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Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has long been a conservative Republican, but when he refused to endorse anti-election lawsuits after Election Day 2020, the right turned on him with a vengeance. Former Rep. Raúl Labrador launched a comeback bid — four years after running a failed gubernatorial campaign — and took on Wasden in a GOP primary.
It wasn’t especially close: The former far-right congressman defeated the incumbent state attorney general by nearly 14 points.
And now, a surprising number of leading Republican voices have taken a keen interest in this race — and are rallying in support of Labrador’s Democratic rival. The Associated Press reported:
Nearly 50 longtime Idaho Republicans, including a former governor and dozens of other past and current officeholders, on Tuesday endorsed the Democratic candidate for attorney general in November’s election. Republicans attended a news conference at the Statehouse with Boise attorney Tom Arkoosh, who has said he has no political ambitions other than to run the office fairly.
Republican Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, who leads the Idaho Senate’s powerful State Affairs Committee, declared, “Tom Arkoosh is the first candidate on the Democratic ticket I have supported in my 66 years of work with the Republican Party.”
She was joined by a GOP group that included former Idaho Gov. Phil Batt, former Idaho first lady Lori Otter, former state attorney general Jim Jones and former secretary of state Ben Ysursa.
These are not obscure, low-level figures. On the contrary, Arkoosh may still be an underdog — Idaho hasn’t elected a Democratic state attorney general in more than three decades — but the Republican support he received this week is fairly dramatic, and emblematic of the discomfort some in the GOP feel about their party’s radicalization.
What’s more, it’s part of an unexpected pattern in the 2022 cycle. As we recently discussed, in Kansas’ gubernatorial race, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has picked up the backing of two former Republican governors and a former Republican U.S. senator — who used to employ Kelly’s GOP rival.
A few weeks earlier in Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer picked up support from more than 150 Michigan Republicans, including a former member of Congress and the former head of the state GOP.
Shortly before that, in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro received endorsements from a surprising number of prominent Republicans, including two former GOP congressmen, a former GOP state House speaker and a member of George W. Bush’s presidential Cabinet.
It’s difficult to predict how many votes will be swayed by endorsements like these, but Republicans in these states appear to be effectively giving permission to their own party’s voters to support Democratic candidates in key contests.