Idaho Democratic U.S. House candidate Walt Minnick has released the names of 60 people he says are Republicans but are backing him in his 1st Congressional District race against GOP incumbent Representative Bill Sali.
Minnick, a one-time Republican and Nixon administration staffer, released a similar list in 1996 in his unsuccessful race against Idaho Republican U.S. Senator Larry Craig.
The names on his new list were posted this week on a Web site entitled republicansforminnick.com. About 40 of the names are from Boise and some don’t live in the 1st Congressional District, which covers western and northern Idaho.
A Minnick campaign spokesman, called the Web site “a serious effort to reach out to Republican voters with a message that this race is not about party, it’s about who’s right for Idaho.”
Minnick’s list for the 1996 Senate contest had 22 names. Democratic candidate Larry Grant, who lost to Sali in 2006, also released a similar list, however it included just 11 people.
The Sali campaign labeled the list a gimmick and called into question whether the names on the list are really staunch Republicans. Idaho has no party registration for voters.
Some of the people on Minnick’s list have donated to Republican candidates in the past, according to a campaign finance database maintained by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics. (AP)