Idaho voters will decide next month who will represent them in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) is running for another term, but he's facing a challenge from Todd Achilles, a former Democratic state lawmaker who is now running as an Independent. Achilles says he wants to offer Idaho voters an alternative to the two major parties.
He's been calling on Sen. Risch to debate him, but so far that hasn't happened. We've also reached out to Sen. Risch's office with requests for an interview, but haven't received a response.
Todd Achilles joined us on Idaho Matters to talk about his campaign, the issues he thinks matter most to Idahoans, and why he believes he's the right person to represent the state in Washington, D.C.
In order to focus our interviews of statewide candidates, click here to see the rules that guided our outreach efforts. To see the full interviews for those who responded, click here.
Read a transcript of the entire conversation below:
Gemma Gaudette: From the studios of Boise State Public Radio News. I'm Gemma Gaudette, you're listening to Idaho Matters. Idaho voters will decide next month who will represent them in the U.S. Senate. Now, Republican Jim Risch is running for another term, but he is facing a challenge from Todd Achilles, a former Democratic state lawmaker who is now running as an independent. Now, Achilles says he wants to offer Idaho voters an alternative to the two major parties, and he's been calling on Senator Risch to debate him. So far, that hasn't happened. We have also reached out to the senator's office with requests for an interview, but we haven't received a response as well. Todd Achilles, though, is joining us now to talk about his campaign, the issues he thinks matter most Idahoans, and why he believes the right person to represent the state in Washington is him. Todd, welcome to the show.
Todd Achilles: Gemma. Thanks for having me on.
Gemma Gaudette: So, Todd, you've been traveling all over Idaho. And you have been talking to voters. What are you hearing from people, and what convinced you that now was the right time to take this on and to challenge, um, a pretty long serving senator?
Todd Achilles: Well, as you said, Gemma, I've been all over the state, all 44 counties. We've held over 300 events. I've talked to Idahoans and fields and farms and, uh, back backyards and living rooms. And across the political spectrum, folks are fed up and frustrated with two things. Congress isn't working, and this economy is rigged. It's too hard for Idahoans to get by. And when they look at their kids, they don't see how our kids are going to achieve the American dream. So, there's just a deep, deep frustration. Folks are just fed up with the political and economic system that's not working, you know, and I decided to run as an independent because the two-party system is broken. You know, Congress isn't functioning like it needs to. And it's because of the two parties. They're too big, they're too powerful. And we no longer can compromise. We no longer can work across the aisle and get these hard things done. And 83-year-old career politician Jim Risch is emblematic of everything that's wrong, right? He votes with party leadership 99.7% of the time. You know, the national debt has increased three times while he's been in the Senate. He's voted for the Iraq War 14 times. But then a couple days ago, he flip flops on it and says it needs to stop. I mean, this is the kind of hypocrisy and lack of leadership Idahoans see and are frustrated with, and they want change.
Gemma Gaudette: So, you mentioned, you know, you had been a Democrat, and a lot of folks know you were in the Idaho legislature, served as a Democrat, and you just mentioned you believe the two-party system is broken. Is that really what made you decide to make that change to an independent? I mean, or was there a change in your political ideology or, you know, in fairness, was it to have a better chance of winning in a deeply Republican state?
Todd Achilles: No. I again, when you look at Congress, the two-party system isn't working. And, you know, you can't tell the difference today between a corporatist Democrat and a corporatist Republican. They're both taking money from the same organizations, the same corporations. And that's what's grinding, grinding things down. You know, I served as a Democrat in the House. I've been registered as a Republican in Idaho longer than I've been a Democrat, grew up in a Republican House. Most importantly, Gemma, though, I come out of that military tradition, you know, I'm an Army veteran. I was a tank commander. Served twice two deployments to the Persian Gulf. Um, you know, in my tank crew, there are four guys. My loader was from Maryland. My driver was from South Carolina. My gunner was from Louisiana. And me, you know, a kid, a guy that grew up on a farm in Oregon had no idea what their politics were. Right. Because you had a mission to get done. And it's that nonpartisan leadership. That is why the military is respected by 70% of Americans. While you've got this hyper partizan, hyper political congress where only 13% of Americans respect it, that's what we need to get back to. And just, you know, one more fact. In 1970, 83% of the Senate was veterans, and now it's 18. And you see it in guys like Jim Risch, who avoided going to Vietnam, avoided public service, but have just, you know, somehow, he's worth $55 million after being in public office for 50 years, because it's all about that partisanship and not about serving the people.
Gemma Gaudette: You know, Senator Risch has criticized you saying that you're still a Democrat. Right. And this is kind of just, uh, a scam in a way for you to flip flop. What do you say to that criticism?
