James Risch

WASHINGTON – Democratic Party leaders in Idaho’s most populous county think they have their best chance in decades to oust an incumbent Republican senator. They just aren’t sure a Democrat is the one to do it.

The Ada County Democrats sent a letter on July 8 to David Roth, who won their party’s primary in May, giving him just over a month to prove his campaign “has turned a corner” and has a chance of unseating Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican who has represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate since 2009. If Roth doesn’t raise $50,000 and produce a campaign plan by Aug. 12, the party’s executive committee said, it will consider endorsing Todd Achilles, an independent candidate whose campaign has picked up steam in recent months.

“We have a real opportunity to defeat Risch, but we’re seriously concerned your campaign isn’t positioned to meet the moment,” the committee wrote, noting that Roth’s campaign was financially underwater, with more debt than money raised. “We can’t afford to let this moment slip away in the best political environment Idaho has seen in decades.”

The letter, obtained by The Spokesman-Review, begins by thanking Roth for “stepping up” and running in previous elections – earning about 35% of votes in a state House race in 2020, under 29% in a 2022 race for U.S. Senate and 31% in a U.S. House race in 2024 – and noting “how challenging it is” for Democrats to run in Idaho, where registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats more than 5 -to-1. The ultimatum “isn’t a judgment on you or your abilities,” the committee wrote, but a reality check.

“We’re in unprecedented times,” the letter continues, blaming Risch for enabling President Donald Trump’s policies. “The threat of fascism has never been more real in this country’s 250-year history. Trump and his allies are dismantling the social safety net our party spent decades building. Citizens are being gunned down in the streets of our cities by masked agents. The future of the country hangs on what happens in November.”

Jared DeLoof, chair of the Ada County Democrats, confirmed that the executive committee voted unanimously to send the letter to Roth. The committee offers to meet with Roth “to understand what’s going on” and concludes by saying, “We simply want the best path forward for everyone fighting to save this country.”

Roth isn’t having it. Reached by phone on Thursday, he called the Ada County Democrats’ demands “completely ridiculous” and said he told DeLoof directly on June 9 he has no intention of complying with the committee’s request.

“It is no secret that many of the precinct captains and leadership in Ada County are strong supporters of Todd Achilles,” Roth said, adding that he suspects those local Democratic leaders would use any campaign plan he provides to benefit Achilles.

“What this is all about is a concerted effort within some within the party, and of course the Achilles campaign, to force me out of the race,” he said. “There is no mechanism for them to actually do that, and so what they’re doing instead is trying everything that they can under the sun to accomplish that.”

Roth pointed out that he won the Democratic primary, including in Ada County, which houses Boise and about a quarter of Idaho’s population. In a state with more than 1 million registered voters, he received fewer than 21,000 votes in that primary. Meanwhile, Risch received fewer than 78,000 votes in the GOP primary, in which only registered Republicans may vote.

Idahoans haven’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1974, the last time the late Frank Church won re-election. Achilles, an Army veteran from Oregon who said he bought a home in Idaho about 20 years ago and moved to the state full-time a decade later, jumped into the race with the idea that Idaho voters who wouldn’t back a Democrat may be more open to an independent.

Inspired by the 2024 campaign of independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska, who lost to Republican Sen. Deb Fischer but outperformed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in the deep-red state, Achilles is running on a platform that includes stopping government corruption, reducing national debt, defending gun rights, ending “endless wars” and cutting the cost of living. In a statement, Achilles said people across the state and across the political spectrum have told him they’re excited about his campaign.

“This year, closed party primaries left Idahoans between a rock and a hard place: choosing between the oldest, richest senator in Idaho’s history, and a perennial candidate whose own party recognizes that he is unprepared and unfit,” he said. “Idahoans deserve better, and that is why I am running as an independent.”

Idaho law lets each party choose which voters may participate in their primaries. This year, only the state’s roughly 647,000 registered Republicans could vote in the closed GOP primary, but the Idaho Democratic Party kept its primary open, letting the state’s more than 245,000 unaffiliated voters participate along with about 121,000 registered Democrats.

Risch, a former Ada County prosecutor who went on to lead the state Senate and briefly serve as Idaho’s governor, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008 with nearly 58% of votes, then re-elected in 2014 with over 65% and again in 2020 with more than 62% of votes. The 83-year-old senator has a net worth of about $55 million, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by NOTUS, which puts him at No. 11 among the country’s wealthiest senators.

A simmering debate among Risch’s critics about which Senate candidate to back came to a head in June, when former Rep. Larry LaRocco, a Democrat who represented Idaho’s 1st Congressional District from 1991 to 1995 and lost to Risch in the 2008 race, wrote an op-ed in the Lewiston Tribune calling on Roth to drop out. In a year when control of the Senate is expected to come down to the wire, LaRocco argued, Achilles could have a shot to upset Risch – or at least force national GOP donors to spend their money to protect an otherwise safe seat – but only if Roth takes his name off the ballot before the Sept. 4 deadline.

“The Gem State’s Senate race would demand national attention if it were a head-to-head race between independent Todd Achilles and incumbent Republican Jim Risch,” LaRocco wrote. “As much as I admire tenacity, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that Roth will improve on the zero-for-three record of his prior campaigns. In fact, his presence in the race almost assures Risch a victory, allowing him to serve in the U.S. Senate until he’s 89.”

Hard-fought Senate campaigns routinely draw millions in outside spending by groups aligned with each candidate.

According to Federal Election Commission filings at the end of June, Risch had a war chest of more than $3.5 million cash on hand after spending over $3 million so far in the campaign cycle. Achilles had raised over $692,000 and spent more than $506,000, with about $194,000 in the bank and no debt.

Meanwhile, as of April 29, Roth reported raising about $8,600 and had roughly $1,000 cash on hand, but his campaign owed more than $10,000 in debt. As of Friday, he hadn’t filed an updated FEC report through the end of June, which was due two days earlier.

In an interview, Roth acknowledged he hasn’t been raising money but said “it doesn’t help” that Democrats in the state’s biggest county haven’t backed his campaign. He argued he has a “really, really slim” path to victory in a race against Risch and Achilles, while he thinks a two-way race would give Risch even better odds of victory.

“I’m the farthest-left progressive candidate that there is in Idaho, I swear to God,” Roth said. “I have always contended that we cannot win enough moderate Republican votes in order to win the election. In the three-way race, Idaho’s a plurality. I don’t actually have to get the moderate Republican votes. I just need Risch not to get them.”

The conundrum for Idaho Democrats mirrors the situation in neighboring Montana, where independent Senate candidate Seth Bodnar has the backing of prominent Democrats and a major fundraising advantage over Alani Bankhead, who won the Democratic primary after a super PAC spent more than $3 million to help her defeat another Democrat who refused to drop out and endorse Bodnar – only for Bankhead to do the same. In contrast, Nebraska Democrats organized to back Osborn by choosing a Democratic candidate who pledged to drop out after winning the party’s primary, clearing the way for the independent candidate.

Outside of Ada County, Democrats in Idaho aren’t sure what to do. On Tuesday, the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee voted to remain neutral in the race, endorsing neither Roth nor Achilles, the party’s Vice Chair Adam Bennett said.