Idaho · Governor

Who is running?

Terri Pickens (Democratic), Brad Little (Republican), John Stegner (Independent), Paul Sand (Libertarian), Pro-Life (a person, formerly known as Marvin Richardson) (Constitution). The margin below is Terri Pickens minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.

The race, in brief

Idaho elects its governor on November 3, 2026. Republican incumbent Brad Little, governor since 2019, is seeking a third term. The text has no background section and gives no presidential or past gubernatorial results for the state. The state profile on file gives a non-Hispanic white share of 0.8, a Hispanic share of 0.1 and a median age of 37.1.

In the May 19, 2026 primaries Little won 58.96% over Mark Fitzpatrick's 28.67% and six others. Terri Pickens, an attorney and the 2022 nominee for lieutenant governor, won the Democratic primary with 61.42%. Former Idaho Supreme Court justice John Stegner is running as an independent, with Libertarian Paul Sand and a Constitution nominee also listed. As of March 31, 2026 Little reported $1,928,267 in contributions and a $1,162,552 cash balance.

All seven raters listed call the race R: the Cook Political Report, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, Inside Elections, RealClearPolitics, Sabato's Crystal Ball and Silver Bulletin. Two statewide polls are recorded: Advanced Targeting Research (September 13–16, 2026) had Little 37%, Pickens 27%, Stegner 13%, 20% undecided; Change Research (July 28–30, 2026) had Little 48%, Pickens 27%, Stegner 11%.

A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.

The facts, each beside its sentence

Not in the source: No presidential results or previous gubernatorial margins in the text.; No fundraising figures for Pickens or Stegner.; The facts list Brad Little with incumbent: false, while the text calls him the incumbent governor.; The facts carry forecast rows only for Pickens as subject and give no forecast basis, so it is not known whether the two polls in the text are used; Stegner's presence is not reflected in the facts' forecast.; The Constitution nominee is named only as "Pro-Life".

Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 87524f6179bf; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.

How it has voted for president

A shift of 0.9 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.

The state in numbers

ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.

Who is ahead, and by how much?

Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.

How likely is each to win?

Monte Carlo error is ±0.1 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.

How wide is the range?

Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -40.4 and -5.1 points. Election day: -45.6 to -7.9. The election-day interval is 2.4 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.

What is the uncertainty made of?

Total sd 11.53 points, made of latent opinion 65%, race-specific polling error 19%, drift to election day 12%, correlated polling error 4%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.

What evidence is this built on?

2 polls, most recent 2026-09-16. every input is provisional.

What changed since the last run?

Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Terri Pickens ahead of Brad Little. Over 13 stored forecasts the central estimate moved -10.9 points. There were 6 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.

Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls. Of that, +0.00 points came from +0 poll(s), +4.00 from the shorter horizon, and -4.00 from the model specification.

How has this model done before?

Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.

Where did every number come from?

Nowcast run 1b01b1fe-24c4-4d79-830e-61b91888d6ec and election-day run baf802a3-afb7-4f39-a542-220a6f98fcff, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.