Eric Parker, who was also involved in the 2014 standoff and founded a Three Percenters group in Idaho, is running for a state Senate seat. Meanwhile, Ammon Bundy, who led an armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016, is also running for governor, but as an independent after calling the current Republican Party a “corrupt and wicked”.
At the event in Bonners Ferry, speakers denounced the work of Republicans at the State Capitol.
State House candidate Spencer Hutchings was the one advocating making machine guns generally available. Scott Trotter, candidate for the United States Senate, has promised to sing a Christian worship song on the floor of the chamber on his first day in office. Dorothy Moon, a candidate for secretary of state, called on Idaho, which has one of the highest concentrations of public land in the country, to regain control of it from the federal government.
State Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who was censured by her colleagues after she publicly identified a state Capitol intern who said she was raped by a state legislator, is running for lieutenant governor against the State House Speaker Scott Bedke, an anti-abortion, pro-gun constitutional conservative. Ms Giddings ended her campaign speech at the Bonners Ferry forum with an ominous message, saying that if she doesn’t win people should ‘plant your gardens and keep buying munitions’.
In northern Idaho, it’s not hard to find people who are worried about the future of the country and prepared for the possibility of civil conflict.
Earl Borer, 72, who attended the Birch Society event, said he saw this year’s election as a watershed moment and added that people should take up arms if right-wing Tories don’t were not elected. In the governor’s race, he said he preferred Ms McGeachin or Mr Bundy and leaned towards the latter.
The most important thing, according to Mr. Borer, was that Republican voters had to oust Governor Little.
“If we don’t get rid of him, then Idaho is no longer a paradise,” he said.