When Karlie and Amanda Easley asked their 12-year-old son what he thought about each of them running for office, he asked if it would make their family a target. Karlie didn’t share her first thought out loud, which was that, as a biracial kid being raised by lesbians in a red state, her son is already a target.
But despite the risks involved, the family knew they had to take the plunge when Amanda looked at their son and replied, “That’s how they want you to feel.”
Related
Neither of the Easleys ever planned to get into politics, let alone to run a joint wife-and-wife campaign in a state like Idaho, which, even among red states, has been particularly hostile to LGBTQ+ rights over the past several years.
But when the married couple realized few Democratic candidates were willing to challenge Republican incumbents across the state, they felt pulled to step up.
Your LGBTQ+ guide to Elections
Stay ahead of the election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.
Only days after meeting with a representative from the group Idaho Women Forward, both Easleys registered their candidacies – Amanda for state House and Karlie for state Senate.
But before they agreed to run, they made it clear they would only do so if they could be completely out as a gay couple. To their delight, the state’s Democratic Party was on board.
“We said pretty much from the get-go that if the only thing we accomplish is normalizing a lesbian couple to a few folks that don’t realize they know any, then that’s a win,” Karlie told LGBTQ Nation. “There are a lot of ways to win.”
A breath of fresh air
In some states, it may feel antiquated to blaze a trail simply by running while out. But not in Idaho, where state legislators have passed or attempted to pass some of the strictest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the country in the past few years, including what advocates referred to as “the most extreme anti-transgender bathroom ban in the nation.”
Earlier this year, Idaho Republicans even introduced for the second time a formal legislative measure requesting that the US Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, its landmark 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
In campaigning, however, the couple has learned that everyday Idahoans are far less hateful than state lawmakers. They’ve received some inevitable online hate, but as vehement door knockers, they said they have had an almost entirely positive experience on the ground, even when they talk to Republican voters.
“People are a lot more in the middle than they want us to believe,” Karlie said. “I’ve had a number of folks who I’ve door-knocked, and they’ve said, ‘You know what? I’ve never had anybody knock on my door before. I am a staunch Republican, but I’m going to vote for you because I appreciate you coming here and listening to me. Even if we don’t agree on a single thing, you’ve proven to me that you’re willing to listen.’ It’s been a breath of fresh air.”
Amanda agreed, saying she’s met many lifelong Republicans who tell her they no longer recognize the party. That may be in part due to the GOP’s unrelenting obsession with trans issues, a focus that is wildly out of step with what voters actually care about.
A recent CNN poll found that voters ranked every other major issue as more important than trans issues, and in speaking directly with voters, the Easleys have found this to be absolutely true.
“We hear about affordability first and foremost,” Karlie said. “Second is education. We hear about healthcare… We have not heard people being worried about bathrooms at all.”
Amanda added that when voters bring up LGBTQ+ rights at all, it’s out of a desire to salvage them. “Neither of us has gotten a single person who said their biggest priority was bathrooms or what flag is flying at Boise City Hall.”
Amanda recalled knocking on the door of an 82-year-old white Republican named Charles, who, upon finding out she was a Democrat, told her he was a retired pharmacist and had just been writing letters to his representatives about the biology of being trans and why the laws they’re passing cause so much harm.
Another older man came back outside after speaking with her to compliment her bravery for running as an out lesbian couple in Idaho. He told Amanda that she and Karlie had his full support.
“I think we get a certain level of respect from people for being willing to just put it out there,” Amanda said.
Interactions like this have helped them believe that they actually have a chance. “In a regular year, I’m not sure this could be a swing district,” Amanda said. But this is no regular year, as polls across the country increasingly show frusturated voters turning on Republicans even in reliably red counties.
It’s still an uphill battle, though. Not only have the Easleys been significantly out-fundraised by their opponents, but they’re also running against both the Republican House and Senate majority leaders – Jason Monks and Lori Den Hartog, respectively.
