Trump election lies, COVID misinformation: New far-right Idaho candidates are on the ballot

Two years ago, some incumbent Republicans lost primary elections to challengers to their right, marking the growth of hard-line conservatives in Idaho politics.

Those legislative victories bolstered a far-right voting bloc at the Statehouse and strengthened the Idaho Freedom Caucus, whose membership and influence have fought with and sometimes swayed the state’s red majority. Far-right lawmakers have endorsed fringe views and proposed passing a range of bills, like ones to outlaw COVID-19 vaccines, limit same sex marriage or pursue the phantom of growing cannibalism.

Now, a set of legislative candidates with extreme views on abortion, COVID-19, the 2020 election and gender-affirming medicine who would be new to the Capitol are running in the May 21 Republican primary.

As Republicans clash in competitive primaries, these challengers in Treasure Valley races have expressed hard-line views, shared misinformation or perpetuated conspiracy theories prominent in far-right circles.

Jarome Bell, District 12

Jarome Bell moved to Idaho to coach football for the Parma Panthers. He previously told the Statesman in an interview that he came to the state to try to rebuild the school’s team, not to be a politician.

This spring, however, Bell is running for the Idaho Senate in Legislative District 12, which covers northwest Nampa. This is not the first time Bell has run for office, after bids for Congress in Virginia in 2022 on a platform packed with far-right talking points.

Bell adheres closely to former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen for Joe Biden, and Bell has said that people who committed “voter fraud” should be executed. He defended those statements to the Statesman last year, saying that they were justified because the U.S. was at war for its decades-long intervention in Afghanistan. Congress never issued a war declaration for it.

The candidate’s far-right beliefs are now part of his campaign against first-term incumbent Sen. Jeff Cornilles, R-Nampa.

This month he touted an endorsement from Mark Finchem, a former Arizona state lawmaker and secretary of state candidate who led efforts in the state to decertify the 2020 presidential election results. Finchem also supported Ammon Bundy’s armed takeover of a wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016 as part of a militant group of officials called the Coalition of Western States.

“It fills me with immense pride to receive recognition from a true champion who fights tirelessly against election fraud and prioritizes the well-being of our nation above all else,” Bell wrote on X, formerly Twitter, of Finchem’s endorsement. “I am motivated to join forces with you in our common goal of safeguarding our elections and ensuring that deserving conservatives hold elected offices.”

Bell has also been endorsed by Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory and amplified a message in 2020 calling on Trump to invoke martial law to hold a new election.

Last month, Bell retweeted a post on X calling on the House to expel Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, from Congress for visiting students at Columbia University protesting the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The post called Omar a “terrorist b—-.”

He also reposted a post calling gender-affirming care for children a “disgusting satanic agenda.”

Bell has been endorsed by the Idaho Freedom PAC, the political action committee of the influential right-wing lobbying group the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

He has posted misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, falsely calling them “bioweapons” last year.

Bell refused to respond to questions from a Statesman reporter on the phone or over email, saying he would only do so if he could livestream the interview on video.

“If you want me to answer any questions, it will have to be live and recorded because you’re wasting my time,” he said in an email.

Brandon Shippy, District 9

In New Plymouth, Brandon Shippy is running for Senate in District 9, a large geographic district that runs from Washington County south to Payette, Fruitland, Parma and Homedale. The candidate has opposed rape exceptions for abortion and said that women traditionally submit to being “under” their husbands when they marry them.

“Babies conceived through consensual relationships enjoy privilege, receiving preferential treatment under Idaho law with legal protection, and consequences for intentional harm,” he posted on X in February. “However, the little baby girl conceived in rape lacks this privilege, facing discrimination solely due to the circumstances of her conception. She receives no legal protection, and the assassin who violently takes her life is shielded by Idaho law. This is unjust and barbaric.”

Idaho’s strict abortion ban prohibits all abortions except to protect a mother’s life or when rape or incest are reported to police.

“Should she die for the sins of her father?” Shippy told the Statesman by phone, defending his view. “If we believe in justice, then let’s also hold to equal justice.”

