BOISE, Idaho — The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of our lives. It’s forced some out of work and others to work from home while juggling personal lives.
The coronavirus is also making its presence felt for candidates seeking votes in Idaho’s May 19 primary, as they try to gain support.
“It's really been difficult to reach people, especially en mass,” District 17 Senate candidate Ali Rabe said.
Candidates like Rabe and her primary competitor, Adriel Martinez, are trying to get voters’ attention.
They're running to fill the vacancy left by Maryanne Jordan in the Idaho State Senate. That district represents a large swath of the Boise Bench.
“Our original campaign plan was to host events,” Rabe said. “And knock on a lot of doors and meet people face to face, and obviously we can't do that for the safety of the community.”
It’s an obstacle Martinez has run into as well.
“We can't knock on any doors,” he said. “You're just putting people at risk.”
Instead, they're now focusing on online-only efforts. Both have been active on their candidate Facebook pages. They’ve posted videos there and held virtual town halls.
“I held one with Maryanne Jordan," Rabe said. "She and I talked about her experiences in the legislature. I held one with my college professor, Jasper LiCalzi, from the College of Idaho. He talked about his impressions of the legislative session and he gave his expert opinion, and we drew in some College of Idaho folks. Go Yotes.”
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Meanwhile, Martinez has been conducting Facebook live Q&A sessions on his official candidate campaign page.
“It’s been really nice and then people are very interactive on social media, so they ask questions and I answer them,” he said.
Both will appear on the Democratic ballot for voters who live in District 17. So both want to get out their ideas for the State Senate.
“Housing is one of my top priorities, obviously,” said Rabe, who is the executive director for Jesse Tree, a nonprofit that works to keep people in their homes by preventing evictions.
She told KTVB she wants to invest in the housing trust fund. and address issues around landlord and tenant laws to prevent homelessness.
The two other big issues she wants to work on include education and criminal justice reform.
“We are dumping tens of millions of dollars into our criminal justice system in this state,” she said. “I think that’s money that should be reinvested elsewhere.”
Martinez is an Army veteran who graduated from Boise State in 2016. He served two year-long deployments in Afghanistan. His page also states he served in Italy and Washington state. He currently works for FedEx Express.
He also ran unsuccessfully for Boise City Council in 2017 and Boise Mayor in 2019.
He tells KTVB the big three issues he's focused on are lowering taxes, legalizing marijuana, and rent reform with affordable housing.
“I’ve been talking about getting rid of the grocery tax, so our grocery tax is unnecessary,” he said. “Why are we are taxing a necessity? We’re one of the last states that taxes groceries."
In the state of Idaho, the primary election ends up being pretty important.
“A lot of races in Idaho come down to the primary, mostly the Republican races throughout the state,” Boise State Professor Stephanie Witt said. “Here in Boise it can sometimes be reversed.”
Witt is a professor and the director of training for the School of Public Service. She said it’s really anyone’s guess how the current health pandemic will impact the election.
“We've never had a pandemic in the middle of an election before in so many decades that we don't know what it looks like,” she said.
It’s also unclear how having two new candidates for a race could be affected by the online campaigning compared to old-fashioned door-knocking.
“I don’t have any measure about which one is getting better name recognition,” she said. “Both of these people have been active in local community events and issues so they may be known to the more likely voters.”
On top of campaigning virtually, the primary is being conducted entirely via absentee voting. There will be no in-person voting at all.
In order to get a ballot, people can go to Idahovotes.gov and request it. People can also fill out a form that should come in the mail. People can request a ballot up to election day, May 19.
This year results will be released on June 2 at 9:00p.m.
For a full look at what's on your ballot and other election-related stories, check out our voter guide page.
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