Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Melissa Davlin: In Tuesday night's biggest shakeup, Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder lost his primary, one of 15 incumbents to fall this election cycle.

We discussed the implications for public policy moving forward.

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, we break down the big stories from Tuesday night's primary election with Senator Lori Den Hartog, associate of Idaho Cities executive director Kelley Packer, and Kevin Richert of Idaho Education news.

But first, let's take a look at Tuesday's turnout.

Statewide, about 24% of registered voters turned out to cast a ballot, with the majority of those participating in the Republican primary.

Camas County had the highest turnout at 55%.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane said no counties reported major issues.

Election results are unofficial until the June 5th canvas to take place in Idaho Falls.

One of the most closely watched races from Tuesday was in district 32, where House Appropriations Chair Wendy Horman fended off two challenges, one from Ammon Mayor Sean Coletti and one from National Republican Party Committeeman Brian Smith.

She also faced criticism from her own central committee, made up of hyper local precinct committeemen.

I caught up with representative Horman after her win.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Were you surprised with the vote breakdown on Tuesday?

Wendy Horman: Great to be with you today.

You know, I was hoping for a strong win and I feel like that's what I got.

My race was a win for the voice of the people.

They saw through the mudslinging.

There was so much money spent in my race and, the people of Bonneville County showed that they don't support that approach to politics.

Which is, I ran on my record and the decisions I've made, I didn't try to hide my record like another candidate.

So I was grateful that the voters saw through the mud and the noise in my race.

Davlin: You mentioned the money spent in your race, and a lot of that came, about $50,000 came from, PAC associated with the Idaho Education Association.

You, of course, work on public school budgets in your role as chair of the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee, is that going to change how you work with the teachers union?

Horman: My support for public schools and the children and teachers serving in them remains unchanged.

I have a 31 year record of serving them as a parent volunteer, running fine arts programs and tutoring, to school board, to school board association president, to now carrying those budgets for ten years.

That will remain unchanged for me because that's why I ran for office in the first place.

The noise created by the teachers union and the false accusations, they will have to own.

And fortunately, voters in Bonneville County saw through that.

Davlin: You also faced pushback from your own Central Committee.

And there was a candidate in your race who was backed by them.

How did the local precinct races in your area go?

Horman: That is a great point.

You know, the Bonneville County Central Committee fell into a pit that they dug for others.

Their candidate had the seventh lowest vote count of any legislative race in Idaho.

Those tribunals were a unifying message here in Bonneville County.

Voters here want to be the ones to hold legislators accountable for their actions or inactions, and not a small group of authoritarian party bosses.

And I think you saw that clearly come out in my race.

Davlin: Statewide, there were 15 incumbents who lost, including notably Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder and House Education Committee Chairwoman Julie Yamamoto.

That, of course, has a lot of implications for what pieces of legislation go through, particularly education.

You have been a proponent of school choice legislation.

Do you think that this shifts the conversation on school choice going into the 2025 session?

Horman: I do.

It was a good night for parental rights in education.

You know, we support, we celebrated Brown v Board’s 70 year anniversary just last week, of saying race can't be a deciding factor in school attendance.

The civil rights issue of today is that a parent's income and their address shouldn't be either.

It's an issue that's at the center of the electorate.

It crosses ideological lines, and we have existing programs in Idaho that, from Launch to opportunity scholarship to empowering parents that fund students no matter where they go to school, in public, private or religious settings.

Because all children do deserve our support.

And, so I do think it will be an issue going forward with, stronger support than it's had in the past.

Davlin: Do you think that legislation will include public support for private religious schools?

Horman: The tax credit from last session did, and I anticipate that we'll run something similar to that or an ESA again in an upcoming session.

But it will, remains to be seen what the details look like.

Davlin: You also mentioned Launch, which was controversial in the house when it first passed in 2023.

Wasn't a good night for Launch supporters statewide.

Do you think that the future of Launch is in trouble?

Horman: I've always believed Launch needed some refinement, some accountability, and some connection to outcomes for the use of the dollars.

And so I do think there's a conversation to be had about what that program looks like going forward, how it can help students who have the greatest needs.

Davlin: All right.

Representative Wendy Horman, thanks so much for joining us.

Horman: Thank you.

Davlin: The big story from Tuesday night is Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder losing his primary to political newcomer Josh Keyser.

Associate producer Logan Finney caught up with Keyser at the Idaho GOP election night party.

Josh Keyser: Senator Winder is a tremendous person, you know, I'm very grateful for his many years of service and wish him well in retirement.

