Britt Raybould

Britt Raybould: Idaho Republican Incumbent for House District 34B

Britt Raybould is a Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives representing District 34B, which covers Madison County in eastern Idaho. Raybould lives in Rexburg and is seeking re-election in the May 19, 2026, Republican primary. She faces Larry Golden, the same opponent she defeated in 2024. Raybould has served two non-consecutive terms in the House, first from 2018 to 2020 and again beginning in December 2022.

Background

Raybould was born and raised in eastern Idaho and is a fourth-generation Idahoan, per her Ballotpedia profile. Her grandfather, Dell Raybould, served in the Idaho Legislature. She graduated from Sugar-Salem High School in 1997, earned a bachelor's degree in English from Boise State University in 2001, and completed a master's degree in professional communication from Westminster College in 2003, per her Idaho Legislature biography. Raybould has worked as the chief financial officer of Raybould Brothers Farms, a third-generation potato operation in eastern Idaho, since 2016. She also founded Write Bold, a consulting firm focused on strategy and marketing for small business owners, per her Idaho Legislature biography. She served on the National Potato Council's Board of Directors from 2010 to 2020 and was elected NPC president in January 2020, becoming the first woman and the third member of her family to hold that position, per Ballotpedia. She also previously served as chair of the Ag Affairs Committee for the Idaho Potato Commission.

Political Career

Raybould first won election to the Idaho House in 2018, defeating Elaine King and Marshall Merrell in the Republican primary and running unopposed in the general election to succeed her retiring grandfather in the District 34B seat, per Ballotpedia. She served one term, during which she sat on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, the Resources and Conservation Committee, and the Environment, Energy, and Technology Committee. In 2020, she lost the Republican primary to Ronald Nate by fewer than 300 votes. Raybould returned to the race in 2022, defeating Nate in the primary and winning the general election unopposed. In 2024, she again faced Larry Golden, receiving 2,644 votes, or 66 percent of the total, to Golden's 34 percent, per East Idaho News. She ran unopposed in the general election. In her current term, Raybould serves on the Environment, Energy and Technology Committee, the Resources and Conservation Committee, and the Revenue and Taxation Committee, per her Idaho Legislature biography. During the 2023 session, Raybould sponsored the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare's Medicaid budget. When the initial version failed on a narrow 34-36 House vote, she argued on the floor that the figures reflected legally required state obligations. She told legislators: "Cutting the dollars is not going to change what the end result is." During the 2024 session, Raybould helped advance two foster care bills. Senate Bill 1379 limited the use of short-term rentals for young foster care youth, and Senate Bill 1380 created an independent ombudsman office to review complaints from those impacted by the foster care system. Both bills passed and were sent to the governor, as reported by the Idaho Press. During the 2025 session, Raybould supported the Water Resources budget that included $30 million in new infrastructure funding, explaining to colleagues that the bill directed funds toward aquifer recharge, groundwater management, and rehabilitation of water storage and conveyance systems, per the Idaho Capital Sun. The House passed that budget 56-13. Raybould also commented on the 2024 session's restructured budget process, telling the Idaho Capital Sun that splitting agency budgets into two separate votes made it difficult for legislators to assess an appropriation as a whole: "At no one time was any individual presented with the opportunity to take a vote on a budget in its entirety."

Policy Positions

Water policy is the most consistently documented focus of Raybould's legislative work. On her campaign website, she has written that clean and sustainable water is foundational to Idaho's economy and communities, describing adequate water as a prerequisite for strong schools, a healthy economy, and stable communities. On energy, Raybould co-authored a May 2024 Post Register op-ed arguing that Idaho should leverage its nuclear energy assets and federal tech hub designations to build a competitive energy economy. She wrote that the Idaho Advanced Energy Consortium and the Intermountain-West Nuclear Energy Corridor Tech Hub positioned the state to lead in energy production through collaboration among policymakers, business, and industry. On education, Raybould has said she wants to retain teachers through competitive pay and expand career-technical pathways for students, as she outlined in her East Idaho News candidate questionnaire ahead of the 2024 primary. On fiscal matters, her campaign website describes her commitment to reducing unnecessary regulation and expenses to enable lower state taxes, while maintaining accountability for how public funds are spent.

Political Alignment

Raybould is a Traditional Conservative Republican. Her voting record on appropriations, her sponsorship of state budget bills, and her legislative focus on water, agriculture, and education place her within the governing wing of the Idaho House. Her repeated primary contests against candidates who sought IFF-aligned support, and the IFF's public criticism of legislators who share her budget and appropriations voting patterns, documented by the Post Register, are consistent with that classification. Her 2022 endorsements from former JFAC co-chair Rick D. Youngblood and then-Resources and Conservation Committee chair Marc Gibbs reflect alignment with experienced committee-centered legislators.

Campaign and Endorsements

Raybould received documented endorsements in 2022 from Rick D. Youngblood, a former co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, and Marc Gibbs, then-chairman of the House Resources and Conservation Committee, per her campaign website. Ballotpedia had not identified formal endorsements for her 2024 or 2026 campaigns as of April 2026. Campaign finance records are available through the Idaho Secretary of State's Sunshine database.