James Petzke

A retrospective candidate-set comparison finds a non-random-looking overlap that merits issue-by-issue follow-up but does not itself prove common strategy. In June 2023, the Idaho Republican State Central Committee formally passed Resolution 2023-43 issuing a vote of no confidence to Gov. Brad Little and fourteen Republican House members over their votes against overriding Little's veto of HB 314. The resolution expressly said those lawmakers had voted in conflict with the then-current Republican platform; it named Richard Cheatum, Chenele Dixon, Rod Furniss, Dan Garner, Greg Lanting, Lori McCann, Stephanie Mickelsen, Jack Nelsen, James Petzke and others. In the 2026 Republican primary, Defend and Protect Idaho spent independently to support at least four people from that 2023 no-confidence list: Lori McCann, Rick Cheatum, Rod Furniss and Stephanie Mickelsen. Defend and Protect's 2026 largest donor was Way Back PAC at $350,000 according to contemporaneous reporting/FEC-derived data. The 's Spring 2026 endorsement list also endorsed Cheatum, Furniss, McCann and Mickelsen, as well as several other candidates supported by Defend and Protect such as , and . This does not establish that the 2023 HB 314 dispute explains the 2026 support decisions, nor that Way Back or IDI-PAC sought candidates because of platform divergence. It does establish that two distinct support networks—one substantially financed by Way Back through Defend and Protect, the other organized around dairy-industry interests—converged in 2026 on several Republican candidates whom the official state party had previously identified by name in a platform-conflict/no-confidence resolution. Next step is to compare each candidate's later record across school choice, immigration/E-Verify, Medicaid, abortion, spending and other issues rather than treating the 2023 resolution as a general ideological verdict.