James E. Risch

Republican · ID · U.S. Senate

On the ballot in 2026

Idaho — U.S. Senate

James E. Risch is on the ballot. David Roth vs. Jim Risch.

R +4 points of win probability since June.

Full forecast, candidates and polls for this seat →

Bio

James Elroy Risch is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Idaho since 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as lieutenant governor of Idaho under governors Dirk Kempthorne and Butch Otter, and briefly as governor between their terms.

Full bio on Wikipedia →

Record of service

In office: 17.7 years
First took office: 2009 (3 terms)
Seniority: 33 of 100 by time served
Age: 83
Senate class: 2 · junior senator

District offices

Boise, ID · 208-342-7985
Coeur d'Alene, ID · 208-667-6130
Idaho Falls, ID · 208-523-5541
Lewiston, ID · 208-743-0792
Twin Falls, ID · 208-734-6780
Pocatello, ID · 208-236-6817

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Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.

Reported net worth

2018

$41.8M

2019

$41.9M

2020

$52.5M

2021

$52.7M

2022

$53.4M

2023

$53.8M

2024

$55.7M

2025

$55.6M

Most recent filing (2025)

Assets: $20.4M – $92.2M
Liabilities: $515k – $1.1M
Net worth: $19.4M – $91.7M
Since 2018: +$13.8M

From annual financial disclosures, which report every asset and debt as a bracket — so these are ranges, and the figure shown is their midpoint. A primary residence is not a reportable asset while its mortgage is a reportable debt, which pushes some members negative. How this is calculated →

Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)

LeftCenterRight

Issue profile

Taxes & Fiscal

R+0.55

Healthcare

R+0.69

Immigration & Border

R+0.86

Guns

R+1.00

Abortion & Reproductive Rights

R+0.90

Environment & Energy

R+0.86

Crime & Policing

R+0.76

Defense & Veterans

R+0.70

Economy & Labor

R+0.87

Foreign Policy & Trade

R+0.57

Civil Rights & Social

R+0.54

Education

R+0.91

Government & Democracy

R+0.62

Judicial & Executive Nominations

R+0.85

Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.

How they score against the parties

James E. Risch's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.

93%Closest

64%

30%

20%

Democratic Socialists (DSA)

16%

Communist Party USA

15%

On the political map

James E. Risch (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.

Party platforms:Communist Party USADemocratic Socialists (DSA)Green PartyDemocratic PartyRepublican PartyLibertarian Party

Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.

Do you vote like Risch?

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Caucuses & committees

Where Rischsits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.

Committees

Most and least aligned members

Treating Risch's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.