You know, I think it's incredibly important to be invested in your community locally, that includes our civic duty here, running for office.

I think that people were ready for a change, and that's what I found going door to door.

Davlin: Joining me to discuss those results is Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News.

Senator Lori Den Hartog and Kelley Packer, executive director of the Association of Idaho Cities, Senator Den Hartog, were you surprised that Senator Winder lost?

Lori Den Hartog: I was surprised.

I knew it was going to be a tough race, and I knew there was a lot of outside money and interests in that race.

But I figured with the length of Senator Winder's service and his record and accomplishments and his time in the legislature, I thought it might be close.

but I was surprised that he lost.

And I was surprised by the margin.

Davlin: That wasn't one of the races that folks talked about quite as much as some of the other competitive primaries, particularly against House speaker Mike Moyle.

Certainly the District 1 competitive primary.

All of these we'll talk about more later.

Senator, we were keeping an eye on Senator Winder's race, but the fact that he lost after being the longest serving senator since 2008, I think caught a lot of people off guard.

Kevin Richert: Yeah, I think it was a race that was sort of, on the periphery of races that we were watching closely, but now it sets up so much suspense about what the Senate is going to look like, who the next pro tem is going to be, and what that leadership team is going to look like.

And who winds up being in committee chairs, that's all going to unfold now in the next few months, including depending on what happens in the general election as well.

Davlin: And I want to talk about that, but first, what do you think the factors were from where you sit in the Senate GOP caucus?

What were the factors in Senator Winder's loss?

Den Hartog: You know, that's an interesting one, considering all the other races where outside money played a big part in that.

I believe Senator Winder had the support of American Federation for Children, which I know played a big role in some other races.

But he's been a school choice supporter and proponent, and I think that issue came up for other candidates in a not positive way.

I know he had some other, I think Young Americans for Liberty had spent quite a bit in that race as well.

The thing I noticed about a lot of these, the outside money was the, misinterpretation of a lot of our votes.

You know, both our Senate colleagues and I think, you know, that outside money and really a different characterization than what we as legislators would characterize our votes or, you know, even have the ability to explain or respond to.

Davlin: I know that you kept an eye on races statewide.

Was this one that was on your radar?

Kelley Packer: No, not to the extent that it maybe should have been.

I, you know, I was curious, because I know that, Senator Winder had reached out a time or two to a different to different groups asking for help with, you know, doorknocking and other things like that.

So I knew that he was nervous about the outcome, but to Senator Den Hartog's point, that she thought it would be close, but that he would still prevail was the same sentiments that I held.

I was really surprised when it turned out the way it did.

Davlin: Kevin, you touched on this, but this has big implications for what makes it to Senate committees and who gets those committee assignments and who gets those committee chairmanships, not to mention who's going to be the next Senate president pro tem.

Richert: Right.

Because the way I count noses at this point and Senator Den Hartog is much more studied at this than I am.

It looks like it's a very evenly divided Senate, potentially between more moderate kind of the Main Street caucus senators and more of the, you know, the hard line conservative senators.

And what happens in November could shift that balance, 1 or 2 seats either way.

So you know who ends up being the next pro-tem and who in turn winds up chairing these committees?

It's really hard to handicap at this point, but it's going to be interesting theater.

Davlin: We've already heard one senator throw his hat into the ring for that president pro tem race.

Senator C Scott Grow, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Den Hartog, you have run for Senate leadership before.

Are you keeping your eye on either that race or any of the other races?

Den Hartog: Yeah, absolutely.

I think to Kevin's point, we have a lot of getting to know one another as a caucus to do.

We have new members, we have some returning members.

So, you know, we have Senator Woodward and Senator Zito that are returning.

So we know a little bit about them.

We know, you know, what they'll be like as colleagues, but we have new members coming in too.

So there's a lot that we have to learn about each other.

And we experienced that two years ago with a significant turnover.

One thing I will say is, regardless of what happens in Senate leadership, I think many of the practices and precedents of the Senate will continue.

Committee chairmanships are different than the House.

We typically, the president pro tem assigns the committee chairmanships by seniority, not only service in the Senate, but service on that committee.

And that provides some stability and, you know, continuation, continuity of knowledge on those committees.

And I think that's a really important consideration.

We did lose one of our chairmen in this election cycle.

And there could be other shifting around, for sure.

And some of that and obviously, you know, with Senator Grow, running for pro tem, that changes things.

Potentially for the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee.

Davlin: Are you considering running for any of those spots?