Todd Achilles: Well, I mean, I start with the fact that Senator Risch is no conservative because when you look at his voting record, he voted to keep the Epstein files buried, and then he takes money from names in the Epstein file. There's nothing conservative about that. He, he consistently misses opportunities to protect our public lands and votes to sell our public lands. Nothing conservative about that. Right. And maybe if Senator Risch had actually had a military experience, he would understand that not everybody views their life through the lens of being in one party or another. You know, what Idahoans want is somebody that will work with both sides of the aisle. I can't tell you, Gemma, how many times I was recruited by the Republican Party when I served in the Idaho legislature. You know, from the speaker on down. Um, and, you know, the parties are the problem. We've got to break the grip of the parties and particularly in Congress, you know, and serving as an independent is the way to do that. And, and in a closely divided Senate, an independent is going to be able to do more good for Idaho and for this country than if you caucus with one or the other of the parties. And I've made a commitment; I will only caucus as an independent. I've made a commitment to serve only two terms. I believe in term limits, and I've made a commitment to have at least 30 town halls and visit all 44 counties every two years, because that's what a senator should do. Risch has held zero town halls. He's got this sort of sense of entitlement, uh, to returning to the Senate. And he's, you know, rather than running on his record of 18 years in the Senate, he's just throwing these misstatements and lies and everything else at me because he has no record. He hasn't brought anything back to the state that needs to change.
Gemma Gaudette: So, I want to talk about some of the issues that are top of mind for Idahoans. And you've talked a lot about giving working families a fighting chance. But when you look at housing prices and health care costs and the cost of everyday necessities here, here in Idaho, groceries, right. What can one U.S. senator realistically do to truly make life more affordable for the average Idahoan?
Todd Achilles: Yeah, there's a lot that we can do. And one of the biggest things to bring prices down is to restore competition and restore free markets. And let's just start with health care, right? One of the problems with the Affordable Care Act is it created these massive healthcare monopolies. There is a bipartisan bill called Break Up Big Medicine that's got a handful of Republicans and Democrats on it that needs to break up these healthcare monopolies. Senator Risch isn't part of that. That's a great opportunity to break up monopolies and bring prices down in health care. Uh, you know, competing on drug prices, on housing, we have to go after a lot of these big national builders that have come into Idaho and they what they do is basically box out the local builders and they keep prices high, right? We need to level the playing field for, for builders in, in Idaho, so we can create more supply, and we can bring housing down. Um, and on food, right. Walmart, Walmart's the largest private employer in the state, 9000 employees. But guess what? 1 in 8 of their employees doesn't gets their health care from us for Medicaid from Idaho taxpayers. It's that kind of corporate socialism that Risch has never pushed back on. And we have to stop it because it destroys free markets. And and taxpayers should not be subsidizing a company like Walmart that does $3 billion of revenue in Idaho.
Gemma Gaudette: You've been pretty outspoken about protecting our state's public lands. And this is a bipartisan issue. I mean, no matter where you are Republican, Democrat, most Idahoans want to protect our public lands. So where do you draw the line, Tod, between protecting those lands and then allowing more development or even logging or mining or, you know, those economic or other economic activity.
Todd Achilles: Yeah. I mean, listen, I've talked with four supervisors all around the state. We need to log more in our forests. But guess what? Thanks to Doge, they don't have the staff. They can't even like, you know, plan the cuts. Um, and a lot of the sawmills that used to process logs coming out of our forests aren't there anymore. So we've got a bunch of big structural problems to better care for our forests, you know, things that Jim Risch, who, you know, apparently, he got his degree as a forester. He has done nothing on addressing any of this. So, you know, we have to protect our public lands, not one damn acre we're going to allow to be sold, but we have to manage them better. And that means the agencies have the resources that they need to be able to do it. Jim's done none of that. BLM is under-resourced forest services under resource, USGS, NRC's, the Park Service. All of these give these folks the resources they need to be able to do the job the right way. That's how we protect our public lands for future generations.
Gemma Gaudette: So, um, you've said you support Idaho as a reproductive freedom ballot initiative, and you would respect the outcome either way. I want to put the initiative aside for a minute, though, and ask you, um, you know, your, your, your personal thoughts on this issue and what role do you believe the federal government has in regulating an issue like this?
Todd Achilles: Well, listen, right now, the federal government doesn't have a role. It's been pushed down to the states. Um, and so, you know, we tried to get an exception. Bill. I, working with many of my Republican colleagues, try to get an exception bill to the legislature. Nobody, no committee would even hear it. So, the only path forward, uh, is, is the citizens’ initiative. And listen, there's criticism of prop one and there's a lot of supporters of prop one. Uh, I personally support prop one because I believe the government has no business getting between a mom, her daughter, and her family on these incredibly hard decisions. And every abortion is a tragedy. I was door knocking over the weekend and I had a good conversation with a midwife. You know, a mom with five kids whose water broke at 20 weeks. Um, she had to go to, to Utah. Um, so she wouldn't, um, she wouldn't go into sepsis. Right. Um, these are the sorts of things that we make it too hard on, on moms and we make it too hard on doctors. Um, but regardless of my personal views on prop one, however, it comes out on November 3rd, I commit to represent that as Idaho's next U.S. senator.
