COEUR d’ALENE — When Kaylee Peterson ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Idaho’s first congressional district in 2022 and again in 2024, she knew Idaho Democrats couldn’t flip the district in a single cycle.

What the party needed, she said, was a candidate willing to commit cycle after cycle to doing the work on the ground to reach Idaho voters, getting closer to the goal each time. 

This time around, in her third bid for Congress, she said the winds are changing. 

“Now we’re seeing that we could actually flip the seat,” Peterson told The Press in a sit-down interview last week when her campaign stopped in Coeur d’Alene. “We have a very clear pathway to win, which isn’t something we’ve ever had before. It’s exciting.” 

Peterson, who grew up in Eagle and raises her family there, will have to beat fellow Democrat Ken Brungardt in the primary election before facing the Republican and third-party candidates. 

“If things go as well as we believe they will this year, he’ll see me in the fall,” she said of incumbent Rep. Russ Fulcher. 

Peterson said her path to victory isn’t as steep as many people assume. 

She garnered more than 82,000 votes in the 2022 general election, when she first faced Fulcher, and more than 118,000 during their second contest in 2024. To win a midterm election, she estimates that she’ll need about 157,000 votes. 

“Most of the people I need to win this election have already voted for me,” she said. “I just need to inspire them to turn out for a midterm election and that’s easy to do with everything that’s happening with rural healthcare, rural education and what’s happening with the administration.” 

If she advances to the general election, Peterson said she’ll need to convince 25,000 to 30,000 unaffiliated Idaho voters to choose her over the Republican candidate. 

“Those are my voters who are tired of the two-party system,” she said. “They’re sick of the government and they know that it doesn’t work for them.” 

Peterson’s platform prioritizes accountability in government, affordable health care, strengthening education and supporting veterans — issues she said she knows matter to Idahoans because she’s spent the past four years traveling the state and speaking with them in person. 

Her Toyota recently hit 100,000 miles, she said, racked up driving all over Idaho. She said the beauty of her home state still impresses, from White Bird Hill over Grangeville to the fog through the trees in McCall and the Palouse. 

“I haven’t gotten tired of it,” she said with a smile. “And I have a great playlist, so it’s easy.” 

The problems Idahoans share with her differ across communities. 

“When I go to Bonners Ferry, those local businesses are suffering because we’ve seen visits from the northern border drop almost 20%,” she said. “When I’m in Shoshone County, it’s rural clinics and rural health care.” 

Fulcher, she said, isn’t dialed into the challenges that Idahoans face because he doesn’t meet with them where they live. 

“He’s nowhere to be found,” she said. 

When Peterson shared the debate stage last year with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Fulcher, who had skipped the event, she was surprised by how community members engaged with it. 

“To me, the cardboard cutout was supposed to be a little nudge,” she said. “But people really authentically unleashed these personal stories in a way I don’t think they would’ve had the confidence to if it had been Russ Fulcher there, but in a way that I think they wish they could.” 

The cutout came with Peterson when she held another debate at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library last week. (Fulcher was invited, she said, and expected to be in Coeur d’Alene for the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee’s annual Lincoln Day dinner. He didn’t attend the debate.) 

Peterson said the prop is one of several methods her campaign has employed to “hold (Fulcher’s) feet to the fire” and encourage him to engage with his constituents in their communities. She believes it’s working. 

“When my Republican town hall series became very popular, I went to Lewiston and Fulcher went to Lewiston,” she said. “I went to Kamiah and Fulcher went to Kamiah. We know that we pressured him into showing up in those communities for the first time and I’m really proud of that.”