Matt Shinners
Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don’t fully support or staying home.
A handful of high-profile independent candidates for the US Senate are trying to change that.
2026 is seeing one of the largest surges of interest in independent candidates in recent memory. However, these candidates are often covered as fringe candidates, and stories about them focus more on how they’ll impact the outcome of the election between a Republican and Democrat than the substance of the candidate’s campaign.
This series exists because the independent electorate deserves better than that.
Over the coming months, IVN is conducting in-depth interviews with independent Senate candidates across the country—not just horse-race conversations about polling and fundraising, but substantive discussions about the issues independent voters actually care about.
These are candidates who have made a deliberate choice to run outside the two-party system. We're asking them hard questions about how they plan to win, what they'd do in office, and whether the independence they're campaigning on would survive contact with a Senate still organized entirely around party loyalty.
In Idaho, that candidate is Todd Achilles.
I. The Candidate
Todd Achilles grew up on a family farm in Oregon. He holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College; a Master's and MBA from the University of Washington; and a Master's in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. He served in the U.S. Army as a tank commander and armor officer—military service is a common thread amongst the most prominent independents running for Senate.
After his military service, Achilles moved into the corporate world, holding senior roles at Hewlett-Packard and T-Mobile, among others, before teaching public policy at UC Berkeley and Boise State University. He highlights his varied political identity on the campaign trail, having been registered in both parties but being registered as a Republican longer than he was registered as a Democrat.
Before running for US Senate, he served in the Idaho House of Representatives as a Democrat starting in February 2024 after being appointed by Governor Brad Little to fill a vacancy. He won the seat outright in November 2024 before resigning in July 2025 to launch his Senate bid.
III. The Race
The race features incumbent Jim Risch, the three-term Republican who first won his seat in 2008. Since then, he has won each reelection effort with at least 60% of the vote. He chairs the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On May 19, he held off three primary challengers, receiving 64% of the vote and the nomination. He has President Trump’s endorsement and the institutional weight of a state GOP that has dominated Idaho politics for a generation.
His campaign had raised $3.9 million through the end of April, compared to roughly $449,000 for Achilles (though as this piece was being written, a release from the Achilles campaign highlighted that they had just broken $500k raised).
Idaho's voter registration landscape tilts heavily Republican: 62% Republican, 12% Democrat, 27% unaffiliated, though Achilles has an asterisk to put on those numbers that we’ll cover below.
Joining Risch and Achilles on the November 3 ballot are Democrat David Roth, independent Natalie Fleming, and Libertarian
Matt Loesby. Roth, a 44-year-old Idaho Falls consultant, won the Democratic primary with nearly 62% of the vote (Roth is a perennial candidate who has run both for state and federal office in Idaho, always as a Democrat, never breaking 35% of the vote).
His presence on the ballot is one of the central structural questions of Achilles' campaign: whether Idaho Democrats will consolidate behind the independent as the path to defeating Risch, as Nebraska Democrats ultimately have for Dan Osborn; or whether Roth stays in and the anti-Risch vote is split.
Roth and the state Democratic Party have given no indication they plan to do so.
A head-to-head matchup from a Public Policy Polling survey of likely general election voters (seemingly commissioned by Achilles’ campaign) showed Achilles trailing Risch 48-34. However, in a follow-up question after hearing biographical information about Achilles and negative messaging against Risch, those numbers shifted in the independent’s favor, with Achilles leading Risch 41-38.
That number needs to be treated with appropriate caution—one poll, five months out, in a state that doesn't poll frequently, and done in a way to frame Achilles in the best possible light—but it was enough to draw national attention, and it suggests there is a viable path to victory for the candidate.
IV. The Independent Decision
When asked why he decided to run as an independent, the short answer Achilles gives is institutional, not personal. "The two parties are the problem," he stated in our May interview. "[They’re w]hy Congress isn't functioning right now, and it's putting the future of the nation at risk. And the best way to break the grip of the two parties is as an independent."
But the longer answer is more revealing. Achilles frames the dysfunction not as a failure of individual politicians but as a structural incentive problem: that both parties have concluded that partisan self-preservation is more important than governing, and that this calculus is now so deeply embedded that no amount of internal reform can fix it.
He made the point with a sharp example looking at the national debt. "My opponent first entered the Senate in 2009, when the national debt was $10 trillion, and he was jumping up and down, just saying how outrageous that was," Achilles said. "We're now racing to $40 trillion, and where is this guy? Right? I mean, if I'd had that kind of performance at Hewlett-Packard, Meg (ed. Whitman, President/CEO of HP at the time) would have kicked me out in my second quarter."
