Donald Williamson (Idaho)
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Donald Williamson (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Idaho House of Representatives to represent District 21A. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Williamson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2020
See also: Idaho House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A
Incumbent Steven Harris defeated Donald Williamson in the general election for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Steven Harris (R) | 63.7 | 19,731 |
 | Donald Williamson (D)  | 36.3 | 11,249 | |
| Total votes: 30,980 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A
Donald Williamson advanced from the Democratic primary for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Donald Williamson | 100.0 | 2,847 |
| Total votes: 2,847 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A
Incumbent Steven Harris advanced from the Republican primary for Idaho House of Representatives District 21A on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Steven Harris | 100.0 | 5,670 |
| Total votes: 5,670 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Donald Williamson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Williamson's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Although I have been registered a Democrat since I was 18, I was raised in a large, fairly conservative family. My entire life, I have always voted on the policy or the candidate whose platform I felt was in the best interests of citizens as a whole, regardless of party. Like most people, I have things I am conservative about and things I am liberal about. In the end, I believe we all just want to live our lives, the way we want, with as little to no interference as possible from any government entity. I believe in facts, data and critical thinking as opposed to opinions and emotional reactions to govern a society. I have a blue-collar work background, ever since I was picking strawberries in the summer at age 14. I've worked in retail sales as a salesman, manager and sales trainer. More recently, as an ER Tech in Idaho's busiest emergency room in the state. My wife started her own small business in 2013, which quickly took off and required me to leave my brothers and sisters in the ER. I became a full-time stay at home dad, managing our house and our 2 children. In my free time, I enjoy reading, playing video games with our son, mountain biking and numerous outdoor sports. Although it feels like I will never have enough time to enjoy all of the outdoor activities our beautiful state has to offer. I still currently handle HR related duties for my wife, but now feel compelled to run for office, to give all the residents of our district real representation in our statehouse.
- I believe our representatives should represent the voice of the people that elected them into office; not the corporations, special interests and dark money that funds their campaigns!
- NO responsible legislator, from any party, should support legislation that would effectively take away the voice of the voters that put them in office! If our legislator don't respect our vote, they don't deserve our vote!
- We need to end the hyper-partisanship that is crippling our legislature, and find real solutions to issues like property tax relief, traffic congestion and education funding, that Idahoans worry about everyday.
I am passionate about protecting Idahoans' voter initiative rights. This is a non-partisan issue that needs to be protected, not diminished.
I believe in protecting Idaho's public lands and Idahoans' rights to access those lands, for all to enjoy. We should not be protecting the interests of billionaires, who are illegally blocking access to our public lands, over the interests of all Idahoans.
Even though she has been gone for 3 years now, I still look up to my mother. She taught be that I had to work for what I want, how to be patient with others, to see things from other peoples' point of view and the importance of integrity. She would rarely lecture me on a topic or have a drawn out conversation about these things. It would sometimes be with a well timed statement, that I wouldn't usually appreciate in the moment, but recognize later in life. More importantly, and I would argue more effectively, she almost always achieved this through her actions and watching her behavior, more than anything she would say to me.
Integrity, humility, a willingness and openness to learn and critical thinking skills.
To represent those voice of the citizens they were elected to represent, and be available to engage with their constituents on a regular basis.
My first NATS singing competition, (National Association of Teachers of Singing) where I placed first in my division and top 10 for all divisions combined. (all divisions covered singers from teenagers to adults in the 50's & 60's) I was 17 and that was a huge confidence booster to me.
If I don't count the summers in my youth, when I picked strawberries and bailed hay, then my first official job was at Figaro's Pizza in Dallas, OR. I quickly became a lead and worked there for about 1 1/2 years I think.
If I had to pick one, it would be Where the Red Fern Grows. I read for the first time when I was around 10 or 11 years old and have probably read it more than a dozen times in my life. I have always had an affinity for dogs and had hunters in my family, so I related to that book immediately. That recently was a book assigned to our daughter's seminar class and it is funny how excited I got, talking to her each time she finished a section of the book, to hear her thoughts and watching her reactions as she read each new milestone in the book.
I don't really have one specifically, I can think of, but I was always fond of Spiderman as a kid.
She's like the wind by Patrick Swayze.
It's a long story of why that happened and it was terrible. Took me more than an hour to get it out of my head. lol
It's a long story of why that happened and it was terrible. Took me more than an hour to get it out of my head. lol
That's hard to say. Our legislature has a super majority in both houses, so that party pretty much gets to call the shots without having to worry too much about any pushback. Since moving here in 2012, I have seen and heard that our house tends to act more like out of control teenagers, while our senate tends to be the cooler heads in the room, who think more logically. I would just like to see more balance. I don't believe any party should hold a super majority in politics. When one party essentially has all control, there is nothing that prevents them from doing whatever they want. Then our checks and balances and any form of real accountability is lost.
