Logan Ramsey
Associate Editor
On Nov. 6, Paulette Jordan will be one of a handful of options voters have for Idaho’s next governor.
No matter what you think of her as a candidate, it would be a historic day for Idaho and for the country if she were elected. She would be the first female governor of Idaho and the first Native American governor in the U.S.
In recent history, Idaho has been one of the reddest, if not the reddest, state in the country. The last time Idaho had a Democrat in the governor’s mansion was in 1995 when Cecil Andrus left office.
Before that, the state was fairly split. There were a lot of factors that contributed to the Republican party’s growth, but in my opinion, the primary reasons were because of Republicans from California migrating to the state and the Democratic Party’s adoption of environmental issues, which made many farmers feel like their livelihoods were threatened.
To win, Jordan has to get a significant number of first-time voters. Even if every Tommy Ahlquist voter switched party lines, Jordan would still come short of the combined total of Brad Little and Raul Labrador’s votes.
The pros
I think she would be better for education than Little. I agree with her in that Medicaid should be expanded, and I like that she’s in support of legalizing marijuana.
But it’s not just that I like her positions. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing her three times for the Idaho State Journal where I noticed her commanding leadership presence.
If you ask anyone else who has met her, I’ll bet you’ll hear the same thing from them.
I still think that her as a candidate, with her education, diverse experience and leadership ability far outmatches anyone else that ran in the primaries.
The cons
Multiple campaign members have resigned.
The staff hasn’t said why they left because they signed a non-disclosure agreement before the campaign, so legally they can’t, but if nothing else, it shows disorganization in her campaign.
From my experience with working with her campaign as a reporter, the way her communication officials deal with the press is disorganized. It wasn’t irregular to see a press release the day before an event was happening (typically, they are sent much earlier).
I think that her campaign has gotten better at dealing with reporters, but I think their disorganization before has held them back.
I think another problem with her campaign is disorganized messaging.
I’ve felt like Jordan has been fighting pulls in two different directions. One pull has been to show her true progressive self and the other to strike a more moderate tone that’s more likely to get her elected.
I think she’s attempted to do both, for instance, when she called herself a “progressive conservative”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, but I think that it’s just made her message unclear when she needs to be decisive and tell the people of Idaho exactly who she is.
But campaign disorganization is something that can be easily remedied if she was to run again. I think the larger issue is that if Jordan is elected, the rest of Idaho’s government will still be extremely red, and because of that, I don’t think she would be able to get many of her policies through.
I think it depends on how she would work with the legislature, but I think it’s likely that gridlock between the governor’s office and state lawmakers would increase.
