Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

4-2026

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Government

Reader 1

Professor Jon Shields

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the political transformation of Idaho from a competitive two-party state with deep labor and New Deal roots into one of the most conservative Republican strongholds in the United States. It argues that Idaho's rightward shift occurred in four compounding waves: 1) The Reagan Revolution and Right-to-Work legislation of the 1980s destroyed union infrastructure. 2) The NAFTA-era and Timber Wars of the 1990s allowed Republicans to seize the populist narrative from the Democratic Party. 3) Nationalization of Idaho conservatism, through the Idaho Freedom Foundation since 2009, leveraged out-of-state money and influence to drive the Idaho Republican Party beyond ideological moderation. 4) Idaho received tens of thousands of new voters from mostly liberal states like California through demographic resorting.

This analysis draws on original interviews with Idaho Governor Brad Little, Idaho journalist Zach Hagadone, and professor of political science, Dr. Jasper LiCalzi, and an original dataset compiling the educational attainment, religion, and nativity of current Idaho legislators cross-referenced with Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) rankings and recent legislative votes. This paper finds that Idaho Republican legislators’ dissent on bills targeting culture war issues like LGBTQ+ rights, abortion access, and local government authority correlates with lower IFF scores, higher educational attainment, Idaho nativity, and membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The paper concludes that while pockets of resistance remain, structural forces continue driving Idaho to the right, including the IFF’s control over the Idaho Republican Party, demographic realignment, and the wholesale nationalization of Idaho politics.

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