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Portland Mayor declares state of emergency around burned warehouse, White House Press Secretary to depart, total eclipse passes by Spain, Spokane evacuation notices lifted, recall charges filed against Seattle Mayor, Intel CEO to buy $12M of stock, Inflation at 3.4%.

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Big Contribution From Electrical Workers Puts Kotek in a Difficult Spot (WW)

“A large contribution by a prominent labor group has put Gov. Tina Kotek’s reelection campaign in an awkward position as she tries to walk a fine line on the politically volatile issue of data centers.

In late June, Friends of Tina Kotek received $400,000 from IBEW Local 48, the regional electrical workers union and one of the state’s most powerful lobbying groups. The Oregonian previously reported the contribution, among the largest Kotek has ever received from a union. It’s also the largest gift given by Local 48 to any candidate—by far—since Oregon’s campaign finance database, Orestar, went live in 2006.

At first blush, the source of the donation might not seem surprising. Democrats have long been regarded as the party of organized labor, and IBEW has supported Kotek in the past. The building trades also tend to support politicians who promise big new construction projects—and Kotek’s new “Prosperity Roadmap” does just that through expedited permitting, expanded industrial sites, and other approaches

“The IBEW is calling on all members to mobilize now and urge their members of Congress to oppose any bills that impose bans on data center construction and to instead support strong labor standards for these projects,” reads a statement by the national IBEW government affairs office.

prices, degraded water and land quality, and misspent tax dollars, residents throughout Oregon have organized against data centers and demanded that local leaders reconsider their relationships with the corporations that build them.

The timing of IBEW’s donation is notable. The day it made the contribution, June 25, was the day after Kotek’s Prosperity Council released its roadmap—a slate of proposals intended to kick-start the flagging state economy and create more jobs.

Kotek, who has struggled to appeal to pro-business interests in her first term, has lately taken a stronger stance against data centers. She’s supported local moratoriums and recently terminated a major data center project planned near Salem that involved the sale of state land.”

Idaho's economic outlook: the fastest-growing state keeps growing (IDB)

Idaho keeps doing the thing that has defined its economy for a decade: it grows. The pace in 2025 again put it near the top of the national rankings, and the engine is people moving in. For businesses, that single fact drives nearly everything else — the customer base, the labor pool, the housing market, and the constraints that could eventually slow it all down.

Growth, led by migration

Idaho's population rose about 1.4% over the year in 2025, the second-fastest rate in the nation, pushing the state past roughly 2 million residents. Migration did almost all of the work. Net migration accounted for about 76% of the year's growth — roughly 22,000 people — and about 90% of those movers came from other U.S. states, according to the Idaho Department of Labor. With the state's birth rate declining, in-migration is now the growth story almost by itself.

Where the people are landing

Growth is concentrating in the metros, not spreading evenly across the state. Idaho's six metropolitan areas accounted for about 92% of statewide population growth in 2025, adding more than 26,000 residents between them. The Boise metro grew about 2.2% — among the fastest large-metro growth rates in the country and the second-fastest in the West behind St. George, Utah.

A labor market that can't hire fast enough

The job market remains tight by historical standards. Idaho's unemployment rate sat around 3.7% while the labor force expanded from roughly 975,700 to 993,400 over the year. The mild uptick in the rate suggests hiring is lagging slightly behind a fast-growing labor pool — a far healthier problem than the reverse, but one worth watching, because it means employers are still competing hard for workers even as the supply of them rises.

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