Den Hartog: It's always a consideration.

I think you have to hear and understand what your colleagues are looking for in a leadership team.

I've been, I've had the experience of having different types of leadership teams.

And one where I felt we worked the best as a Senate was when the leadership team was a mix of kind of the different ideologies within our caucus.

And so that's one of my, I'm hopeful to see that in the future.

Davlin: You touched on the campaign and in the lead up to the election, one of the biggest talking points was the money going into these races, with some candidates raising more than $100,000 and PACs dumping hundreds of thousands more into independent expenditures to support or oppose candidates.

Senator Tammy Nichols was on the receiving end of some of that opposition, but still came out on top on Tuesday.

Idaho Reports spoke to her about her race.

Tammy Nichols: We worked really really hard.

There was a lot of money that was spent in this race.

But, you know, I just put myself out there like I normally do and be out there with the people and, talk about the issues that are concerning to them.

Show them how I've done things in the past and what I've been working on and what I want to do in the future going forward.

So I'm very excited.

Davlin: Kevin, you've covered this extensively.

So much money going into these races, and we still don't have a complete picture of how much money was spent in the primary.

Richert: Yeah, it's at least $2 million of independent money as best as we can estimate it at this point.

But I feel like a lot of the turnover that we saw in a lot of the turmoil that we saw Tuesday night almost happened in spite of this outside money, not because of this outside money.

You know, Senator Nichols talked about she was on the receiving end of the advertising from the Idaho Liberty PAC, which is more of a mainstream group.

They spent almost $1 million.

They spent a lot of it in four Senate races.

They only got one senator who they were targeting.

Chris Trakel.

We talked about Young Americans for Liberty, they did put over $100,000 into messaging against Chuck Winder.

They also spent more than $110,000 that we know of so far against Mike Moyle.

And that obviously didn't, didn't work out for them.

And a lot of their other, you know, primary targets also were reelected on Tuesday.

So a lot of money, a lot of caustic advertising and a lot of caustic messaging, but I'm not sure it really affected the outcomes as much as you might think.

Davlin: I think if it did affect the outcomes, it backfired.

That negative campaigning across the board, regardless of where it was coming from, whether it was coming from, you know, those who were opposing the more conservative senators like Senator Zuiderveld, Senator Nichols, Senator Lenny, those who were opposing Representative McCann, if they dumped money into the negative campaigns, then from where I'm sitting, it backfired.

Packer: Agreed.

I actually had a conversation with a neighbor on Monday evening prior to election day, and she was asking my opinion on some of the races and things, and then she, as she was getting ready to leave, head back to her home, she said, you know, if they were part of negative campaigning, I'm not voting for them, regardless of whether I think they've done a good job in the legislature or not.

And I gave her a little bit of caution there.

I said, you know what's unfortunate is there's a lot of money that's come into our state that wasn't tied to the desires of a candidate.

Right?

A candidate didn't ask for the negative campaigning to happen against their opponents in a lot of different circumstances.

And I said it would be unfortunate for you to not vote for someone that's a great leader in our state and has done great things in the legislature and otherwise, simply because somebody else has been writing a check against their opponent in a negative way.

And I said that really, in my opinion, was the majority of the negativity that happened didn't come from those that are currently serving or have served in the legislature before.

Den Hartog: I had a similar experience.

I had a candidate who was, who was new to running for the legislature, genuinely running against the opponent because they believe differently, thought they had different things to offer, and called me and said, people think all this negative campaigning is something that I did or that I'm doing, and this person was like, that's not who I am.

And I think that's really unfortunate.

And I don't think, most Idahoans genuinely respond to that or appreciate it.

Packer: Or participate in it.

Den Hartog: Or participate in it.

Packer: Agreed.

Agreed.

Richert: I mean, you both run, or have run for legislature, and it just feels like watching this as an observer, this kind of advertising, which has no nuance, it's very negative and not very subtle.

It kind of almost maybe forces candidates to to dig into ideological positions to differentiate themselves.

These feel like mini congressional races right now as opposed to legislative races like I recall from 10, 20 years ago.

Maybe that's just me watching it from the outside.

Den Hartog: It brings, it definitely brings a different flavor.

And as you watch your, your friends and colleagues, you know, whether they're someone you're already serving with or someone you're hoping to serve with, go through that and have things be said about them, or have them or their positions be portrayed a certain way, it's really frustrating as a candidate and difficult to respond to.

Packer: Right.

Davlin: Ultimately, a total of 15 incumbents lost on Tuesday, including House Education Chair Julie Yamamoto.