His critique of the Democratic Party is equally sharp. The Biden administration's domestic investment programs had a lot of "good stuff" in them, he acknowledged, but they should have come with corresponding revenues. "They contributed to the debt. Both Trump administrations, I mean, we’re blowing the debt out right now."
This isn't a candidate who left one party for the other. It's a candidate who spent time in both, looked around, and decided that the incentives that govern both are the fundamental problem.
V. The Coalition
Achilles' math is specific, highlighting a level of seriousness that can sometimes be lacking in independent campaigns. "Our win number is about 350,000," he said. "We need about 100,000 Republicans, 150,000 independents, and 100,000 Democrats."
For context, based on party registration in the state, he would need about 1 in 6 Republicans; 1 in 3 unaffiliated or minor party voters; and 5 out of 6 Democrats. In the most recent US Senate election in Idaho, incumbent Sen. Mike Crapo won reelection with 358k votes. The Democratic candidate David Roth (who is running against this cycle) received 110k votes, and independent Scott Cleveland received 50k votes.
That Republican number is where the campaign's theory of the race lives. "Our polling shows we’re getting 35 to 40% of Republicans [who] are really excited about our campaign," Achilles said.
"There's a huge population of disaffected Republicans in Idaho—at least two, depending on how you count, potentially four wings of the Republican Party, and they're not happy with where the party's going."
He describes them as "old school center-right Republicans, kind of that western Republican" who are “not happy with the extremists that have taken over the GOP.” He added, "They'll never vote for a Democrat."
The issues uniting the coalition across party lines are remarkably consistent with what he's hearing across all 44 counties. After 130-plus campaign events, Achilles said two themes dominate every room, regardless of who's in it:
"Everybody sees the same two problems. They see corruption in Congress—just not working like the institution should—and they see a rigged economy that's just too damn hard to get by, particularly if you're a Millennial or Gen Z."
On the independent side specifically, he said the difference is less about distinct issues and more about momentum: "For the first time in a long, long time, they've got a viable candidate with polling that shows we can beat the incumbent. Independents are getting fired up about that."
The Idaho GOP, for its part, has tried to neutralize Achilles by defining him as a “Democrat in Disguise” in several press releases also attacking his positions. State party chair Dorothy Moon pointed to his support for ranked choice voting (which Idaho voters rejected 70-30 in a 2024 referendum) and his tenure as a House Democrat.
VI. Independent Turnout and Enthusiasm
Achilles acknowledged the challenge directly: a lot of independents in an off-year election simply won't show up, especially in a state where participating in Republican primaries has historically been the only meaningful way to influence outcomes.
His first move on this is reframing Idaho's electorate. "When we closed the primaries in 2012, 70% of Idahoans were unaffiliated—by far the highest of any state in the country," he said; a number backed up by the secretary of state's historical registration archive.
"Boise State University does an annual public policy survey, and in the last one, roughly 60% of Idahoans self-identified as independent or 'I'm a Republican, but I lean independent.’"
The last two BSU Public Policy results do capture somewhere around only 40% Strong Republican or Not Very Strong Republican, though the 60% number seems to include all other categories, including Democrats of all types and those who are Unsure or Other.
That does reflect the coalition of voters being targeted by the candidate.
His second move is harder to quantify: generating enough excitement and proving viability to convince the habitual non-voter that this time is different. The poll cited above is as much a turnout tool as it is a data point, under this argument. Voters who believe an independent can win are more likely to show up for one.
VII. If He Wins: Operating as an Independent in the Senate
Achilles was unambiguous on this point: he will not caucus with the Democrats. "Period. End of sentence. I will not caucus with Senator Schumer, because I think he is the problem." When pressed on whether a change in Democratic leadership would affect that calculus, he repeated himself: "I'm not caucusing with Democrats."
Instead, he is orienting around what he calls the "Fulcrum Caucus"—a coordinated effort by the current wave of independent Senate candidates to win enough seats to deny either party a working majority. He rattled off the names: Seth Bodnar in Montana, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Brian Bengs in South Dakota, Ty Pinkins in Mississippi, Bob Chew in Colorado, and himself in Idaho.
"We've got a text chat going among the six of us, and we’re very focused on creating that fulcrum caucus of independents" he said. He’s also confident that, should some of this group win, they can “pull over a couple more Republicans and a couple of Dems that sit on the edge of the caucuses.”
What does he think he could do as an independent that a partisan senator couldn't?
"You're released from the chains of having to perpetuate the party. You can focus entirely on, for me, it’s Idaho, it’s on the duties of a senator, and it’s on supporting and defending the Constitution. That’s it. I have no party allegiance. I don't need to waste my time fundraising for the party."
