Idaho Republican challengers flip seats in primary fought over extremism

A rebel Republican bloc aiming to curb far-right extremism in North Idaho made significant gains Tuesday, flipping dozens of local seats, but fell short of the votes needed to change the hard-line GOP leadership in an area with historic ties to the far right.

The primary-election showdown in Kootenai County, a mountainous region near the Canadian border, drew national attention as a rare example of self-described “traditional” Republicans organizing against the party’s hard-right swing of recent years. Ultimately, however, a majority of members of the county GOP committee kept their jobs.

“The predictions of my demise were greatly exaggerated,” Brent Regan, chairman of the GOP committee and target No. 1 for the challengers, posted on X early Wednesday. Regan and other GOP leaders have been linked to far-right figures but have strongly rejected the extremist label.

The rebel bloc’s goal was to win 37 of 73 precinct committee seats, hyperlocal posts that play an outsize role in shaping the direction of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and, by extension, the state party. The establishment challengers picked up 30 seats, according to local news reports, a result that won’t allow them to take power but a sign, they say, that their nascent movement has a future.

“Voters in 30 precincts made it clear - they want to restore integrity to our local party,” said Christa Hazel, an organizer with the breakaway GOP camp.

Still, it was a disappointing finish for organizers who sought a clear rejection of far-right extremism in a place whose history is intertwined with hate. The Aryan Nations and other white-power groups operated near Coeur d’Alene, the area’s main city, for decades.

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Legal challenges and infighting collapsed the Aryan Nations around 2000, but some North Idaho activists fear that the old bigotry has returned with new political cover as ultraconservatives consolidate power and promote North Idaho as a place where White Christians can escape “liberal” ideas about racial diversity and women’s rights.

Regan and others aligned with the ruling hard-liners describe their opponents as RINOs — “Republicans in name only” — who no longer reflect the sensibilities of North Idaho, home to a recent influx of ultraconservative “political refugees” from California and other Western states.

In deep-red North Idaho, as in most of the state, the May primary is regarded as more important than the November election. Both camps of Republicans worked overtime to raise money and get out the vote, portraying the stakes as a battle for the soul of the local GOP.

The rivals aren’t that far apart on a conservative agenda that promotes strict abortion bans and hard-line polices dictating how schools teach about race, gender and sexuality. The split also transcends feelings about former president Donald Trump, who has supporters on both sides. The fissures come mainly over accusations that hard-liners are infusing Christian nationalism into policy and are picking fights that are damaging local education and health-care systems. Critics also charge that the local leaders have grown too cozy with far-right figures who have records of hate speech and extremism.

The most-cited example is Dave Reilly, who attended the 2017 white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, and whom extremism researchers call a far-right propagandist with a history of antisemitic tweets and associations.

Reilly moved to North Idaho and, in 2021, ran for a school board seat, garnering an endorsement from the GOP committee and a donation from Regan. More recently, Reilly was hired by the Idaho Freedom Foundation — where Regan serves as board chairman — to shape communications strategies for the conservative lobbying group, which wields influence statewide.

Reilly didn’t respond to a voice mail seeking comment; he has previously denied accusations that he’s a racist or antisemite. Regan said in an email to The Washington Post that the committee “was not aware” of Reilly’s Twitter posts at the time it endorsed him. He added that he never defended Reilly’s words but has “defended people’s right to free speech and due process.”

Early Wednesday, candidates from the breakaway faction consoled one another with text messages and pledged to keep up momentum in their fight against far-right extremism. They called their 30 new committee seats a good start.

“Not a majority, but a significant step for our community,” said Russell Mann, who lost his campaign for a precinct committee seat in Post Falls, just outside Coeur d’Alene. “While I’m disappointed to not be among them, I’m rooting for the winning challengers to be able to make a positive difference.”

Reilly wasted no time in trolling Mann, who frequently spars with him on X. When the race was called, Reilly posted a photo of himself with Mann’s opponent, Michael Burgess. “God bless Idaho!” Reilly wrote.

The split over extremism has cleaved North Idaho’s political scene in two, with the official party and the more moderate shadow party holding separate events and communicating their messages through rival publications.

In a legislative district north of Coeur d’Alene, the challengers celebrated a win in one race that epitomized the split: a state Senate contest between “traditional” conservative Jim Woodward and Scott Herndon, a self-proclaimed “abortion abolitionist” whose remarks on the subject have drawn national outrage.

After an expensive, hard-fought campaign, Woodward narrowly won with 8,219 votes to Herndon’s 7,606, according to Idaho’s official results.

In an interview with The Post ahead of the primary, Woodward warned that North Idaho was going down a path toward authoritarianism and extremism. He said the election served as a reminder that, even in a deeply conservative area, not everyone is on board with the party’s increasingly rightward shift.

“It’s just people getting together and saying, ‘Hey, we need to push back on this because this is not who we are,’” Woodward said. “This is not what we are in Idaho.”

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