after Scott’s introduction in February of a bill to expand a ban on cannibalism, she changed her mind.

“I did not want her to run unopposed,” she told the Idaho Statesman by phone. That bill “was kind of the tipping point for me. I thought, ‘I don’t feel represented in the state of Idaho,’ so I just decided (to run).”

Peery was confronting a much broader trend. Nationwide, huge numbers of candidates run for office uncontested, The New York Times reported in September. In 2022, just over half of all positions up for election were uncontested, according to data from Contest Every Race, a Democratic organization that aims to get a Democrat competing for every open seat.

In Idaho, the numbers were stark. Nearly 60% of the positions up for grabs in the state were uncontested in 2022, according to the same dataset.

This year, though Democrats successfully recruited candidates to compete in every legislative district, overall numbers were stubborn. 62% of all partisan positions up for election on Nov. 5 remained uncontested, including 29% of state offices, according to data collected by BallotReady, a nonpartisan organization that provides information on ballots, elections and elected officials.

Many of these one-sided races crop up most among “down-ballot” seats for local offices: school boards, sheriffs and highway commissioners, said Daniel Jubelirer, a communications and programs director at Contest Every Race.

“I think the further down (the) ballot, the more we care about (uncontested races), because it’s where no one else is focused,” Jubelirer told the Statesman. “When you go even more local to your county and city offices, or special districts or school boards, those are the types of races that really affect people’s lives and really shape people’s perception of what government is, and does or doesn’t do for them.”

Those local races, he said, are “where we really think there needs to be more attention paid.”

The Idaho Republican Party declined to comment.

Uncontested elections raise accountability ‘concerns’

There is no authoritative dataset on all of the country’s uncontested races. Organizations examining the question use slightly different methodologies, though they turn up broadly similar results.

Across the country, an uncontested election overwhelmingly means that Democrats haven’t fielded a candidate in that race. In 2022, about 70% of the uncontested Idaho races fit that description, according to Contest Every Race’s data.

The persistent lack of a perspective — from either party — has a corrosive effect, observers said.

“This raises concerns about accountability and representation,” Jaclyn Kettler, a political science professor at Boise State University, told the Statesman by email. “If a goal of elections is to put pressure on elected officials to be accountable to voters, what happens when they are reelected without any challenge? If they are uncontested, what incentive do they face to represent their (constituents)?”

Jubelirer made a similar case.

“There’s a lot of data to show that when an incumbent politician knows they’ll face a challenger, they’re more responsive and receptive to constituents,” he said. “They pass and advocate for more legislation. They generally are a little less extreme.”

Seats that go uncontested can also form something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Alex Niemczewski, the CEO of BallotReady, told the Statesman by phone. Unopposed candidates are less likely to communicate about where they stand on issues, or even about what the office does.

“It’s just more likely to become another office that people don’t really know has power over things they care about,” she said.

But fundamentally, uncontested seats mean that “democracy isn’t really working the way it should,” she said. “It means voters don’t have a choice.”

A ‘virtuous cycle’ to encourage candidate participation

This election, Idaho’s Democratic Party is celebrating its success at recruiting Democratic candidates to run in every legislative district, though not for every seat. (Of 105 seats in the Legislature, Democrats this election cycle fielded candidates for 87 of them.) Jared DeLoof, the party’s executive director, said he hoped there would be a trickle-down effect to more local offices.

“Our focus was on the Legislature for the most part this year,” he said. But “we really hope to build on this in the future. We want to take these legislative candidates, we want to take the volunteers that these candidates bring in, and you know, hopefully that person working the phone bank this weekend for a candidate … will be the next person to run” for a local office.

“I think it’s this virtuous cycle of bringing people in, empowering them, and getting folks to run for office – anything from library board all the way up to governor,” he added.

Since 2021, Idaho’s Democratic Party has been working with Contest Every Race to encourage Democrats to run for city councils, school boards and other local races, he said. In a deep-red state, Democrats may stand the best chance in those “hyper-local” races, he said.

In those races, a Democratic candidate can say, “‘Yeah, I’m a Democrat, but I’m also the person who’s carpooled your kids to school every day,’” he said.

In her door-to-door encounters, Peery said she’s seeing something similar among Republicans.

“Sometimes, they just … say ‘no, thank you,’ but other times they’re so curious just to talk to a Democrat because we’ve been vilified, and they have this perception that we’re monsters,” she said. “Then, they find out, ‘oh, she’s just a normal human being.’”

“There are people that have said, ‘I can’t believe I’m talking to a Democrat,” she added. “And I’ll say, ‘here we are.’”

There are 17 uncontested races in Ada and Canyon counties this election:

This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 12:08 PM.

Sarah Cutler

Idaho Statesman

208-996-7317

Sarah covers the legislative session and state government with an interest in political polarization, government accountability and the intersection of religion and politics. Please reach out with feedback, tips or ideas. If you like seeing stories like hers, please consider supporting her work with a digital subscription. Support my work with a digital subscription