Idaho Republicans reelected Dorothy Moon to a third term as state party chair on Saturday, closing the 2026 Idaho GOP State Convention in Meridian and seating what party leaders called the first all-women slate of statewide officers in the organization’s history.

A Narrow Majority

Moon, who has led the party since 2022, won a three-way contest with 306 votes, or 51.4 percent — just past the threshold she needed to avoid a runoff. Former state senator Steven Thayn finished second with 155 votes (26.1 percent), and outgoing first vice chair Mark Fuller placed third with 134 votes (22.5 percent). Under party rules, a winner must take a majority of all ballots cast, so a second round would have been triggered had Moon fallen short of 50 percent plus one.

The win continues a run of leadership no Idaho GOP chair has matched since the early 1980s. Moon was first elected in 2022, unseating former chairman Tom Luna, 434 to 287, and won reelection in 2024 over former state senator Mary Souza, 376 to 228.

The chair race drew two distinct challenges. Thayn, a former legislator, ran on a package of policy ideas he distributed to delegates in book form, casting his bid as an effort to unite Republicans around education, health care, and economic priorities. Fuller, a longtime figure in the party’s conservative wing who had served in the vice-chair ranks, made his first run at the top post after years as an officer.

An All-Women Leadership Team

The down-ballot races filled out a leadership team that is, for the first time, entirely women.

Incumbent second vice chair Viki Purdy, an Adams County commissioner, won the race for first vice chair in a landslide over former state senator Branden Durst, 497 to 91. Julianne Young, a former state representative, was the only nominee for second vice chair and was elected by acclamation. Sandra Eaton was elected treasurer over Greg Graf, 383 to 185. In an all-Kootenai County matchup for secretary, Carla Mattare defeated Kellie Palm, 431 to 154.

With Moon, Purdy, Young, Eaton, and Mattare all elected, every statewide officer of the Idaho Republican Party is now a woman — a milestone party leaders highlighted as the convention adjourned.

Eyes on November

Party officers signaled that their immediate focus is the November ballot, where backers of a proposed initiative to roll back Idaho’s abortion restrictions are working to qualify the measure for a statewide vote. Moon and the incoming officers framed that campaign as the defining fight of the election cycle and pointed toward a coordinated party effort to oppose it.

The convention, hosted by the Ada County Republican Party, also handled internal business, including platform and rules discussions that delegates chose to carry forward on a longer timeline rather than settle this year. The newly elected officers take office immediately and will lead the state party through the 2026 general election.