My campaign is surging. Since June 24, my campaign saw a nearly 200% jump in online donors.
In the summer! Most of us try to tune out in June and July, head to the mountains, breathe free Idaho air. Yet, in back-to-back 28-day periods, online donors climbed from 83 to 235 donors.
What’s special about June 24?
That’s the day the US Supreme Court officially began revoking our rights. Many Americans suddenly realized the anti-freedom movement has grown powerful enough to defy the will of 63% Americans who believe abortion should be legal.
States, like Idaho, now make medical decisions for pregnant people. They aren’t choosing life either. Last week, the Idaho Republican Party declared that they want their politicians—who hold all statewide offices and a supermajority in the Legislature—to ban abortions for all cases. Yes. With the help of my opponent, House Speaker Scott Bedke, our Legislature is radical enough to come to heel.
Women notice when their government decides they have no value, no freedom. Women know, for instance, what an ectopic pregnancy is. And, it’s beyond brutal to say a woman should die when it happens. Women notice when their government chooses to kill them by outlawing life-saving medical care.
June 24 had such a monumental effect.
My campaign’s 200% increase in donors is some indication. You can also see the effect in the polls. The Public Religion Research Institute found, in the first week of July, that the SCOTUS decision had little effect on anti-abortion rights voters: 31% will only vote for anti-rights candidates (up 2% from 2020).
A seismic shift happened with Americans who will only vote for abortion-rights candidates. That number leaped from 15 percent in 2020 to 34 percent today.
These are the voters who work the hardest. They knock doors, stamp envelopes, host house parties, they donate—and they always vote. Pro-freedom candidates benefit.
What’s this mean in the lieutenant governor’s race?
It means Speaker Bedke can’t hide his anti-freedom record that indulged extremist lawmakers, scapegoated children and teachers, bullied librarians, and gifted giant tax cuts to wealthy corporate donors while leaving food taxes for the poorest to pay and watching families sink under rising property taxes.
It means we can stop listening to the pro-Bedke nonsense that wants us to give up. Mr. Bedke is in trouble. And he should be because he is wrong, wrong, wrong, for Idaho.
We the People who love Freedom are all here now.
We won’t go back.