Crunching the election numbers in Caldwell

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

It has been an unexpected honor and pleasure to have been invited twice in the past year to travel the 400-plus miles south to Caldwell and present to students at my alma mater, the College of Idaho, on issues related to Idaho politics — and North Idaho politics, in particular.

As I’m sure most of us know, there seems to be a sort of cultural forcefield somewhere north of McCall, keeping southern Idahoans from traveling into our neck of the woods. When I went to school at what was then called Albertson College of Idaho from 1999-2003, only about three of the classmates I knew had ever even been to Coeur d’Alene.

Last week I spent three days in Caldwell (which is about 30 miles west of Boise) participating in the Idaho Public Policy Forum alongside original Reader co-founder John Reuter, who was also a student at the college with me from 2002-’03. The theme was the 2024 election: what happened, why and what’s next? 

I moderated a panel on the press’ reaction to the election, featuring Idaho Reports lead producer and host Melissa Davlin — who is also president of the Idaho Press Club — and Idaho Capital Sun Editor-in-Chief Christina Lords. Reuter moderated a panel on the past, present and future of the Idaho Republican Party, with outgoing Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise; Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg; and our own returning Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle.

Those were both interesting conversations, but the forum also included a kickoff presentation from Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, which I found particularly enlightening.

McGrane showed us loads of data on the historic election turnout, but with some striking analysis. We’re all aware of Idaho’s deep-red political orientation, but one thing that jumped out at McGrane was how much one specific region of the state got even redder between the 2020 and 2024 elections: North Idaho.

Displaying a map using arrows of varying size and direction to visualize the comparative increase in support for the Republican vs. the Democratic presidential candidate in those two elections, almost every county in Idaho showed red-colored arrows pointed rightward. Not surprising. However, most of the biggest red arrows were located in the northernmost counties of Kootenai, Bonner and Boundary.

McGrane told the forum audience that this surprised him; he would have thought that because of the denser population and explosive growth in the southwestern part of the state, that’s where support for Donald Trump would have statistically grown the most in recent years.

Curious about why North Idaho grew so much more supportive of the once-and-future president, McGrane’s office looked closer at the demographic data. 

According to records of new drivers’ license applications, a whopping 74% of recent in-migrants to Idaho have come from California, and an outsized proportion of them have settled in North Idaho.

(Though, in another fascinating bit of data, McGrane said that analysis shows the single largest out-of-state destination for payouts from California’s public retirement system is the upscale Boise bedroom community of Eagle, where only one member of its city government is not from the Golden State.)

In addition to all that, McGrane also backed up what many of us have already perceived based on anecdotal evidence: those conservative Californians are coming with big money, often buying multiple properties, and are deeply engaged with voting in both primary and general elections.

If there had ever been fears of a “liberal takeover” from California — as the Idaho GOP cited when it closed its primaries for the 2012 election — or that there’s an imminent threat of turning the state “blue,” the most recent election should put that boogeyman to rest.

And if those southern Idahoans didn’t understand what’s going on in North Idaho before the forum, they got a better picture of us after.