On Tuesday, GOP Rep. Raúl Labrador announced that he would run to succeed retiring Idaho Gov. Butch Otter next year. Labrador, who represents half of the state in Congress, is one of D.C.’s most notorious tea party bomb throwers: Labrador was a founder and remains an influential member of the nihilistic House Freedom Caucus. Labrador made the news again a few days ago when he told a town hall that, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” Labrador tried defending himself later, conceding that, while his statement wasn’t “very elegant,” he “was responding to a false notion that the Republican Health Care plan will cause people to die in the streets, which I completely reject.”
Despite his prominent perch in D.C., Labrador seemed stymied in Congress. When Labrador ran for House majority leader in 2014 his bid against California’s Kevin McCarthy went nowhere, with Labrador lacking even the basic contact info for his colleagues. Labrador has spent years raising his profile back home, but it hasn’t always gone well. In 2014, a little while before the majority leader race, Labrador was the chair of a chaotic state party convention that broke into infighting. According to the The Spokesman-Review's Betty Russell, Labrador “ended the convention facing jeers and walkouts from his own party members.”
The GOP nominee will be heavily favored to hold the governor’s office next year, but Labrador doesn’t have a clear path through the primary. Lt. Gov. Brad Little, who has Otter’s support, kicked off his bid last year. Developer Tommy Ahlquist is also in, and he started running commercials well over a year before the 2018 primary. Ex-state Sen. Russ Fulcher, who lost the 2014 primary to Otter by a surprisingly close 51-44 margin, also wants the job, and it’s possible he’ll peel off some anti-establishment voters Labrador wants.