Idaho is a Trumpy state. You won’t easily find anyone to argue with that. I certainly wouldn’t try.
But things are rarely quite that simple, as a new poll subtly suggests.
Before we get to that, you have to consider the evidence of Donald Trump support. In the 2016 general election, he received 59.2% of the Idaho vote. In 2020, he got 63.8%. In 2024, it was 66.9%, winning 42 of 44 counties. So the percentages have been growing.
Such abundance doesn’t come without its cost, though.
Anyone who’s worked in or around a legislature will tell you that a small majority is easier to lead or unify than a very large one. Big legislative caucuses have a way of fracturing in critical moments; it’s happened from time to time in recent years in the Idaho Legislature, so heavily dominated by Republicans. The reasons are simple and common through human nature; we’re all a little bit different, and the larger any group of people becomes, the more differences, over time, are likely to arise.
This point comes up in the context of a poll commissioned by the Mountain States Policy Institute, which describes itself as a think tank but one which has reached its conclusions from the outset, in favor of “ free markets and limited government.” So you would expect that if it runs and releases the results of a poll, it’s unlikely to release results running counter to its stated purpose in life - which as a matter of practice, albeit not official statement, is apt to favor Republicans, at least most of the time. Any bias in the other direction would be truly shocking.
(Don’t confuse this survey with the annual Boise State University poll which covers some of the same topic areas; it’s differently set up and conducted for different purposes.)
That’s not to say the polling is off base. Its new poll also notes for example housing affordability as a top concern among Idahoans, which seems obviously true. It certainly offers useful material to work with.
The 2026 Idaho Poll, conducted January 2 through 9 of 800 Idaho registered voters, asked a question about Trump’s approval in the state, and the details are worth parsing.
It asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Trump is performing his job?” The bottom online was 59% favorable and 39% disapproving (with 1% “not sure”). That’s clearly favorable, but if accurate, represents a big drop from the vote a little more than a year ago.
The more interesting piece was the breakdown between those “strongly” or “somewhat” approving or disapproving. It showed 26% strongly approving of Trump and 33% just somewhat; more soft support than hard.
And more interesting than that, while just 11% said they “somewhat” disapproved of Trump, 28% strongly did - more than strongly approved of him.
As a point of comparison, another set of highly localized data from the monthly Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll puts Trump’s Idaho approval number at 56.8%, third highest in the nation (behind West Virginia and Oklahoma); by comparison, in the city of Portland (they really don’t like Trump) approval is at 14.4%. Approval in Ada County was listed as 38% while, obviously, it was much higher in the rest of the state (highest in central Idaho).
What conclusions might we draw from this?
One I would suggest is that Trump voters or supporters (in Idaho) are not all alike. That group of 26% strong supporters are the hard core true believers, the unshakeable backers. But the group of softer supporters are another matter. Most of them probably have a hard time with the thought of voting Democratic, but they’re not entirely comfortable with Trump either. His actions over the last year seem likely to have shaken their support to a degree.
The Trump support is in shades and degrees.
Monoliths never look as monolithic when you look at them more closely.
So the Idaho legislature is in session, and we should all be paying attention. For we elected these clowns. Maybe a clown show is what we want.
One thing seems certain about this year’s legislative session. With a daunting budget shortfall lying before them, it’s a good bet that trimming budgets will be high on the lawmakers’ “do” list.
Not many of us have been to Greenland. 
Two news headlines during the first week of the year made my blood run cold. The first, on January 5, declared: “
If you’ve become accustomed to headlines about Oregon losing population as people flee the state, be prepared for something different.
Well, here we are, nearly a year into Trump’s second term and could anyone have really imagined how bad things could get? Consider:.jpg){kind=link}