Democrat · Idaho's 1st District · 2026
Kaylee Peterson
Peterson raises her two children on land her family homesteaded, on a street named for her great grandfather in the Eagle foothills.
Biography
Kaylee Peterson and her husband, Trevor, are raising two children in Eagle, on land her family homesteaded generations ago.1 They have also been foster parents.1 Peterson credits her mother, who raised her while working multiple jobs, with making room for childhood activities including theater, debate and tennis.1
Her own working life has included fast food, retail and management.1 When child care costs made conventional work impractical, she stayed home with her children while taking jobs at night and on weekends, including merchandising work at Taco Bell Arena and selling handmade goods.1 She returned to college at 30 to study criminal justice and political science, and became president of the College of Western Idaho's speech and debate team.1
Peterson previously challenged Republican Russ Fulcher in 2022 and 2024.2 In an October 2026 interview, she described her repeated campaigns as a sustained effort to build relationships and restore voters' trust in government.3 Her platform calls for stronger collective bargaining rights, a higher federal minimum wage and support for family farms.4
She is again challenging Fulcher in Idaho's First District.3 Peterson supports universal health coverage through a single payer system, preserving public lands and increasing federal support for education.4 Her accountability proposals include congressional term limits, restrictions on lawmakers' stock trading and greater campaign finance transparency.4
Record and controversies
Housing ownership figures
Peterson's platform says large investment firms and hedge funds own 26% of all American single family homes and projects 40% of the market by 2030.4 A January 2026 Urban Institute analysis, drawing on earlier ownership research, puts large institutions below 0.5% of all single family housing; it defines them as companies owning more than 1,000 homes in at least three markets.5 Cotality's 27.7% figure for March 2026 measures purchases by a broader group owning three or more properties, including small landlords, rather than large firms' ownership of existing homes.6 Yardi's 2022 account of a MetLife forecast concerned more than 40% of single family rentals by 2030, rather than all homes.7