(UPDATED, 5:53 p.m., with final results from legislative District 26.)

The nation shifted to the right Tuesday. And Idaho followed suit.

It was another red Election Night in Idaho in the obvious and unsurprising ways. Let’s recap them briefly. Donald Trump received Idaho’s four electoral votes, as expected — with a 67.1% majority that eclipsed his numbers in 2016 and 2020. Incumbent U.S. Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher won pedestrian re-election campaigns.

So let’s focus on the state level — where policies and politics make a profound mark on K-12 and higher ed. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the Proposition 1 election overhaul — and the oversimplified pitch to ditch a closed Republican Party primary that has steadily moved the GOP toward its hardline. Republicans also added three seats to their Statehouse supermajority — which could tangibly affect where the 2025 Legislature comes down on private school choice and Idaho Launch.

It was a big night for the Idaho Republican Party. And especially on Prop. 1.

It’s not so much surprising that voters rejected Prop. 1. The margin was the true stunner.

As of Wednesday morning, anti-Prop. 1 supermajority stood at a jaw-dropping 69.8%. To put that number in context, Idaho voters in 2012 resoundingly rejected the education overhauls that supporters called “Students Come First” and detractors derided as the “Luna Laws.” The least popular of then-state superintendent Tom Luna’s education overhauls — a plan to put laptops in the hands of every high school student — failed with 66.7% of voters in opposition.

For Prop. 1 to land even lower than the “laptop law” is indeed a dubious achievement.

The Prop. 1 landslide represents a startling reversal of fortune for Reclaim Idaho, the group that put the election initiative on the ballot. In 2018, Reclaim’s Medicaid expansion initiative passed handily. In 2022, Reclaim’s Quality Education Act initiative forced Gov. Brad Little’s hand; in September 2022, he brought the Legislature back into session to pass a preemptive bill to cut taxes and earmark $410 million a year for education (including the $80 million a year that now bankrolls Launch.)

Reclaim’s track record suddenly feels like old news.

Tuesday’s vote was also a sharp repudiation of the pro-Prop. 1 campaign. Proponents emphasized what seemed to be their best argument: a “top-four” primary election open to all voters. And they collected millions of dollars to make the case, largely from outside Idaho.

That point was not lost on House Speaker Mike Moyle, who took a victory lap in a news release issued shortly after midnight.

“Over the last year, our state has been under attack by far-left, out-of-state activist groups attempting to change how Idaho conducts elections,” said Moyle, R-Star. “Let the defeat of Proposition 1 serve as a message to out-of-state interest groups: any attempt to interfere with policy in our state will be met with a resounding defeat.”

Moyle had put his money, or at least his PAC’s money, where his mouth was. In the runup to Tuesday, Moyle’s Idaho Rising political action committee poured $321,000 into anti-Prop. 1 messaging.

The chorus of Republican critics — a big tent of occasional adversaries like Moyle, Gov. Brad Little and state GOP Chair Dorothy Moon — pounded away at Prop. 1’s biggest weakness. They assailed Prop. 1’s ranked-choice voting provision. A shrewd strategy, considering that a statewide Boise State University survey, conducted a year ago, revealed widespread opposition to ranked-choice voting. And sure enough, ranked-choice voting proved to be a nonstarter Tuesday with voters in several other states.

The upshot: Critics of Idaho’s closed GOP primary might have frittered away their one best chance at upending it. Instead, voters handed the Idaho GOP a mandate. It’s hard to imagine the closed primary going away any time soon.

Another thing that isn’t going away is the Republicans’ ironclad supermajority in the Legislature. That isn’t a surprise. Going into Tuesday night, most Republican candidates seemed to be running in safe races — and the focus turned to four “swing” districts where Democrats appeared to have a chance to make inroads.

That didn’t happen.

Republicans held serve and swept District 6, which includes Moscow and the University of Idaho campus. They picked up a Senate seat in West Boise’s District 15 and a House seat in District 29, in the Pocatello area. In District 26 — which takes in Blaine, Jerome and Lincoln counties — the GOP picked up one House seat.

This adds up to a 29-6 Senate supermajority and a 61-9 House supermajority.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the GOP picked up legislative seats Tuesday. Only once since 1969 have Democrats picked up legislative seats in a presidential election year. But Tuesday’s losses came after Democrats launched a concerted, and successful, drive to recruit legislative candidates. The Democrats filled the ballot in 81 legislative races. They won only 15, a meager 19% success rate.

The Democrats’ problems transcend the grim numbers. Only two Democratic legislators will reside outside Boise: Sen. James Ruchti of Pocatello, who ran unopposed Tuesday; and Sen. Ron Taylor of Hailey, who narrowly pulled out a second term when Blaine County’s final ballots were counted Wednesday. It’s no exaggeration to say Democrats have been nearly obliterated from the legislative map.

Normally, a handful of flipped legislative seats has only a limited impact. Not so this year.

Every vote will count in the looming debate over private school choice — which explains why school choice advocates spent tens of thousands of dollars in this election, focused largely at District 15 incumbent Sen. Rick Just, D-Boise.

This next Legislature will be considerably more conservative. That could translate into more narrow committee and floor votes on Launch, Little’s pet postsecondary financial aid program, and more pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion programs on Idaho college campuses.

But first, these large and conservative GOP caucuses will elect leadership in December — the teams that will assign lawmakers to education, budget and tax committees. Any and all of these key committees are likely to shift to the right.

Election Night 2024 will have an immediate impact on policy, including education.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday. Due to the timeliness of the topic, this week’s analysis was published on Wednesday, Nov. 6.