As CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association and Washington State Dairy Federation, Rick Naerebout is a policy expert who understands legislative strategy. But this was different.
“We’ve already lost our House to the far right,” he told dairy producers at the joint annual meeting in Orlando. “The majority of these 15 bills sailed through the House without much pushback. You can go testify at committee hearings, but you get sent to the buzzsaw pretty quick.”
The Idaho Senate was the last firewall. If it fell, Idaho agriculture would face a regulatory environment that could cripple operations.
So the Idaho Alliance for a Legal Workforce, a broad coalition spanning multiple economic sectors, made a shocking decision: make a historic spend on an education campaign to win an argument most voters didn’t know was happening.
It worked.
The Shocking Poll Results
Before spending a dime, the Alliance commissioned a comprehensive poll of 716 Republican voters. In deep-red Idaho, Republican primaries are the only elections that matter.
The results were stunning.
When asked about Idaho’s biggest workforce challenges, only 1% of Republican voters cited illegal immigration as a top concern. Cost of living and housing topped the list.
Yet that 1% issue was driving the entire legislative conversation — fueling 15 bills, dominating hearings, threatening to reshape Idaho agriculture.
“It’s 1%, but it drove so much of the conversation in this election cycle,” Naerebout says.
But the polling revealed something even more troubling: 47% of Idaho Republicans believed dairy and other year-round agricultural sectors already have access to a visa program — they just choose not to use it.
“There’s this belief that we’re just doing it on the cheap, Naerebout explains. “They don’t recognize that we follow all the same hiring practices every other small employer follows. We complete I-9s, we withhold payroll taxes and we pay FICA taxes on all our workers.”
Nearly half of voters in a major agricultural state think dairy farmers have access to a visa program — unaware that the H-2A visa program’s seasonal requirement legally excludes dairy’s 365-day operations, and that farmers have sought a viable legal pathway for 40 years.
The polling revealed another complication: Republican voters showed 48% favorability toward “foreign-born workers” generally, but only 15% favorability toward “foreign-born workers without legal status.”
Dairy farmers face the worst possible position: voters think a legal pathway exists and farmers choose not to use a visa system, when dairy farmers desperately want to have the same access to visas their seasonal counterparts have.
The Winning Message
The Alliance tested multiple messages. They expected the housing crisis message to win — after all, transplants from Washington, Oregon and California had driven housing costs through the roof while demanding Idaho become “more conservative.”
It didn’t work.
What resonated was simpler: Fix the broken system.
Not sympathy for workers. Not defending farmers as good people. Just: The system is broken. Agriculture needs legal workers. Create a legal pathway.
“When you’re talking to Republicans, it’s the economy,” Naerebout says. “Republican voters respond to facts and data, not emotion. It can’t be an emotional empathy campaign. It’s got to be numbers-driven.”
The strategy: Don’t defend the status quo. Make it about fixing a broken system so agriculture can operate legally and efficiently.
The Idaho Feeds America Campaign
Armed with data, the Alliance launched an unprecedented education campaign across every channel:
- Digital advertising targeted to specific voters
- Broadcast TV on Netflix, Hulu and cable
- Radio spots statewide
- Newspaper op-eds
- 25 to 30 billboards across the state
They produced four versions of a 30-second spot featuring boots in a dairy feed lane, potato cellar, on a tractor and in a wheat field — all delivering the same message: Idaho agriculture feeds America. The system is broken. We need legal workers.
Naerebout offers to share everything — polling data, creative assets, media strategy — with any state.
“Take out Idaho. Put in Kansas or Utah. Pick your red state. We don’t care. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned.”
The Billboard Strategy That Shocked the Board
“I never knew billboards were so damn expensive,” Naerebout admits.
But the billboards weren’t just advertisements — they were data collection tools.
“We could track when people were passing these billboards, then push a digital ad to those same people,” he explains. “A little bit, it freaked our board out.”
When someone drove past an Idaho Feeds America billboard, their phone’s location data was captured. Later, when they opened social media, they’d see a digital ad reinforcing the billboard message.
It’s the same sophisticated targeting major political campaigns use — the same tactics well-funded opposition groups deploy against agriculture.
“We’ve got to use the same strategy being used against us,” Naerebout says. “We’ve got to be smart about this.”
