Janice McGeachin, the Trump-endorsed candidate in Idaho’s gubernatorial race, misplaced Tuesday’s Republican major to incumbent Governor Brad Little.
At the time that the race was referred to as for Little by the Associated Press, McGeachin, who presently serves because the state’s lieutenant governor, had solely acquired about 31 p.c of the GOP vote.
McGeachin, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in November, has been arguably probably the most excessive candidate that the previous president has endorsed within the midterms.
She has ties to the far proper, having appeared and defended her participation at a March convention held by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, in addition to sustaining connections with anti-government militia the Three Percenters.
She additionally ran on a marketing campaign promising a complete ban on abortion that makes no exceptions for rape, incest or the well being of the mom. She has even gone as far as to accuse her opponent—who lately signed a state ban on most abortions after six weeks of being pregnant—of “siding with the radical leftists and satanists” in his pro-life stance.
Just final week, McGeachin mentioned that “God calls us to pick up the sword and fight, and Christ will reign in the state of Idaho.”
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McGeachin has been one in all Trump’s earliest supporters and has continued to face by the previous president’s facet, serving to him promote false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by voter fraud.
“My campaign has been endorsed by President Trump because I stand for ‘America first’ policies including individual liberty, election integrity, a strong and secure border, school choice, energy independence, reducing taxes and regulations, and supporting American businesses,” she instructed the Longview News-Journal earlier this month.
“In 2020, we saw election laws changed and broken all over the country, and because of this, we saw a breakdown of election security and an increase in corruption,” she was quoted by the Idaho Press. “Even here in Idaho, Mr. Little chose to follow the Democrats’ lead by changing the election date and not allowing in-person voting.”
Over the final yr, McGeachin has spearheaded the right-wing faction of Idaho’s Republican Party, publicly feuding with Little over his dealing with of the pandemic.
Even although Little by no means issued a statewide masks mandate, McGeachin tried to difficulty an government order banning masks necessities utilizing her energy as performing governor when Little was out of state on enterprise.
Last May, she issued an order banning masks mandates regardless of Little’s insistence that these selections ought to be left as much as native officers. The governor rapidly reversed the order and referred to as McGeachin’s transfer an “irresponsible, self-serving political stunt.”
Just a few months later, once more with Little out of state, McGeachin issued a different order that sought so as to add Okay-12 faculties and universities to a ban on vaccine passports that solely utilized to state authorities businesses. Little additionally rescinded the second order made by McGeachin.
Tuesday’s face-off between McGeachin and Little was one of many nation’s most watched major races and will function “a bellwether for the strength of extremist politics in the Pacific Northwest,” in accordance with The Seattle Times.