He spoke passionately about using the structural leverage of that position to push for reforms he describes as constitutional-amendment-level changes: term limits (two terms for senators, three for House members, 18 years for Supreme Court justices); overturning Citizens United and capping dark money groups; replacing gerrymandering with proportional representation; open primaries.
He placed himself in the tradition of previous constitutional reform waves and argued the country is overdue. "The 27th Amendment aside, this is the second-longest period in American history without a constitutional amendment," he said. "We're overdue by my math."
On the role of senators in presidential appointments and the advise-and-consent function specifically, he cited the Hegseth confirmation and Risch’s vote to confirm as exhibit A for why party-aligned cheerleading has replaced the necessary oversight. "Risch voted on seven other secretaries of defense. All of them got more than 90 votes, except Chuck Hagel, so Risch knows what a good Secretary of Defense looks like, and he still voted for Hegseth." His answer reflects a desire to re-equalize the Legislative branch of government against the Executive.
VII. If He Wins: Key Goals
In supporting term limits, Achilles has also pledged to abide by them even short of a law requiring it, meaning he won’t serve more than two terms in the Senate.
What does he hope to accomplish in that time?
He highlights the “two pillars” that he hears from Idahoans. “Renew Congress, get it functioning again; and fix this rigged economy.”
What does that look like? He argues that you can’t get to the second without the first, so his initial focus would be pushing for the reforms noted above (term and age limits; limiting money in politics; proportional representation).
When discussing economic hardships, he focused on discussing the power that some big corporations can exercise on key industries in Idaho.
“17% of our economy comes from ag[riculture]...so the dairy industry and the beef industry is hugely important, but you know, four meat packers control 85% of the beef industry, and they've been constantly been busted for playing games, and that impacts a huge part of Idaho's economy.”
He had similar examples with seed companies and their ownership of key intellectual property, as well as highlighting the battle over the “right to repair” your own equipment, which some manufacturers prevent in their purchase agreements.
He concluded by stating that, “We've got a ton of work to return competition to the US economy.”
In short, his priorities are fixing the way Congress and government works, and addressing economic issues by evening the playing field between “those with power and the people,” as his campaign website says up front.
These are two issues that have been at the top of mind for independent voters in recent surveys (with the former framed as “corruption” in that survey).
IX. Resources and Strategy
The fundraising gap is significant: Risch had roughly $3.9 million raised through April; Achilles had cleared just under $450,000 in the same time period.
The campaign has prioritized geographic breadth over targeted intensity, visiting all 44 counties and holding more than 130 events. This strategy reflects both the coalition math (the Republican rural vote is essential to get to that 100,000 target) and the name-recognition deficit. Achilles doesn't have the luxury of shoring up a base; he has to introduce himself to a broad electorate simultaneously.
He's also waging a media-forward campaign. The debate challenge to Risch, the "Shake Up the System" listening tour, the county-by-county presence—these are as much earned-media strategies as they are organizational ones. For a candidate outgunned on paid media, visibility through events and news coverage is a key path to closing the gap.
At the end of the day, it’s people who vote, not money, so grassroots enthusiasm can make up for spending, if organized effectively.
X. Assessment
The obstacles to Achilles winning are real and should not be minimized. Idaho hasn't elected a non-Republican to the Senate in nearly half a century. Achilles is being outraised by roughly 8-to-1 by his Republican opponent, and Sen. Risch has significant outside infrastructure as well as an incumbency advantage.
The race has a Democrat with campaign experience, as well as a Libertarian and another independent candidate, thus creating a split in the field running against Risch. And Achilles' own electoral math requires at least 1 out of 6 Republicans to vote for a candidate who recently served as an elected official for a different party.
But the structural conditions for something unexpected are present in a way they haven't been before. The Fulcrum Caucus framing gives Achilles a theory of change that goes beyond "elect me because you’re unhappy with the two major parties." It invites voters to participate in a Senate-level realignment, which is a more compelling ask than just backing an independent candidate.
The early polling, all caveats aside, has attracted attention and resources that were not previously in the game. And candidate age, once a taboo thing to raise, has been at the forefront of politics over the past several years. Risch would be 89 at the end of a fourth term.
What to watch: See if polling establishes Achilles as the main opponent against the incumbent now that the Democratic primary is over. See if the Democratic Party makes any moves now that they’re past their primary to clear the field. Check campaign finance reports to see if Achilles can raise enough money to continue to field a credible campaign.
Watch for a debate between Achilles and Risch (and other candidates)—in late May, Achilles challenged Risch to three public debates, though indications are that the incumbent is unlikely to agree to that proposal.
This interview was conducted May 26, 2026.