Gemma Gaudette: You've mentioned you're a military veteran, Todd. You've said you want to end what you call those endless wars. Senator Risch, as most of us know, he does chair the Foreign Relations Committee. Where do you think the United States should be drawing the line when it comes to military involvement overseas?
Todd Achilles: You know, Gemma, that's an incredibly important question. I think we got to go back and look at the first Gulf War, where we had very clear objectives. We had Overwhelming military force. And we got this thing done in a in a handful of days. Um, compare that to what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq and now this, this Iran war. No clear objectives, no plan to win, you know. 21 troops have died, over 850 injured. We've lost the use of pretty much all of our bases in the Persian Gulf. Billions and billions of dollars spent. And we obliterated a girls school in the process. Right. This is an absolute disaster. Jim Risch is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's the third most powerful person in this country on foreign relations. And he hasn't done anything. He hasn't held a hearing. He hasn't asked the hard questions. And after voting for the war 14 times a couple of days ago, he flip flopped on it. And now he wants it to end, right? I mean, that's the hypocrisy. That's the, you know, the behavior of a career politician who doesn't give a damn about the 21 troops that have died. Uh, that's the sort of person that we can't have represent Idaho in the Senate. You know, there's 9000 Idahoans that wear the uniform. And when we have people, career politicians who make political decisions rather than decisions for the safety of our troops. We put all 9000 of those Idahoans at risk. I've stood in front of my troops when I've been deployed to the Middle East. I know exactly what it's like. We cannot tolerate elected leaders like that.
Gemma Gaudette: I want to talk about term limits for a minute. You did mention a little while ago that you are that you believe in term limits. You'd be committed to only serving two terms. I mean, on the flip side of that, there is something to be said about building up, you know, power in the Senate. Right. And that that happens over being there for a long time. I'm also curious about the fact that Senator Risch, he's 83 years old. Is this fundamentally a criticism of his age when you talk about term limits or is it about his record and how long he's been in office or, you know, it's a little bit of both.
Todd Achilles: Well, listen, you hear this argument about seniority, uh, from really old people. Go figure. I mean, there's kind of a fundamental problem with this Gemma when you look at the history of the Senate and our founders, they only serve for a couple of years. They were in their 30s and the 40s. They serve for a couple of years, and they went back to the farm. Right. The idea that three terms or four terms in the Senate, it takes that long to get to get your work done. I mean, what the hell? What private employer would tolerate somebody? It takes them ten years to ramp up on their job. It doesn't. Right. You need to get in there. You need to do the work, and then you need to leave. Um, and you can't use this excuse of, of perpetual service. You know, Congress is not a retirement home. You need to get in there. You need to get your you need to get the work done and you need to be focused. And then you need to leave and leave it to the next generation. I mean, Jim Risch was born in 1943. Do we really trust Jim Risch to guide us on AI policy or data centers? You know, I come from the tech industry. I know how this stuff works. And I know when, you know, some of these tech companies are trying to pull a fast one over on the public, right? Jim has absolutely no idea what's going on here. And we can't trust him to make these important decisions on technology Energy policy or where we need to take this nation because he's completely removed from reality. Again, zero town halls. Gemma in 18 years, I've done 300 just in the course of this campaign. I better understand what's going on in Idaho and the challenges of Idaho families. And Jim has any idea. He's unfit to serve. And it's time for somebody new.
Gemma Gaudette: Before I let you go, I'm curious about your thought on the fact that, let's say there's an Idaho voter who has voted Republican their entire lives, right. And they're skeptical about voting for a Democrat. So, what's your argument then, to say, you know what? Vote for an independent here.
Todd Achilles: I get this question again and again all over the state. And there are there are so many angry Republican voters in the state of Idaho right now. They did not vote for the Iraq war. They did not vote for the fuel prices and the inflation. And there's a whole bunch of angry Republicans on the other side of the party that don't like this administration and don't like the fact that Jim Risch has just been a rubber stamp for the white House and has never done his constitutional duty as an independent branch of government. Right. They want change, and they're frustrated Democrats that are unhappy with the Democratic Party and where it's gone. And they want change. You know, 65% of Idahoans self-identify as independent or lean independent. You know, we pass Medicaid expansion with 61% of the state and 80% of the county's highest of any red state in the country. And in our polling, 79% of Idahoans want a politician that will work with both sides of the aisle. That's why we have so much momentum, so much excitement. Thousands of volunteers behind our campaign, and we're beating Jim in the polls because Idahoans want common sense. It's going to represent conservative Idaho values, and that's what I bring.
Gemma Gaudette: Well, Todd, I want to thank you so much for taking time to talk with us. Really do appreciate you having this conversation and sitting down with us.
Todd Achilles: Thank you, Gemma. I appreciate the time.
Gemma Gaudette: We've been talking with Todd Achilles. He is running for U.S. Senator challenging Senator Jim Risch. Election day is November 3rd.
