Regan’s IFF and GOP organizations have laid out welcome mat for extremists to move to Idaho

Second of two parts. Part One here.

Generally speaking, Idaho voters statewide have served as something of a bulwark against the spread of far-right extremism within the ranks of the Republican Party. When the state’s militia-loving lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin—who spoke in February to the annual convention of the white-nationalist America First PAC—ran against incumbent Brad Little for the governor’s seat along with a slate of similarly extreme candidates for state schools superintendent, secretary of state and lieutenant governor, they were all defeated at the polls. McGeachin lost badly, 61%-25%.

The far right, however, never concedes defeat. Only two months later, a faction of far-right activists led by Dorothy Moon, the far-right legislator who had lost the race for secretary of state, successfully took over the Idaho GOP’s party apparatus. A similarly extremist slate of activists for state Senate seats was also successful in the primary—meaning that far-right legislation criminalizing abortion and transgender therapy, among other similarly extreme laws, that were derailed in the Senate in the 2022 session are likely to succeed in a future session.

The nexus of that takeover—and of the extremist political faction fueled by the influx of right-wing newcomers to the state—is a singular man: Brent Regan, chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee (KCRCC) and, more importantly, board chairman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). Since taking over the KCRCC in 2009 and then chairing the IFF in 2016, Regan has fashioned himself a career as a kingmaker of Idaho's far-right politics, and thus become one of the most powerful men in the state.