Should you register as a Republican to vote in the primary? In one-party Idaho, yes.

Ever since Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin announced in May that she’s running for governor, the call went out for all good Idahoans to do their civic duty and register as a Republican so they can vote in the primary — and ensure McGeachin never gets elected.

That call got louder when Ammon Bundy announced in June that he’s running, too. The call hit perhaps a fever pitch in recent days after McGeachin embarrassed herself and Idaho on the national stage by issuing a meaningless executive order and inquiring whether she could deploy the Idaho National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border while Gov. Brad Little was out of the state.

The only way to stop someone like McGeachin from becoming governor, the argument goes, is to register as a Republican — even if you’re a Democrat — and vote in the closed Republican primary against her.

Not so fast, says the chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party, Fred Cornforth.

“To my Democratic friends — let the Republicans fix themselves. Stay a registered Democrat,” Cornforth posted on Twitter last week.

For Cornforth, the fear over somebody such as McGeachin or Bundy or Ed Humphreys winning the primary is overblown, and there’s no need to hit the panic button to help stop an extreme Republican candidate.

“First of all, I think (Gov.) Brad Little is in firm control of the state, and I think he has a terrific following ... and I don’t want us to get so focused on a minor issue, like McGeachin,” Cornforth told me in a video interview last week. “The infighting that’s happening within the Republican elected officials is distracting from addressing head-on the issues that are facing Idahoans day to day.”

Republican primary

Republican dominance in Idaho leads most watchers of Idaho politics to conclude that the “real” race is the Republican primary, particularly for statewide seats, which a Democrat hasn’t held since Gov. Cecil Andrus retired in 1994.

In a column last month, “The battle for the soul of Idaho will be fought — and won — in the Republican primary,” regular Idaho Statesman columnist Bob Kustra suggested that readers should consider registering as Republicans.

“The battle for the soul of Idaho will take place first in the Republican primary in May,” Kustra wrote. “Given Idaho’s more conservative and Republican politics, the candidates who win the primary usually go on to win the general election. I know there are Idahoans who would not feel comfortable leaving the Democratic primary, and I respect that, but they might also think about where they can have the greatest impact on Idaho’s future.”

How McGeachin won

Consider, for example, how McGeachin got elected to begin with.

In 2018, McGeachin won a crowded Republican primary for lieutenant governor over Steve Yates, Marv Hagedorn, Bob Nonini and Kelley Packer, in that order.

Out of a total of 177,089 votes cast in the Republican primary, McGeachin received 51,098 votes, or 29%. Yates was closest, with 27% of the vote. Packer, who is now executive director of the Association of Idaho Cities and was perhaps the most “reasonable Republican” in the field, came in last, with 14% of the vote.

McGeachin went on to the general election to face Democratic primary winner Kristin Collum, a pragmatic moderate, a U.S. Army veteran who worked on the staff of then-Gen. Colin Powell in the Pentagon and later held executive positions with technology companies Micron, Hewlett-Packard and Xylem.

Collum supported Medicaid expansion. McGeachin opposed it. With Collum’s bona fides and since 61% of Idaho voters approved Medicaid expansion, you’d think Collum would have had a chance.

Not so.

Collum performed perhaps slightly better than other Democratic candidates, receiving 40.3% of the vote, compared with McGeachin’s 59.7%. But in reality, most voters statewide voted a straight-party ticket (Little received 59.8% of the vote for governor, Lawerence Denney received 62.5% for secretary of state, Lawrence Wasden received 65.4% for attorney general).

The closest statewide race was for superintendent of public instruction, but not even strong, moderate Democratic candidate Cindy Wilson could top Republican Sherri Ybarra, who won with 51.8% of the vote.

In other words, all of the statewide races were a fait accompli once the Republican primary was over.

It is worth noting that in his own primary for governor that year, Little eked out a victory over Raul Labrador by just 9,000 votes. Granted, Little was not an incumbent last time around, but some people shudder at the thought of another close race for governor.

Hence, the call this time around to make sure something like that doesn’t happen.

Difficult decision

“If you’re really a Democrat, then that can be hard on somebody,” Mike Satz, the executive director of The Idaho 97 Project, an organization formed to fight back against extremism in Idaho politics, said in a phone interview. “For some people, it might be very difficult. It would be hard for someone to switch over even for a very practical purpose like (voting in the primary to block an extremist candidate).”

But often, Democrats have little reason to vote in a Democratic primary.

The 2018 gubernatorial race was a bit of an anomaly, with two Democratic candidates — AJ Balukoff and Paulette Jordan — in a competitive race for votes.

But generally speaking, the Democratic primary typically is not so competitive, particularly for down-ticket races, such as state legislative seats. Often, Democrats don’t even put up a candidate to challenge the Republican. And when they do, the candidate is usually inexperienced or not prepared to mount a serious challenge against a well-heeled incumbent.

“The fact of the matter in Idaho right now is that the general election is won or lost in May,” Satz said. “It’s the May Republican primary that does it.”

Consider former Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger, R-Lewiston, who resigned this year after being accused of sexual misconduct while a legislator.

Von Ehlinger won the Republican primary in 2020 after incumbent Rep. Thyra Stevenson died of a heart attack (Stevenson still received 22% of the vote in the primary). Von Ehlinger’s Democratic opponent in the general election? No one.

Rep. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, who recently posted a sophomoric social media meme of a Trump-like figure wielding a barbed-wire baseball bat with potential targets that include media outlets, teachers, Boise State University — as well as the Idaho Conservation League, the Idaho Medical Association and the Idaho Association for Commerce and Industry — is a regular parrot for the Idaho Freedom Foundation. She was one of the lead legislators in killing a $6 million federal early childhood education grant, citing ludicrous conspiracies of left-wing activist indoctrination, using wording ripped right from the IFF website.

