How Republicans won Ada County in 2020 (and how Democrats hope to win it back)
Diana Lachiondo was “the best possible candidate” to run for her seat on the Ada County Commission, Democrats say.
She has a long history in local government, and she raised more money in this election cycle — more than $200,000 — than any nonfederal candidate in the state, garnering bipartisan donations from local officials and developers alike.
Her election in 2018 to a two-year term, alongside fellow Democratic candidate Kendra Kenyon, who won a four-year term, gave the Democrats their first majority in memory on the three-member commission.
So how did Lachiondo lose? And how did the other county-level Democratic candidates on Tuesday’s ballot — Bill Rutherford for another county commissioner seat, Zachery Wagner for sheriff, Ron Twilegar for prosecutor — go down as well?
That depends on who you ask.
If you talk to Republicans, including Ryan Davidson, the Garden City political activist and former Ada County GOP chair who beat Lachiondo with 51.2% of the vote, they’ll provide a few reasons. Among them:
1. Trump’s popularity
The first, and perhaps the most obvious, is the success of President Donald Trump in Ada County.
Even with Boise, the largest Democratic stronghold in a Republican state, more than half of Ada County voters picked Trump. The president won more than 130,000 votes, up nearly 40% from the 93,752 he won in 2016. He also took a larger share of the vote, claiming 50.3% to 2016’s 47.9%. Voters who turned out for Trump helped the rest of the ticket.
Parts of Ada County have increasingly voted Republican. A Statesman analysis of unofficial results shows that in some precincts, particularly those in the Legislature’s District 14 — which covers Star, Eagle and part of Meridian — Davidson outperformed Jim Tibbs, who ran against Lachiondo in 2018.
Those precincts went almost exclusively to Tibbs in 2018, but Davidson received more than 6,000 more votes than Tibbs did in that district. Davidson beat Lachiondo by a total of 6,158 votes.
The GOP also found success branding Lachiondo as leftist and Boise Mayor Lauren McLean as socialist. The party got organized, too.
2. Lachiondo’s mask vote
In a phone interview, Davidson said some voters, particularly outside Boise, disliked Lachiondo’s vote in July on the Central District Health board to require masks throughout the county to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Davidson thinks that played a role “in getting people more interested in campaigning for me and volunteering.”
Joining Davidson on the commission will be Rod Beck, a former state Senate majority leader who works in real estate and who won a two-year term. Beck will make up the second half of the commission’s two-person Republican majority.
3. McLean’s alleged socialist ‘manifesto’
Beck said that in many ways, this election was a referendum on the actions of Boise’s Democratic leaders, particularly McLean.
“This was a heavily Republican year in Idaho, and a smaller factor was McLean and her manifesto that motivated some people to vote,” he said by phone.
Beck was referring to transition reports McLean requested from teams of supporters as part of her first 100 days as mayor. One report drew particular ire from conservative groups for suggesting, among other things, that McLean create policies that would effectively make Boise a sanctuary city for immigrants living in the country illegally, provide free contraception and abortion, and help the Boise School District develop sex education classes that would begin in pre-K and run through the 12th grade.
Tom Luna, chairman of the Idaho GOP, used the reports to rally his party.
“Our biggest threat ... is the liberal, socialist agenda of the Democratic Party, that has been well stated and presented in the mayor’s plan,” he told the Idaho Statesman in July.
McLean did not respond to a request for comment. She has said repeatedly that the documents were not policy documents but recommendations from Boiseans.
4. Improved Ada GOP organization
Beck said the Ada County Republican Party was “more organized and better financed than they’ve been in years,” which helped to create what Davidson called “good campaign infrastructure that helped all the candidates.”
“That was a major factor not only in preserving my seat, which was already a Republican seat, and turning over the other seat, which was a Democrat seat,” Beck said. “The Ada County Republican Party just did a better job than they had in the past.”
5. Money, with one enormous exception
Almost every Republican outraised Democratic opponents. Beck raised more than $66,000 to Rutherford’s just over $12,000. Sheriff Steve Bartlett raised $1,000, while Wagner did not even file a campaign finance report. Prosecutor Jan Bennetts raised nearly $10,000, less than Twilegar’s almost $30,000, though most of Twilegar’s money came from a $28,750 loan he made to his campaign.
Davidson was the only one outraised by his opponent from outside sources. He raised over $16,000, less than one-twelfth as much as Lachiondo.
Democratic chair calls defeats wake-up call for local party
Erik Berg, chair of the Ada County Democrats, told the Statesman that Lachiondo was “the best possible candidate” and that her campaign team, which consisted much of the same team that got her elected in 2018, ran “the best possible race.”
Her loss, he said, is a wake-up call to Democrats that they need to build on a “lack of infrastructure and a lack of work on behalf of the local parties” to give strong candidates a fighting chance.
Even with support from Boise, Democrats tend to struggle in Ada County, often not even fielding Democratic candidates for county-wide races like prosecutor or sheriff. This year, both races included Democrats, but Republican incumbents won handily — Sheriff Steve Bartlett took 61.4% of the vote and Prosecutor Jan Bennetts took 58.6%.
“It’s why I love working at the Ada Dems, because our job is to build year over year, election over election, the infrastructure that can outlast any campaign or candidate,” he said. “It’s what we need to do if we want to win races, especially in high turnout elections like this one.”
He said it was critical for Democrats moving forward to distinguish to voters the impact Democrats have on local politics. A county commissioner likely won’t make critical decisions on the Second Amendment or abortion, he said, but they determine what happens at the landfill or with comprehensive growth plans.
When Democrats fail to make the distinction, he said, they lose races.
“We lost a no-nonsense public servant, wanting to do her best to make the community better,” Berg said. “It may sound hackneyed, but it wasn’t so much a loss for the Democratic Party as I think people saw it as a loss in leadership and a loss in competence for the county government. That’s more devastating than any party loss could be.”
Lachiondo and her team were not available to comment.
Beck will succeed Commissioner Patrick Malloy, a Republican who was named to the commission by Gov. Brad Little in April after former Commissioner Rick Visser retired in March.
Beck will represent District 2, which includes Meridian, Star and Eagle. Davidson will represent District 1, which includes Boise and Garden City. Kenyon represents District 3, the southern half of Ada County.
Each commissioner comes from one of the three commission districts, but every county voter could vote in both races on the ballot.
This story was originally published November 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected. The percentage of the vote received by Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts was misstated in an earlier version.
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