Logan Finney spoke to her opponent, Kent Marmon, about why he ran against her.

Kent Marmon: I'm a property tax guy.

I want to get rid of property tax.

I want to find a different way to fund local government, you know, cities and counties.

You know, property tax, the only part of property tax that funds schools is supplemental levies and bond issues.

So the rest of it comes from the state and federal government.

So, anyway, she proposed through her education committee, and got it through her education committee, to lower the bond requirement to pass a bond from two thirds vote to 55%.

Davlin: Lots of concern among this, you know, potential new class.

Regardless of how the general election turns out, we're going to have a lot of new faces next year.

And that happens every two years.

But from your perspective as the Association of Idaho Cities executive director when it comes to local funding, what are you going to be keeping an eye on?

Packer: Well, after that clip, a lot more than I thought I was going to.

Because quite frankly, the majority of local's budgets funded through property tax.

It's the only tool we've really been given.

Yes, we get a little bit of sales tax revenue sharing and we have some fees and other things.

But the bulk of our funding comes from property taxes.

So to make a shift to sales tax or income tax, which are the two vehicles that the state is allowed to use, means that you're going to put additional competing factors on the table when it comes to hard decisions in the legislature.

So it could be interesting to see how much traction that gets.

I think there's a lot of education that needs to happen.

Property tax, while most people don't like it, there's also things they don't understand about it that I think are important.

One, it's a very, it's the most stable tax that we have.

When you have the economy, you know, changing up and down.

Additionally, most people, if they took their property tax bill and divided it by the number of days in a year, they'd find they pay less in property tax than they do in their sales tax or income tax.

And so I think that the reason people dislike it so much is because they get this big bill and they either have to pay it all at once or in two chunks, and that's harder to do than daily or having it come out of your paycheck without seeing it, or even monthly.

That's one of the things I'd love to see the counties do is allow for folks set it up so folks have the option to pay it monthly, because I think it would make a big difference.

Davlin: We spoke a little bit about how the dynamic in the Senate is going to change.

Tax bills start in the House.

And over the years, there's been a lot of frustration between the House and the Senate with what tax proposals end up getting through the Senate.

How do you think this is going to change the conversation on some of those tax proposals?

Because speaker Mike Moyle, you might have heard, is pretty interested in tax policy, Den Hartog: Well aware, well aware.

That tension will always exist between the House and the Senate, where when it comes to taxes, the Senate feels a little bit like the unwanted stepchild.

We don't, we definitely play second fiddle, but over the years, we also have had, either senators or groups of senators who've been able to engage meaningfully with our House colleagues in helping to craft legislation that we see coming over from the House to the Senate.

My hope is that that's what we see.

You know, again, it's what can you get through both bodies?

And that has to be the consideration.

My personal preference would be not that we have these, really large, mixed bills with all kinds of different issues and all kinds of different, you know, tax implications and moving parts.

I think that, is a disservice both to us, as you know, members voting on something and to the public in terms of understanding and evaluating our positions.

Packer: Absolutely.

Davlin: Kevin, we mentioned 15 incumbents lost on Tuesday night.

We paid a lot of attention to District 1, where incumbent Senator Scott Herndon lost.

District 8, the entire slate of incumbents, all three of them, lost their primary elections.

I'm not sure I've ever seen that before.

Richert: I can't recall it happening either.

And I think what's really interesting about District 8 is it feels like it's a pretty significant ideological shift.

It's not just that three incumbents lost, it's that three incumbents lost to candidates who were running to the right of them.

It feels like a sea change.

Davlin: And this is Boise, Elmore, Valley County, I think Custer.

Richert: Custer County, yes, it's four counties.

It's a sprawling legislative district.

But, so I was really interested in the shift that we saw in District 8.

I was also very interested in what we saw in the Magic Valley.

Where we saw, you know, three incumbents lose, and lose handily to opponents running to the right of them.

I mean, we've both worked in the Magic Valley.

We both know that over the years it's been Republican, but it hasn't been ideologically Republican.

It's been more moderate to center right.

This feels like a significant shift.

Davlin: It's a huge shift.

I profiled the races in both Districts 24 and 25.

So we're talking Camas, Gooding and parts of Twin Falls County and then Twin Falls proper, the city.

Usually those districts send infrastructure focused, Ag focused, education focused Republicans.

You know, I'm thinking Maxine Bell and, you know, this time around, we saw, Senator Linda Hartgen lose, Representative Chenele Dixon, long time Twin Falls City Council member Greg Lanting lose to political newcomers who were aligned with the Magic Valley Liberty Alliance.