I think any amount of experience in any field is beneficial, but I don't necessarily subscribe to the belief that you have to have been in government or politics, to get into politics. I actually believe we need more diversity in our politics, with more citizens from every walk of life, to get involved. Then, we might have representation that more accurately reflects our communities. We just need people who have a level of humility, a willingness to listen, openness to learn and the strength to know what they don't know. Then reach out to the experts in their field, in order to learn the information needed to engage their critical thinking skills and make an informed decision.
Getting dark money out of our politics and preventing the voice of the citizens from being silenced.
To me, the governor is like a project manager. They have a vision for the direction they want to take the state in and the legislature are like the members of the project manager's team. Their overall goal is to help facilitate the project manager's vision to the best of their abilities, while keeping the overall interests of the citizens in mind. There should be open lines of communication between the two branches, and an ability to hold each other accountable when something is wrong, as well as the ability to compromise when it is not possible to to achieve the initial goals.
Absolutely! It is inherently important to build relationships with other legislators. Especially ones from different parties. If there are no relationships, then it is too easy to see people as a number and not take other opinions or points of view into consideration. When real relationships are developed, you learn more about what got that person involved in politics, what their district is like on a daily basis and how legislation effects their constituents in rural areas as opposed to those in urban areas. By developing relationships, you find more areas of common ground which makes it more likely to find areas of compromise when it comes to legislation. That can help us get away from the hyper-partisanship and the back and forth party blaming for everything, that is crippling legislatures across the country.
I have no specific interests at this time.
Not at this time.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
Current members of the Idaho House of Representatives
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Mike Moyle
Majority Leader:Jason Monks
Representatives
District 1A
Mark Sauter (R)
District 1B
Cornel Rasor (R)
District 2A
Heather Scott (R)
District 2B
Dale Hawkins (R)
District 3A
Vito Barbieri (R)
District 3B
Jordan Redman (R)
District 4A
Joe Alfieri (R)
District 4B
Elaine Price (R)
District 5A
Ron Mendive (R)
District 5B
Tony Wisniewski (R)
District 6A
Lori McCann (R)
District 6B
Brandon Mitchell (R)
District 7A
Kyle Harris (R)
District 7B
Charlie Shepherd (R)
District 8A
Rob Beiswenger (R)
District 8B
Faye Thompson (R)
District 9A
John Shirts (R)
District 9B
Judy Boyle (R)
District 10A
Mike Moyle (R)
District 10B
Bruce Skaug (R)
District 11A
Kent Marmon (R)
District 11B
Lucas Cayler (R)
District 12A
Jeff Cornilles (R)
District 12B
Jaron Crane (R)
District 13A
Brent Crane (R)
District 13B
Steve Tanner (R)
District 14A
Ted Hill (R)
District 14B
Josh Tanner (R)
District 15A
Steve Berch (D)
District 15B
Dori Healey (R)
District 16A
Soñia Galaviz (D)
District 16B
Annie Haws (D)
District 17A
John Gannon (D)
District 17B
Megan Egbert (D)
District 18A
Ilana Rubel (D)
District 18B
Brooke Green (D)
District 19A
Monica Church (D)
District 19B
Chris Mathias (D)
District 20A
Joe Palmer (R)
District 20B
James Holtzclaw (R)
District 21A
James Petzke (R)
District 21B
Jeff Ehlers (R)
District 22A
John Woude (R)
District 22B
Jason Monks (R)
District 23A
Chris Bruce (R)
District 23B
Shawn Dygert (R)
District 24A
Clint Hostetler (R)
District 24B
Steve Miller (R)
District 25A
Lance Clow (R)
District 25B
David Leavitt (R)
District 26A
Mike Pohanka (R)
District 26B
Jack Nelsen (R)
District 27A
Douglas Pickett (R)
District 27B
Clay Handy (R)
District 28A
Richard Cheatum (R)
District 28B
Dan Garner (R)
District 29A
Dustin Manwaring (R)
District 29B
Tanya Burgoyne (R)
District 30A
David Cannon (R)
District 30B
Ben Fuhriman (R)
District 31A
Jerald Raymond (R)
District 31B
Rod Furniss (R)
District 32A
District 32B
Wendy Horman (R)
District 33A
Barbara Ehardt (R)
District 33B
Marco Erickson (R)
District 34A
Jon Weber (R)
District 34B
Britt Raybould (R)
District 35A
Kevin Andrus (R)
District 35B
Josh Wheeler (R)
Republican Party (61)
Democratic Party (9)
