This year’s Democratic primary has enough storylines to keep Idaho voters tuned in well before the May 19 primary and the first Tuesday in November. Paulette Jordan’s entrance into the U.S. Senate race gives the Democrats, at the very least, an interesting candidate to challenge incumbent Jim Risch.
Respectable Idahoans, Travis Oler and James Vandermaas are also running for the Democratic nomination, but this race effectively ended on Feb. 14 when news broke of Nancy Harris’s withdrawal from the race. The Boise businesswoman had the most developed policy platform of any candidate in the race but withdrew after citing health reasons. Jordan has the name recognition, but Harris’s campaign addressed Idahoan issues in effective layman’s terms that could have swung disenchanted supporters of the establishment.
Jordan brings a jolt of energy into the race, riding a substantial wave stemming from her run for governor race in 2018. She earned the most votes for a Democratic candidate for governor in Idaho ever, but still lost the race to Brad Little by more than 20 points. This earned criticism for a campaign that seemed at times superficial and
too concerned with garnering national acclaim rather than aligning itself with Idahoans and their concerns.
With less than nine months until the general election and her only clear rival for the nomination out of contention, Jordan now must evolve from a shooting star to a viable politician on the national stage. She can be the future of progressivism in Idaho, but her campaign needs to take every opportunity before the election to address some serious issues that would have been exposed in direct contention with Harris’s more developed platform.
Paulette Jordan almost represents a progressive’s dream candidate, but
her campaign lacks a politician’s first responsibility policy. She has meticulously crafted an image of a powerful woman with a diverse and tested background, but nowhere in her website or elsewhere can you find a satisfactory description of what she wants to accomplish and how. There are plenty of media appearances, digs at Risch, and an effective social media team member manager behind the scenes, but one really must squint to see what she’s campaigning on.
After combing through her website and online presence, I found a grand total of 28 words from Jordan detailing the ‘policies’ she is campaigning on. While Jordan has the name recognition to coast through the May 19 primary, there simply will have to be more than platitudes and barbs directed at Risch if she is going to make any real noise in November.
No campaign is perfect, but any campaign to unseat an incumbent Republican in Idaho will have to be nearly flawless to suceed. Fortunately, there are a variety of avenues to augment Jordan’s position in the months leading up to the first Tuesday in November.
The first step is to focus on Idaho. Up to this point, Jordan’s tactic has been to agonize over the senate impeachment hearings in January, when Risch embarrassingly fell asleep during the beginning of the third impeachment trial in our nation’s history. That image and its metaphor of sleeping at the wheel need to be extended to Idahoans more than a national embarrassment. Take aim at Risch’s cruise control support of President Donald Trump and his extreme anti-choice stance on abortion as crimes of negligence. Add in Risch’s A+ rating from the NRA, and it is easy to imagine a portrait of the senator as a relic during a time when Idahoans need visionaries more than ever.
As noted above, it is equally important to put together an airtight policy platform before it is too late. Idaho will not be convinced by simple claims of adequate health care and affordable education. Jordan needs to take a page out of Harris’s book and give us point-by-point breakdowns of as many issues as possible with immediately recognizable goals. When clashing directly with Risch in the media or on the debate stage in October, it will be imperative to convincingly bring national issues to an Idahoan context and capitalize on Risch’s growing disconnect with the people he supposedly represents.
Finally, Jordan will have to step outside the comfort zone of her core audience, the younger and more diverse sects of Idaho’s population. Despite the outsized energy these groups can imbue upon the electoral process, they are no match for the sheer numbers of Idaho’s electorate. The most recent census pegs Idaho as 93% white, and only 29% of the electorate coming from the 18-39 age group. Appeals and concessions will have to be made to Idahoans that voted for Butch Otter and George Bush, as difficult as that seems. Idahoans are not without pride, however, and could be receptive to sensible compromise contrasted with Risch’s drowsy acquiescence to whatever future Trump desires.
Idaho has not elected a Democratic senator since Frank Church left office
in 1981, and it would admittedly take an incredible wave among Idahoans to break the nearly 40-year run by Republicans. That being said, Jim Risch has misrepresented plenty of Idahoans that could opt for a different future with the right push.
If Jordan is to be that mold-breaker, she and her campaign have plenty of
work to do.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker