It’s easy to draw a straight line from Feb. 27, 2025 to May 19, 2026.

The first date is the day Gov. Brad Little signed a $50 million private school tax credit bill into law.

The second date is the day of Idaho’s next Republican primary election.

Little hasn’t announced whether he plans to seek a third term. But on private school choice — and on almost everything else these days — Little gives off the vibe of a skittish incumbent seeking to placate his voter base. Little’s path on the tax credit bill seemed to be mapped, at least in part, by political prospects.

Little’s calculus makes some sense. Private school choice was a pivotal issue in the May 2024 GOP primary and, to a lesser degree, the November general election. It cost several incumbent lawmakers their jobs, making the 2025 Legislature more conservative and more receptive to private school choice.

There is a catch. Private school choice could again be pivotal in 2026 — but it’s not an easy issue to read.

That’s next year.

As for this year, Little had few options on House Bill 93, Idaho’s new private school tax credit law. He put himself in a corner.

After six years of shuffling and sidestepping on the issue, Little opened the 2025 legislative session with a surprise. During his Jan. 6 State of the State address, he earmarked $50 million “to further expand education options for Idaho families.”

Conveniently enough, supporters just happened to unveil a $50 million tax credit bill earlier that day — a reworked version of a 2024 bill with an identical pricetag. As this proposal evolved into HB 93, it emerged as the Legislature’s preferred private school choice vehicle. On Feb. 21, HB 93 became the first bill of its kind to reach the governor’s desk. With a big push from the White House.

On Feb. 16, President Donald Trump went on social media to lobby for HB 93. “This Bill, which has my Complete and Total Support, MUST PASS!”

With that, Little’s options went from limited to virtually nonexistent.

The governor’s burgeoning bromance with the president is one of this session’s subplots. It has taken Little out of the Statehouse at least three times this year — to Mar-A-Lago, to the inauguration, and to a White House ceremony, as Trump signed an executive order on transgender athletics. (For the record, spokeswoman Emily Callihan said Little used private funds for these trips; she did not elaborate.)

Face time isn’t free. It would have been almost impossible for Little to renege on his $50 million commitment and show up the president, alienating the private school choice supporters and the MAGA sympathizers he’d need in a future primary.

Still, Little tried to triangulate. On Feb. 25, two days before his deadline to act on HB 93, Little didn’t sing its praises. He told reporters that HB 93 was lacking in accountability — one of the four vaguely defined sideboards Little tried to put around a private school choice proposal.

“I don’t get very many perfect pieces of legislation,” Little said. “The only thing this perfectly fit into was my $50 million box.”

This was on brand for Little, who has elevated grudging support into an art form. A year ago, in an offhand remark to Logan Finney of “Idaho Reports,” Little called a hotly contested anti-obscenity measure “that stinking library bill.”

If Little labeled HB 93 “that stinking school choice bill,” he didn’t do it publicly. By the same token, though, he made no public splash out of signing HB 93. As he attached his name to a historic change in K-12 education — one thing supporters and opponents can agree on — Little let a four-paragraph news release do the talking.

With his near silence, Little came across as a governor giving in, unenthusiastically. A governor playing to the base that votes in Republican primaries. Much as Little did with the 2024 library law.

But by any metric, private school choice is a double-edged political sword.

Yes, it plays well with the hardline Republican base.

GOP voters responded to a barrage of spendy pro-private school choice messaging in the 2024 primary — ousting adversaries such as then-House Education Committee Chairwoman Julie Yamamoto, and rewarding supporters such as Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee co-chair Wendy Horman, a leading sponsor of HB 93. And when Boise State University polled Idahoans in November, 52% of Republican respondents said they supported using tax dollars to support private or religious education.

According to the same survey, however, only 38% of Idahoans support the idea.

And while Little deliberated, more than 37,000 Idahoans called or emailed the governor’s office on HB 93. A whopping 86% demanded a veto, according to numbers Little’s office released Saturday, two days after Little signed the bill.

Calls and emails aren’t a scientific sample, but they indicate engagement. They show which side is motivated. And Idaho voters have a way of getting riled up on education issues; it happened in 2012, when they overwhelmingly rejected the “Luna laws,” former state superintendent Tom Luna’s sweeping attempts at K-12 overhaul.

Does the private school choice issue have political staying power, and will it energize voters? That could depend on what happens next. If proponents come back in 2026, seeking to lift the $50 million funding cap, that could reignite the private school choice opposition.

Little managed to straddle a fence on private school choice until the back end of his second term. Finally forced into taking a stand this year, Little looked like someone with an eye on a third term and his next primary.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.