Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of candidate profiles Idaho Education News will publish ahead of the May 19 primary election. We’re highlighting competitive races impacting education policy. Click here to see our Elections webpage featuring a list of all candidates and much more. Click here to see your voter information. Follow our elections blog for breaking news and insights.

A Twin Falls County commissioner is challenging a two-term state senator as voters in the Magic Valley decide who should represent them in Boise.

Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls, is seeking a third term in District 24, encompassing rural Twin Falls, Gooding and Camas counties.

But first she will face long-running Magic Valley public servant Brent Reinke, a Twin Falls County commissioner and former director of the Idaho Department of Corrections. Some might know him better from “MR. B’s,” a family business he started in the ’80s that sold ice cream at the county fair for 38 years.

Zuiderveld is a member of the “Gang of Eight,” a group of hardline conservatives who vote against new government spending. All eight members, four of whom are from the Magic Valley, will face primary challengers on May 19. Zuiderveld said she will stick to her values and is confident her coalition will survive.

“I will continue to be steadfast,” Zuiderveld told EdNews.

Reinke said he decided to run after many individuals and groups in District 24 encouraged him to challenge Zuiderveld. He said folks in the Magic Valley want local representation.

“They don’t want me to run on a platform necessarily, like my opponent is,” Reinke said.

Political action committees heavily targeted Zuiderveld during the 2024 election cycle, and that trend continues this year.

Her primary campaign in 2024 drew $112,080 in opposition from PACs, a figure second only to Speaker of the House Mike Moyle. That included $78,000 in opposition from Idaho Liberty PAC and $12,250 from WinAg PAC.

WinAg and the Surface Water Coalition, a group aligned with the Twin Falls Canal Company, have already reported spending this year in opposition to Zuiderveld.

As the race heats up, both incumbent and challenger are raising significant money. Zuiderveld has collected $51,117 in campaign contributions and Reinke is slightly ahead with $53,763.

Zuiderveld said she’s getting hit on everything.

As a member of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, she routinely votes against budgets that she feels go beyond what is necessary.

“I’ve already been beat up,” she told EdNews. “I’m anti-ag, I’m anti-education, I’m anti-veteran, I’m anti-police, I’m anti-water. And every bill that they show to make it look like that — ‘This is me, I’m against everything’ — every single one of them is the enhancement.”

Last year she voted against $30 million in ongoing funding for water projects that would benefit the Magic Valley. This year she voted against an enhancement budget that will bring $423,800 in additional funding to the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls.

When casting votes, she keeps two things in mind: the Idaho Constitution and the “forgotten man.”

By that, she means the Idahoans who are working one or two jobs and paying their taxes. She said those folks don’t have time to watch what the government is doing.

“Somebody needs to look out for them as well,” she said.

Regarding her opposition to additional funds for her local community college, Zuiderveld said there is only one college that legislators have a constitutional duty to fund — the University of Idaho.

Funneling more taxpayer money to CSI, she said, would take funding away from other constitutional obligations, such as funding K-12 schools. She said corporations should step up and provide more money for scholarships to help train the workforce they benefit from.

Of all of the attacks against her, Zuiderveld said losing the support of the agriculture industry is hardest. She grew up in the Magic Valley and her dad was a potato farmer.

“I guess what hurts the most is the fact that I’ve known them for a long time. They all have my phone number. None of them reach out to me,” she said. “They just believe that I’m against their water.”

After wrapping up her second term, Zuiderveld said she’s starting to get thicker skin.

“It’s very lonely being the only, ‘No,'” she said.

On other education issues, Zuiderveld said she was glad the Legislature passed a bill to prohibit taxpayer funding for teachers’ unions. And she has an idea for how schools could cut administrative costs and put more money into classrooms.

The Magic Valley has 10 districts with fewer than 600 students. Zuiderveld said she wants to explore having fewer superintendents that oversee entire counties or a certain number of students, instead of individual small districts.

“There could be one superintendent that takes care of Wendell, Hagerman, Bliss,” she said.

Zuiderveld said she feels confident that the Gang of Eight will survive the primaries. She said they are all very involved with their constituents and are “very grassroots.”

“We don’t have a lot of money, but our people bank is big,” she said.

But even if she loses, Zuiderveld said she’s not going away. If she’s not serving in the Legislature, she would have more time for research and would be more vocal.

“I made the joke to somebody the other day, I said, ‘If I don’t win, I will still be heavily involved, but I won’t have as much restraint on me,'” she said.

From superintendents to farmers to law enforcement, Reinke said the people he’s met on the campaign trail want local representation.

He said folks in District 24 have encouraged him to challenge Zuiderveld, but they don’t want him to run on a platform. They want someone who will get local feedback, show up to local events, tour local schools and carry those needs to the Statehouse.

“We now have a voting block in Boise rather than legislators that represent the local individual and those organizations,” Reinke said. “There’s just a gap there, and that’s what I believe I can do.”

Reinke has decades of public service under his belt in city, county and state government.

He is a former director of the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections and the Idaho Department of Corrections. He served on the Filer City Council and has been a Twin Falls County commissioner since 2019.

Reinke said he’s running for Senate to apply the lessons he’s learned from those experiences. Those lessons can be boiled down to three steps: listen, learn and lead.

After visiting with local educators, Reinke said he has two areas of concern regarding public schools. He would like the funding formula to be more equitable and fair for school districts, and he said teachers need more support in the classroom.

He said kids with high needs can create challenges for teachers and cause disruptions for other students.

“I’m concerned about the lack of support in a lot of our classrooms now for kids that are on an IEP, or they’re seriously emotionally disturbed,” Reinke said, referring to individualized education programs for kids with special needs.

In his conversations with teachers, Reinke said he’s heard they are trying to educate students but are concerned with recruitment and retention.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of feedback over the last few years where education really feels like it’s under attack,” he said.

From his experience in juvenile and adult corrections, Reinke said he saw firsthand what a lack of education can do to a family. He said he was surprised at how many kids in juvenile facilities would end up in prison. Education can help break that cycle, he added.

“Education is the key to success,” Reinke said. “It’s a building block.”

He said people in the corrections system can backslide very rapidly, but all it takes is one individual to set them on a different path and help them earn a GED while incarcerated.

“Life is about learning from start to finish, and they don’t see that. They don’t see tomorrow in many, many cases and they need to be able to see that future,” Reinke said. “And that’s the value of education.”

With less than a month until the election, Reinke said he wants to move the needle on voter turnout. He said there was a lot of voter apathy in the Magic Valley in 2024, but voters have woken up.

“If we can get the silent majority mobilized to vote, it’ll be interesting to see what happens,” Reinke said.

With the America 250 celebration happening, he said he can’t think of a better way to recognize the country’s semiquincentennial than by exercising the right to vote.

“This is a right we never want to take for granted,” he said.