His board was uncomfortable. This wasn’t traditional agricultural advocacy — it felt aggressive, expensive and foreign.
But Naerebout’s argument was simple: The opposition is already doing this. They’re well-funded, sophisticated and effective. If agriculture doesn’t fight back with the same tools, agriculture loses.
Eight Out of Nine
The campaign was complimented with PAC activity targeting nine key Republican primary races — the firewall protecting moderate senators against 15 anti-agriculture bills.
Agricultural PAC investment in those races was around $200,000 — an extraordinary sum for state legislative races, more typical of gubernatorial or congressional contests.
But the stakes were existential. Losing these races meant a regulatory environment that could cripple Idaho agriculture.
Election night delivered. Agriculture won eight of nine targeted races.
The moderate Republican Senate majority held.
“This strategy did work,” Naerebout says. “This was all Republican versus Republican primaries, completely focused on moving Republican voters.”
The victory proved agriculture can win messaging battles in conservative states — if willing to invest.
The National Blueprint
Naerebout’s message to Orlando attendees was blunt: Agriculture must rethink investment strategies and political tactics.
“We’re up against an opponent that is well funded, motivated and good at this,” he says. “This was foreign to us. I’m a policy guy, not a media guy. But we have to have a more robust strategy.”
Anti-immigration groups flooding social media, funding primary challenges and pressuring legislators are sophisticated. They know messaging, targeting and winning.
The Idaho Feeds America campaign proved agriculture can fight back effectively to educate voters, but it requires:
- Investment at unprecedented scales
- Sophisticated messaging based on polling data, not assumptions
- Multi-channel campaigns meeting voters where they are
- Same tools opposition groups use
- Focus on economics and facts, not emotion or empathy
The Misconception That Persists
Despite electoral victory, the underlying problem remains: many Idaho Republicans still think dairy has visa access and chooses not to use it.
That misconception likely exists in Kansas, Utah, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and every dairy-producing state.
Even as dairy fights for the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA) in Congress, it simultaneously battles perception in state legislatures nationwide.
Voters think the problem is farmer greed when reality is a 40-year statutory gap never fixed.
Correcting misconceptions requires the same sustained, expensive, sophisticated messaging Idaho deployed — at national scale.
It requires investments dairy organizations have never made. It requires treating political advocacy as existential, not optional.
The SAWA Challenge
While Idaho won state battles, the national SAWA fight struggles.
The bill launched with 48 bipartisan co-sponsors, now at 61 — but lost four who dropped off after opposition groups called it “amnesty.”
No Senate companion exists. House members won’t take political hits without Senate action. Senate offices want more momentum first.
Classic Washington catch-22.
The opposition deploys the usual playbook: flood social media with misinformation, label it amnesty, primary-challenge supporters, make it toxic. But now dairy has a proven counter-model.
Idaho demonstrated success, but it required significant investments, sophisticated messaging, multi-channel strategy and a data-driven approach.
The question: Will the rest of dairy country make the same investment?
The Industry Challenge
“We can’t just lean on National Milk and national groups,” Naerebout told the room. “In our home states, we must create political cover so we don’t lose co-sponsors. They’ve got to know we’re going to help cover their backs.”
The Idaho Feeds America campaign proved the strategy works to educate voters. Creative assets exist. Polling data exists. The playbook is available.
What’s missing is will to replicate it.
The 1% problem isn’t unique to Idaho. In every dairy state, voters likely think farmers already have legal worker access and choose not to use it. In every state, well-funded opposition groups ready primary challenges. In every state, legislators want to help but need political cover.
Idaho provided that cover with their investments, winning eight of nine races.
Will the rest of dairy country do the same? Or keep fighting with one hand tied while opposition uses every available tool?
Naerebout’s offer stands: “Take out Idaho. Put in Kansas or Utah. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned.”
The blueprint exists. The data exists. The creative exists.
All that’s left is deciding to invest in the fight.
Because the 1% problem won’t solve itself. Opposition won’t stop because they lost in Idaho.
They’ll keep fighting, messaging, primarying legislators, flooding social media.
The only question is whether dairy will fight back with equal intensity.
Idaho showed it’s possible. Now the industry must decide if it’s willing to do what winning requires.
