Democrats Sweep District 15 Amid Idaho Republican Supermajority

While Republicans across Idaho celebrated a Tuesday night that extended their decades-long supermajority in the state Legislature through 2028, voters in one western slice of Boise delivered a strikingly different verdict: a clean Democratic sweep of District 15, the rare purple patch on an otherwise crimson electoral map. Yahoo reported that Democrats captured all three legislative seats in the district, bucking the statewide trend that kept GOP control firmly in place despite improved Democratic showings elsewhere in Ada County.

The trifecta in District 15 carries extra weight because it sits in a pocket where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than two to one, according to four-term incumbent Steve Berch, who easily secured a fifth term in the Idaho House.

Three Races, One Purple District

District 15 occupies a unique position on Boise’s western edge, where the capital’s reliably blue precincts meet the more conservative stretches of Ada County. Of the 11 legislative districts that touch Ada County—each with one Senate and two House seats up for grabs every two years—Boise proper typically votes Democratic while the rest of the county breaks red. District 15 has long been the exception where those political boundaries blur and votes mix.

Brad Little, Republicans win races across Idaho

This year, that mixing produced decisive Democratic margins across the board. In the Senate contest, Democrat Nancy Gregory defeated Desi Burbank with 54.5% of the vote. Both candidates were looking to leap from local school boards to state politics, competing to replace outgoing Senator Codi Galloway, who plans to leave the Legislature at the end of the year.

Berch took 58.3% of the vote against Republican challenger Steve Keyser to win his fifth term. Meanwhile, in the district’s other House seat, Democratic newcomer Jae Etchart defeated incumbent Republican Representative Dori Healey, who was seeking a third term, with 53.3% of the vote.

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The open-seat nature of the Senate race—and Healey’s defeat in the House—shows that District 15 voters were willing to make changes even when an incumbent was on the ballot. Gregory and Burbank both looked to leap from school boards to state politics in the District 15 Senate race, while Etchart defeated Healey in the district’s other House race.

“My district is over two-to-one registered Republican,” Berch said Tuesday. “I can’t win unless Republicans and conservative Independents vote for me, and I’m just very humbled and very thankful for their support. I appreciate the efforts of people, and to make sure that people who didn’t vote for me … that they’re still my constituents, and it’s going to be my job to make sure I do the best I can to represent their best interests.”

The Ada County Patchwork

The District 15 results stand in sharp contrast to neighboring races that clung to historic party lines. In District 16, spanning Garden City and parts of Boise’s West End and West Bench neighborhoods, sitting Representative Soñia Galaviz will take over for outgoing Democratic Senator Ali Rabe, beating Republican Geoffrey Surbeck with two-thirds of the vote. Megan Woller, also a Democrat, will move into Galaviz’s House seat, defeating Republican Jackie Davidson with a similar two-thirds margin.

But just to the south in District 22, which primarily covers Meridian, the map snapped back to red. Republican Kelly Walton earned 58.4% of the vote against Democrat Loren Petty in the race to replace outgoing Representative John Vander Woude.

For Boise Democrats, the District 15 victories offer a rare bright spot in an election cycle that otherwise reinforced GOP dominance across the state, with Republicans poised to maintain their supermajority for at least another two years.

Unofficial Numbers, Lasting Questions

All results remain unofficial until county commissioners canvass the ballots at an upcoming meeting. But if certified, the District 15 wins will give Democrats three voices in a Legislature where they remain deeply outnumbered. For residents of West Boise, the outcome means their delegation will continue to reflect the district’s mixed political character rather than Idaho’s overall conservative tilt.

District 15 has historically been competitive, and Democrats won all three of its seats in this election. The western edge of Boise, in Ada County’s purple pocket, saw Democrats win all three races.