Idaho’s incumbent governor, Brad Little, easily won the Republican nomination for re-election on Tuesday, The Associated Press reported, setting him up to become just the third person to serve three consecutive terms as the chief executive in Boise.
Mr. Little will face the Boise real estate lawyer Terri Pickens, a Democrat, and a retired Idaho supreme court justice, John Stegner, who is running as an independent and bills himself as a nonpartisan alternative.
Idaho has not elected a Democratic governor since Cecil Andrus won the last of his four terms in 1990. The state has grown even more Republican since then. National conservative organizations looking for places to advance new policies and an influx of conservative voters from California, Washington and Oregon have helped turn Idaho into one of the country’s proving grounds for restrictions on abortion, transgender people and political expression in public schools and government buildings.
Mr. Little, a longtime state legislator and former lieutenant governor, represents an older, frontier-style conservatism, with deep ties to ranching, business groups and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But he has largely found ways to work with Idaho’s conservative Legislature and won President Trump’s endorsement last summer, before formally announcing his bid for a third term.
Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 5-to-1 in Idaho, and four years ago, Mr. Little won a second term with 60.5 percent of the vote after declining to debate his Democratic challenger. He did little campaigning this election cycle and his closest competition in the primary came from Mark Fitzpatrick, a suburban bar owner who first gained attention in Idaho political circles by promoting “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” at his bar in opposition to Boise’s Pride festival.
Ms. Pickens was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022 and her campaign centers on promises to undo many of the State Legislature’s biggest policy decisions of the past few years. She has pledged to restore funding to public education and abortion access and to use the governor’s powers to oppose what she describes as the Republican Party’s “dangerous and cruel supermajority.”
Mr. Stegner entered the race in February, collecting 1,000 signatures to make the November ballot. He said he believed Idaho voters were tired of partisan fights and has pledged a “pragmatic, realistic” focus on state policy that includes more support for public schools, protecting public lands and finding ways to expand health care access in a state that struggles to recruit and keep doctors.
Mr. Stegner has raised more than $262,000, far outpacing Mr. Little’s other challengers. The governor has raised almost $2 million so far.
Anna Griffin is the Pacific Northwest bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Montana and Oregon.
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