The results are still coming in, but New York Times, Associated Press, Fox News, Decision Desk and others are all saying that Donald J. Trump will be our 47th president! It is kind of shocking to be able to say that without wondering if certain cities will pull out magical absentee ballots in the dead of night, but the chances of that are getting slimmer and slimmer as the night wore on.
In a shocking turn of events, Trump FLIPPED Georgia and Pennsylvania and is winning in ALL seven swing states.
Idaho Ballot Measures Update
Idaho had two measures on the ballot: a constitutional amendment to add language to our Idaho Constitution that only allows US citizens the chance to vote, and a ballot initiative to bring in ranked choice voting to Idaho.
The constitutional amendment had to have a 2/3rds vote supermajority in the legislature to get it onto the ballot, where it only needed a simple 50% majority to become real.
Proposition 1, the ballot initiative that would bring jungle primaries and ranked choice voting into Idaho looks like it will be soundly defeated by the good people of this state.
Objectors to Prop 1 used Alaska as an example of why ranked choice voting is not good, with a repeal RCV initiative on Alaska’s November ballot. Results are still preliminary, but it looks like Alaska will have successfully repealed ranked choice voting in their own state. I want to congratulate Phil Izone who spearheaded that repealing process and the great people of Alaska for their hard work and dedication to making Alaska voting safe again!
Kootenai County Races
Our Kootenai County Elections office is one of the finest county offices and we are lucky to have GOOD people running our elections. I remember in 2020, when I was physically at the Elections Office watching them count ballots, I didn’t leave the office until 5:30am Wednesday morning. The 2020 election had 103,552 registered voters and 90,519 ballots cast. There was an 87.41% voter turnout, and the ballot was 2 pages…it seemed like it took forever to get results.
In 2024 however, there are 112,541 registered voters and the ballot is 4 pages. Because the ballot is twice as long and there are 9,000 more registered voters this election cycle, I predicted that we will not have final ‘unofficial’ results until around 10am but the Elections team is the best in the state, and got the tabulation done by 7:45am! Great job team!
Kootenai County Sample Ballot Results
Overall conservatives won in Kootenai County but lost in the North Idaho College trustee races and school levys. I wasn't too surprised (except with how close the Lakeland School District levy failed) because there was a high priority on defeating Prop 1 but disappointing nonetheless. This gives us a strong foundation going into 2025; the Prop 1 advocates already have their next ballot initiative ready to go - bringing back abortion rights under the guise of women's reproductive healthcare - so we will be focused on bringing awareness on fighting that initiative in the coming year.
In the meantime, full county results and tabulations are below. View them on the Secretary of State website here.
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