Former Senator Jeff Agenbroad’s story is one that too many good people in Idaho politics can relate to. He wasn’t a career politician, he wasn’t looking for dominion, and he wasn’t trying to make Idaho something it wasn’t. He was a lifelong Idahoan from a ranching and farming family, educated here, who built a career in finance and poured decades of volunteer work into his community. When his community asked him to serve, he stepped up. He passed more bills than any other senator during his three terms, with a 99 percent passage rate, and played a key role in improving Idaho’s credit rating to one of the strongest in the nation. His record was about fiscal responsibility, pragmatic problem-solving, and building consensus.
That didn’t protect him when the far-right machine decided to take him out.
In our conversation, Agenbroad described how things shifted over his years in the Senate. At first, he says he didn’t even notice the influence of outside groups. By 2020, it became obvious that the Idaho Freedom Foundation had abandoned persuasion in favor of threats. “They were the only lobbying group that would come to me as a legislator, and instead of trying to tell me the benefits of their legislation, they told me the consequences if I didn’t support it.”
Coercion and threats like this run rampant in the Idaho state capitol.
Once Agenbroad resisted, the machine moved in. First came manipulated “freedom scores.” Then came attack texts to his district calling him a “CRT-loving, America-hating guy.” He recalled getting dozens of emails generated by the IFF’s messaging campaign and responding to every single one. Most of the people who wrote back thanked him for telling the truth, admitting they didn’t realize they had been misled. Many never replied, and those voters were left believing the smear.
He described how it snowballed: “There was many of them that didn’t drop me a note so I couldn’t respond to them. So they were continuing to believe the stuff that’s being fed to them.” And while he was trying to keep the state’s budgets balanced and navigate federal pandemic funds, the Citizens Alliance joined in the attacks. The local party itself, infiltrated by John Birch-style outsiders, campaigned against him.
The shift wasn’t about his record. It was about dominion. The groups had a strategy to target members of JFAC, Idaho’s budget committee, and replace them with people who would follow their line. Agenbroad put it bluntly when describing conversations with IFF leadership: “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”
His experience confirms what many of us have witnessed and experienced: the imported playbook of confrontational politics. The tactics are deliberate—find a simple narrative, repeat it endlessly, weaponize fear, and bully mainstream Republicans until they either submit or get pushed out. Agenbroad saw it firsthand with the grocery tax debate, where the Freedom Foundation ran the same “why should you pay tax on groceries” line over and over, knowing full well the issue was more complex. He saw it with smears that accused him of being a RINO who “always voted with Democrats,” a charge he called absurd since nearly every bill that makes it to the Senate floor is Republican-sponsored.
And he saw how this environment, combined with redistricting, an influx of new voters with little understanding of Idaho’s history, and abysmally low turnout, created what he called “the perfect storm” that allowed coordinated lies to overwhelm decades of good work.
One line he shared stuck with me: “A lie is halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes on.” That is precisely how these far-right operatives function. They spread a lie quickly and emotionally, get three percent of voters angry enough to show up, and bully the rest into disengagement. With turnout in Republican primaries now regularly dropping below 20 percent, they don’t need much to win.
I know this playbook all too well. I’ve been targeted by the same type of dishonest smear campaigns. Repeating lie after lie, painting a target on me so others would see me as a lightning rod and avoid any confrontational threats that could blow back on them if they associated with me. It’s a devious playbook employed by those who prioritize their political paychecks over any semblance of integrity. For far-right operatives associated with the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the Idaho Freedom Caucus, telling lies comes as naturally as breathing. The goal is always the same: make it so toxic that good people stop showing up. They don’t have to convince a majority; they only have to discourage everyone else.
Agenbroad’s advice to future candidates was clear: it’s an information campaign. Don’t mirror the bullying, but don’t let lies go unchallenged. Facts need to be repeated, loudly and often. Voter turnout in the primary is the only real solution. “We don’t have a statewide voter guide,” he noted. “Why is that? Because the party’s against it. They want to feed the people the information they want them to know, and nothing more than that.” The truth is, the far-right killed a bill to fund a state voter guide as their party bosses and extremist organization leaders—the Idaho Freedom Foundation, Idaho Freedom Caucus, Citizens Alliance, and Stop Idaho RINOs—successfully imposed their will to stop it. They understood that an informed and educated voter is their kryptonite.
This is why I built IdahoVoters.com: to fight this war against dishonest information and help Idahoans discover the truth about who is on the ballot and who will actually represent them, not serve an out-of-state-fueled political machine.
That is why these conversations matter. This podcast episode isn’t just about Agenbroad’s story—it is a case study in how the machine operates. The intimidation. The manipulation of scores and labels. The misuse of party machinery. The way out is sunlight: exposing the tactics, telling the truth, and giving voters better information so they cannot be so easily misled.
You can hear Agenbroad’s full story in our latest Political Potatoes episode. It’s available on Substack, Spotify, and YouTube. His words are an important reminder that when lies bury good people, the only way to dig out is with more truth and more voters willing to show up.
About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican. His articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the Idaho GOP and inaccurately define what it means to be a Republican. Follow Graf on X: https://x.com/gsgraf
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Author: Gregory Graf
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