Welcome back to the local politics corner! Last week we took a look at the shape of the mayoral race; now, here’s where city council races stand.
As a reminder, these elections are for the first time district-based, rather than city-wide. Districts 1, 3, and 5 currently have designated council members and the other seats are at-large — but no longer!
Because three of the six city council seats seemingly settled this time last year have since been vacated and temporarily filled, or the incumbent won’t be running. This election will be … interesting to watch. It’ll also be changing quickly, but now that we’re five months out, here’s a snapshot.
District 1 - West Boise
Incumbent Luci Willits, the council’s lone Republican, is running for re-election and so far has no challengers.
District 2 - West Bench & Winstead
Former Democratic legislator Grant Burgoyne will run against another former Democratic legislator, Colin Nash, who was appointed to an at-large seat earlier this year.
District 3 - Southwest Boise & some Central Bench
Latonia Haney Keith is the current appointee in this district, and hasn’t announced whether she’ll be running.
Chris Blanchard, an urban studies specialist, is running for district three.
Greg MacMillan, who previously ran for the third seat, told the Idaho Press that he was going to wait to see who else was running before making a decision. He hasn’t announced yet, but he’s been regularly updating campaign finance reports this year, with a spike in the last couple weeks, so we’ll see if that means anything.
Joe Evans, whose name you might remember from a City Cast Boise conversation with Kind Idaho, wants to bring a libertarian perspective to this council seat.
Engineer Josh Johnston is also running here.
District 4 - South, Southeast Boise
Another at-large seat, Jordan Morales is currently running a strong and unchallenged campaign here.
District 5 - Downtown, East End, some North End
The council’s most veteran member (though she’s only served since 2017) Holli Woodings announced that she won’t run for reelection. Will she join the mayoral race? Go back to the Legislature? Do something else entirely?
Unanswered questions aside, her decision leaves a vacant district five seat that just months ago promised a tough race between Woodings and former incumbent Elaine Clegg. And so far, no one’s running to claim it.
District 6 - Some North End, Northwest Boise
Currently, only incumbent Jimmy Hallyburton has announced an intent to run for this seat.
In summary, we currently have three districts with no competition in 1, 4, and 6. Some other loose ends: As of yet, at-large incumbent Patrick Baegant hasn’t announced a campaign, and hasn’t received any donations. Former city councilmember Lisa Sánchez has received donations, though it’s not clear yet in which district she’ll run.
Check out the current city council campaign finance reports for yourself, and we’ll keep you updated as things change!