Richert: Right, I mean these are fairly well known incumbents.

I mean you mentioned Lanting's time on the city council.

Linda Wright Hartgen had been a trial court administrator in the Magic Valley for some time.

I mean these are not novices.

Davlin: But when you have so many newcomers to the state, it doesn't always matter what sort of political experience or longtime support the incumbents have.

Richert: And do those endorsements from, you know, former legislators, do they, do they matter?

I mean, a newcomer to Twin Falls has probably never heard of Laird Noh.

Davlin: Exactly.

Well, over the last two legislative sessions, we watched closely as lawmakers wrestled with Governor Little's biggest policy proposal, Idaho Launch, which provides $8,000 to graduating high school seniors who pursue training and education for in-demand careers in the state.

It's already a popular program among students and families, but not so much among some Republican lawmakers.

Marmon discussed his opposition to the program on Tuesday.

Marmon: Idaho Launch is another.

I was absolutely opposed.

To me, that's just a social, you know, corporate socialist welfare bill.

And it's almost like paying off student loans, but you're paying them off in advance.

Davlin: Marmon isn't alone in his opposition to this, as we just said in earlier in the show, Representative Wendy Horman said that she had some concerns about the program.

Maybe not enough to repeal it, but enough to take a really close look at how it's being implemented.

Den Hartog: I had, I have been opposed to it, since its inception.

One of my main concerns, and this is where I think we probably do have room for reform, is we understand the need that businesses have in Idaho.

I don't think the Launch proposal actually matches up the need that our business owners have with what we are steering and directing our young people to.

Originally, it was supposed to be more things like, you know, actual job training and skills.

We open it up to the four year institutions, we're seeing very traditional uses for those dollars.

And I don't think that's, I don't think that was the intended purpose or design, but that's what it morphed into through, as we as we all know, through the, you know, the art of the possible, what could they get through the legislature?

And that is, that's what got through, you know, across my opposition and across some of my colleagues opposition.

So I think it is going to be revisited and I don't know to what extent yet.

You know, whether it's a repeal, which might be difficult, or significant reform.

Davlin: Kevin, what are you anticipating?

Richert: Well, I anticipate a lot more debate about Launch, coming into next session.

With two key supporters of Launch no longer there who were voted out on Tuesday.

We talked about Julie Yamamoto, but also Megan Blanksma was one of the architects of the Launch program in the beginning, from the beginning.

She was one of the three incumbents who lost in District 8.

Davlin: Representative Melissa Durrant, who also supported the program, she also lost her primary on Tuesday.

Richert: Right.

So I think you're going to see, you know, enhanced, continued, discussion of Launch.

Even though it's been funded now for the first year and you'll have students get that money the first time around, starting in the next few weeks.

Davlin: Kevin, very briefly, Idaho ED News took a look at levees around the state.

Is there a big take away, or were they all hyper local stories?

Richert: I think they always still are hyper local, but in the big picture, bonds and levees, were generally successful.

Salmon, which has been kind of the poster child for school facilities problems in the state, they passed a bond issue on Tuesday after 12 successive failed bond issues.

But, you know, it varies.

West Ada, their levee passed.

Caldwell, as we were listening to Kent Marmon talk, he's from Caldwell.

Caldwell voted down a supplemental levee, so they've got some difficult decisions ahead.

As does Kuna.

Davlin: Senator Den Hartog, we have about a minute left and I want to talk to you about the most important race on Tuesday night, which is the race between you and your father, Representative John Vander Woude, serves in the same district, was also unopposed in the primary.

Who got the most votes?

Den Hartog: We tied this year for the first time ever.

So we always have a friendly competition to see how the votes are coming in.

And over the course of years, over the course of our different election cycles, I think I've won the majority of the time, I'm happy to say.

But I think he did beat me, I think he did beat me once on raw numbers.

But we had different absentee voting numbers, different early voting numbers, and different same day voting numbers.

And it all added up to 4,078 votes.

We got the exact same.

Davlin: So when there's election, and there's a tie in an election, you have to flip a coin.

Have you fliped the coin yet?

Den Hartog: We have not flipped the coin yet.

Maybe I need to, maybe I need to head over to his home and do that to settle the score.

Davlin: Well, keep us posted.

Thank you all three for joining us.

And thank you for watching.

We have so much more online.

You can find the links at IdahoReports.org We'll see you right back here next week.

Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.