When asked whether the state should also remove exceptions for incest, Shippy said it should.

“If we have equal value as human beings, then we have to be treated equally,” he said.

In March, he posted that giving names to people is “grounded in hierarchy,” noting that parents assign names to their children because of their authority. Shippy went on to suggest that transgender people are violating God’s wishes.

“When a person renames himself, (changing from Randy to Emily for instance) he is claiming self autonomy from any authority,” he said. “When a man, whom God made a man, claims to be a woman, he is claiming to be his own god.”

Shippy told the Statesman that in his Biblical worldview, transgender people who want to change their name are a symptom of anarchy and an erosion of our society’s respect for authority. He said he wouldn’t support passing a law to prohibit such people from changing their names, but that he would counsel someone against it. He also said people should not be compelled to use a person’s preferred name.

In the same post on X, Shippy wrote that “when a woman takes her husband’s name, she is claiming to be under his authority.”

Shippy told the Statesman his intent was to point out the history of marriage in the West and the reason women take a man’s name. He said many people who still undertake the practice have forgotten the original meaning and acknowledged that most people now understand marriage to be a “50/50” power relationship.

Shippy said the state should stay out of marriage as much as possible and not enforce particular marriage commitments, and that traditions are more connected to our culture. He emphasized that his views do not necessarily overlap with what he thinks should be the law.

“We have a lot that we could benefit from if we study history and we understand how human relationships work and how they used to work,” he said. “Are they working now better than they were then?”

The Weiser candidate has raised more than $83,000. Shippy faces Scott Syme, who previously served three terms in the Idaho House, in the District 9 primary later this month.

Amy Henry, District 13

Amy Henry, a candidate for House seat B in District 13, endorses anti-vaccine views in social media posts and said she believes they should be banned.

Henry has signed a pledge demanding for COVID-19 vaccines to be made unavailable, as have a Senate candidate from Mountain Home in District 8, Christy Zito, and incumbents Rep. Jacyn Gallagher, R-Weiser, who is running for District 9, Rep. Heather Scott in District 2, Rep. Joe Alfieri in District 4, Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld in District 24 and Sen. Tammy Nichols in District 10.

In March, Henry reposted on X false claims about COVID-19 vaccine effects on children, and the post requested they be removed from childhood vaccine recommendations. She has reposted other accounts calling for COVID-19 vaccines to be banned.

She frequently shares X posts from a Texas doctor who was suspended from a Houston hospital and faces a complaint from the state’s medical board over prescriptions she issued during the pandemic, according to media reports.

In February, she reposted one of the doctor’s posts, which read: “Eliminating mandates is not enough. More mRNA shots are coming…. We need to end the experiment, pull these shots until we have long-term safety and efficacy data. It’s common sense.”

Henry has also pushed online for blood donations from vaccinated people to be labeled — a proposition that blood experts, like those at the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies, say is unnecessary because the concerns are based on misinformation.

Henry has spent two years working for Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, a lawmaker who sponsored a bill to criminalize vaccines last year.

Henry told the Statesman she is running to focus on government transparency. As an educator and mother, she said she saw a large number of her children’s peers kill themselves during the pandemic and struggle with remote learning.

She said her skepticism about vaccines began when her husband, an Air Force veteran, was required to take the anthrax vaccine, which she believes injured him. She said she thinks the COVID-19 vaccines should be pulled until “we have all the data and information.”

“It’s concerning to me that we are questioning the people who want to remove this one,” she said. “In the past, any vaccine that has ever caused this much damage to people is pulled instantly.”

She said she “studied chemistry pre-med” and has “seen the autopsies and the blood clots.”

“Go research it, please,” she said.

Medical researchers have identified very rare severe side effects from COVID-19 vaccines. But conspiracy theories about the vaccines have proliferated and been debunked. Hundreds of millions of people have taken doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, which are estimated to have kept millions of people from being hospitalized or dying.

Henry faces Kenny Wroten, a first-term representative who has been under fire from Idaho’s far-right faction of the Republican Party. Another challenger in the race is Steve Tanner, a Republican data analyst and pastor.