In the May 2020 Republican primary, Nichols somehow defeated a much more sensible Kirk Adams in the Republican primary with 59% of the vote. She went on to easily defeat a weak Democratic challenger in the general election.

In those down-ticket races, reasonable candidates, like Adams, could have used help from reasonable unaffiliated and Democratic voters to register Republican and vote in the primary.

In Nichols’ district, for example, there were only 2,096 registered Democrats in May 2020, but there were 7,495 unaffiliated voters, compared with 16,531 registered Republicans.

Nichols received 4,782 votes and Adams received 3,313. Over in the Democratic primary, 1,245 people voted for Edward Savala. Had those voters switched parties, along with a couple hundred unaffiliated voters, and voted for Adams, District 11 might have a much more sensible legislator representing it.

Deep red state

If there’s going to be a mass exodus from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, it hasn’t happened yet.

But early signs are there.

According to the most recent voter registration numbers from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, the number of registered Democrats has declined by 1,008 people since April, before McGeachin announced for governor. That’s less than 1%, out of 136,000 registered Democrats.

At the same time, the Republican Party grew by 3,031 voters from April to September. That’s about a half-percent, out of nearly 528,000 registered Republicans in Idaho.

Those are not huge numbers, and it’s impossible to say how many of those Democratic voters are people who have switched parties, who have left the state or become unaffiliated. On the GOP side, it’s impossible to know how many are newcomers to the state.

The Republican primary is closed, meaning only registered Republicans may vote in it. To do that, someone registered as a Democrat has until the last day of candidate filings to switch parties. In 2022, that date is March 11.

Unaffiliated voters, who make up the second-largest voting bloc in Idaho, outnumber Democrats more than 2-to-1, with nearly 308,000 voters. Their numbers have grown by 980 since April.

“We have a large number of independent voters who are actually fairly conservative,” Satz said. “Well, they should be registering as Republicans. I think that’s the group that we really should be focused on.”

Unaffiliated voters can register as a Republican right up to the primary election day.

Distraction from issues

For Cornforth, the horse race handicapping and pearl-clutching panic over the extreme candidates in the Idaho Republican Party is a distraction from the important issues, upon which he believes the Democratic Party can win in Idaho.

Cornforth cited such issues as education funding, child care, higher education and transportation funding.

“When you’ve steered our state to be last in education, I don’t think you get to hold the moniker of moderate,” Cornforth said. “If you have guided us through a period of time where now we have the lowest go-on rate in the country, I don’t think you get the title of moderate or even pro-business.”

Cornforth also cited Republican legislators passing a restrictive initiative bill that was signed by Gov. Brad Little and then shot down in court.

“We have an Idaho Supreme Court that actually came out and scolded Little, (House Speaker Scott) Bedke and (Senate President Pro Tem Chuck) Winder, scolded them and told them that they overreached,” Cornforth said, referring to the Idaho Supreme Court’s blistering takedown of the bill. “I’m struggling to see where there’s any good coming from that for the average Idahoan.”

Aligning priorities

Even organizations such as the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, long an influential group among Republican legislators, are finding themselves at odds with Republican legislators.

Perhaps most notable was a decision approved by a majority of the House to reject a $6 million federal grant for early childhood education programs across the state. While extremist, far-right, conspiracy-addled legislators led the charge against the grant, they took with them several so-called moderate or at least reasonable Republicans, such as Rep. John Vander Woude, who had visited one such program himself in Kuna before voting against it, a decision that harmed his own constituents.

IACI came out in favor of the grant, which was supported by every Democrat in the Legislature.

“The bill is not … some kind of liberal conspiracy to brainwash young children,” according to a letter IACI sent to legislators before the vote. “To suggest so is both foolish and does damage to Idaho’s children.”

That’s the kind of thing Cornforth is talking about when he urges Idaho voters not to rely on so-called moderate Republicans to save the day. He’d rather see them vote for more Democrats.

Cornforth said he thinks more voters will wake up to what’s happening with the Idaho Republican Party, realize it’s not helping Idaho and at least start voting for Democratic candidates.

“If we can be the conscience and keep reminding everybody of what’s most important, while the circus goes on, that may be the role that we play right now,” Cornforth said.

I get where Cornforth is coming from, and to a large extent, it’s his job to be a cheerleader for the party — not tell people to register Republican so they can vote for the best Republican candidate who’s likely to win in November against their best candidate.

In many ways, that’s just giving up, conceding defeat.

I would expect nothing less from the chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party than to stick to his guns and keep beating the Democratic drum.

I also get how a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool Democrat could find it difficult to register as a Republican. Before switching parties, you’d also have to check to see if there’s a competitive Democratic primary in your legislative district, like we saw in a couple of Boise races in 2020.

I also tend to agree with Cornforth that the panic over the prospect of McGeachin or Bundy winning the primary is overblown.

Still, there’s everything to be gained by registering as a Republican and nothing to be lost, especially for those 300,000-plus unaffiliated voters who are sitting on the sidelines in the Republican primary.

After all, a voter could register as a Republican, vote in the Republican primary for the most sensible Republican, then still vote for whatever candidate you choose in the general election — regardless of party.

Scott McIntosh

Opinion Contributor,

Idaho Statesman

208-377-6202

Scott McIntosh is the communities editor and columnist for the Idaho Statesman. A graduate of Syracuse University, he joined the Statesman in August 2019. He previously was editor of the Idaho Press and the Argus Observer and was the owner and editor of the Kuna Melba News. He has been honored for his editorials and columns as well as his education, business and local government watchdog reporting by the Idaho Press Club and the National Newspaper Association. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, The Idaho Way. Support my work with a digital subscription