Lincoln Days: Celebrating Idaho’s Republican Tradition and Grassroots Commitment to Faith, Family, and Freedom

By Dorothy Moon, IDGOP Chairwoman

It’s Lincoln Day season all across the state of Idaho. Washington, Gem, and Idaho counties have already held their annual dinners while the rest of the counties will follow over the next two months.

The Lincoln Day Dinner is a wonderful Idaho tradition where you can meet your neighbors, lawmakers, and candidates while supporting your local Republican Party. We are not a top down organization, rather we serve the hundreds of volunteers and thousands of voters throughout the state who believe in faith, family, and freedom. The Precinct Committeemen and volunteers you meet at your local Lincoln Day Dinner are the grassroots of the GOP.

Lincoln Days honor the legacy of our 16th president, a man who faced the greatest crisis in our nation’s history. Abraham Lincoln was not a career politician, nor was he considered one of the great men of the age prior to his election. He was born in a simple log cabin and grew up in poverty, teaching himself grammar, history, and the law. His time in Congress was short, and his race for the Senate a failure. Yet it was this man who was chosen by the Republican Party to lead in 1860, with our nation teetering on a knife’s edge.

The election of 1860 was not easy. Lincoln did not even appear on the ballot in the southern states. Yet he won a majority of electoral votes against three different Democrats and immediately inherited a broken nation.

You know the rest of the story. Through sheer grit and determination, along with a wisdom that came not from high society but from time-honored tradition and the timeless books he was always reading, Abraham Lincoln preserved the union and ended slavery, which the first Republican platform called a “relic of barbarism”.

The Republican Party formed in the 1850s because the existing parties had no answers to questions of slavery and secession. Our first platform declared the party’s support for the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While today’s platform deals with new social problems, those principles remain the same, and the Idaho Republican Party is proud to fight for them every day.

I hope to see you all this Saturday in Coeur d’Alene as we celebrate those principles at the Kootenai County Lincoln Day Dinner, always one of the premier events in our state. The following week will be Canyon County, who has partnered with Ada County for their dinner at the Idaho Center in Nampa, as well as Owyhee County’s Lincoln Day Lunch, and the following day Elmore, Twin Falls and Jerome Counties are hosting their Lincoln Day.

You can find the list of events on our website. No matter where you live, there is a Republican Party near you, and you are more than welcome to join them this spring to help build a stronger party that will continue the fight for faith, family, and freedom.

Dorothy Moon was elected to serve as the chairwoman of the Idaho Republican Party in July of 2022. Moon served three terms in the Idaho Legislature as State Representative for District 8. Moon’s career in public service has focused on the advancement of individual liberties and reducing the size and scope of government.