BOISE, Idaho — U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo will run for a fifth term in the 2022 midterm elections, he announced Wednesday.
The Idaho Republican has held the Senate seat since 1999, and previously was a U.S. representative for the 2nd Congressional District.
“We are in the middle of the most important fight for our future that most of us alive today have experienced,” Crapo said in the news release Wednesday. “The threats to our values, our way of life and our Constitution itself are intense, extremely well-funded and well-organized. We must rise to that challenge and be heavily engaged in it.”
Crapo is now a ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee. As the top Republican on the committee, he recently took the charge against a federal proposal that would have required banks to share more customer data with the Internal Revenue Service.
Crapo won reelection in the 2016 general election with 66% of the votes. He was uncontested in the 2016 GOP primary.
Before he joined Congress, Crapo served as a state senator from 1984 to 1992. He was Senate president pro tem for his last four years in the Legislature.
Crapo’s recent controversies in Congress
The Idaho Falls native faced controversy in 2018 for failing to properly report certain campaign spending or donations for nine different years. And for two decades, Crapo’s campaign paid nearly $200,000 to his wife, Susan Crapo, for work that included creating gift bags for a yearly fundraiser, though her payments shrank since 2016.
Crapo joined a group of national GOP leaders who withdrew their support from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 after a video of Trump talking about sexually assaulting women circulated.
Crapo was one of two Idaho Republicans in Congress, along with U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher, who voted against creating a panel to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The incumbent will face three other Republicans: veteran Jeremy Gilbert; sign shop owner and Lewiston native Scott Trotter; and Mike Little, a disabled combat veteran and former police officer from Weiser. Eagle-based financial advisor Scott Cleveland is running as an Independent.
---------