Monks is reportedly pulling from a $51,600 war chest, compared to Amanda’s approximately $13,651. Karlie has raised about $14,896, compared to Den Hartog’s $71,350. But as Karlie pointed out in a TikTok video, her funding has come almost exclusively from individuals, whereas the majority of her opponent’s funding has come from corporations (the same is true for Monks’s funding versus Amanda’s)
Beyond that, the couple believes their values and their willingness to engage directly with voters make them stand out above their opponents, both of whom have pushed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation during their tenures.
Winning, the Easleys said, would be the ultimate message against their hateful agenda. “The way to turn off the bat signal, to make all of the crazies stop being so loud in Idaho, is to unseat these two key leadership positions with the married lesbian couple,” Karlie said. “Whenever we say that, people get real happy about it.”
Take a stand & be passionate
It isn’t just the leaders’ anti-LGBTQ+ policies the Easleys oppose. Education is also a major priority.
Karlie’s opponent, Den Hartog, spearheaded legislation to establish a $50 million school voucher program that allows private school students with families earning up to 300 percent above the poverty line to receive $5,000 in public tax money to pay for school expenses.
Monks also supported the initiative, which the Idaho Education Association denounced as “taking resources that should be invested in our public schools to provide subsidies for private school education.” The bill became law in February 2025.
“Idaho already spends the least amount of money per student of any state,” Karlie said. “My son is in Idaho public schools. I’m a nurse, and I think nurses and teachers have a lot in common. They’ve been attacking public schools on such an intense front lately, which turned my lens towards public education as a major part of my campaign.”
Last year, their son’s school district even became the subject of national controversy after officials forced a teacher to remove an “Everyone is welcome here” sign from her classroom.
In 2022, the district implemented a “content-neutral” policy for what schools can and cannot display on campus and in classrooms. And just days after the president’s inauguration, a since-deleted Instagram account called WestAdaParents posted images of a classroom bulletin board it called a display of “sexual rainbows” and demanded its removal. School administrators complied.
Karlie said the “initial spark” for her campaign began at a library board meeting, where she testified against banning an LGBTQ+ children’s book.
“It gave me a bit of a confidence boost,” she said. “[I learned] I don’t need to be well rehearsed on my feelings and values. I just need to go up there and take a stand and be passionate.”
Love at first hike
Karlie and Amanda met in 2019 through a lesbian hiking group in Boise. They became fast friends and ultimately something more.
Karlie already had a four-year-old from a previous marriage (what she calls her brief “straight phase”), and said she knew Amanda was the one when she showed up with Gatorade and board games after Karlie had to cancel a date because her son was sick.
When the pandemic hit, Karlie was busier than ever as a hospice nurse. Amanda, a small business owner, drove the hour to Karlie’s house every day and homeschooled the boy who would become her stepson, who was in kindergarten at the time, while also working remotely.
Since then, they have not only gotten married, but Karlie has also beaten breast cancer. “I joke that I was kinda hoping this year would be boring,” Karlie said. But they have no regrets about choosing to run, no matter the outcome.
Running together, they said, has been exclusively beneficial, as they’ve been able to essentially act as each other’s campaign managers while dividing and conquering a lot of work.
“I joke that it’s fiscally responsible for us to be running together,” said Karlie, “because we share all of the same yard signs and banners and palm cards… Our palm cards have a picture of us together on the front and on the back… So you have one door knocker able to knock for two candidates. Tell me that’s not fiscally responsible.”
Throughout the conversation with LGBTQ Nation, each spoke about the other with so much love and admiration, praising how they’ve seen their respective partner grow since the campaign began and both emphasizing that if only one of them had needed to run, the other would have been the obvious best choice.
They appreciate, they said, that running together has made it as easy as possible to be out. “We would never hide who we are,” Amanda emphasized, but if one of them had been running alone, it wouldn’t always be clear they were part of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I think so many of these people who have seen us and said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re giving us hope,’ they just might not have realized that we were gay, especially if it was Karlie,” who is more femme-presenting.
“The way that I look at the world is that we’re only here because people were brave before, little bit by little,” Karlie said. “Women and people in our community have stood up for our rights continuously throughout history. So if us being brave by running as a couple is one more step in that right direction of equality, then hell yeah.”
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.