Do you think Idaho will be swing in 2040s

[Hope For A New Era]

Idaho is really interesting. On paper it should be moving left at near Georgia-speed - and maybe it is - but it's just so R that it doesn't really affect anything right now, and it's not 100% clear that it will in the future either.

However, 2018 had something really interesting happen. The Republican incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Sheri Ybarra won by just 5566 votes, 1.3%. So we actually have a map of roughly what a Democratic victory in Idaho would look like under current coalitions (which of course would require a Roy Moore scenario, but 2018 shows that clearly it's possible), and it's interesting:

- Huge D overperformance in cities - Ada and Bannock both voted Wilson +19 (before voting for Trump in 2020)
- Eastern rural margin-cut. This is really impressive. Franklin is possibly the most Mormon county in the country. In 2020, Biden got 10% of the vote in this county. Cindy Wilson in 2018 got 44%.

So the future Idaho D coalition, if there is ever to be one, seems to involve a realignment of Mormons, both urban and rural, to the Democratic Party, and quite a spectacular one at that. That plus population density trends seems to be just enough.*

*Democrats will have to figure out how to break in to small cities. Bannock (Pocatello) routinely votes D in statewide races and is represented by Democrats in the legislature, but Trump still won it big. This is also crucial for future victories in Kansas (get Salina and Hays looking like Iowa towns on that NYT map).