Price, Hazel clash over education funding in Coeur d'Alene primary

Education funding has become the fault line in the Republican primary for Coeur d’Alene’s Legislative District 4B seat, where incumbent Rep. Elaine Price and challenger Christa Hazel are vying for a seat that is likely to remain in GOP hands after the May 19 vote. In a district where a contested Republican primary often settles the November race, the winner will help shape how Idaho spends on public schools, career training and private-school tax credits.

Hazel, a longtime Republican organizer and former Coeur d’Alene School Board member, is running as the candidate focused on school funding, local control, taxes and workforce opportunities. She served on the school board from 2013 to 2017 and spent two of those years as board chair. Before that, she co-chaired the successful 2012 bond campaign that helped fund local school improvements, including the later opening of Winton Elementary after voters approved a $32.7 million package.

Hazel has also pointed to the turmoil at North Idaho College as part of what pushed her into the race. Her campaign puts classroom spending and local decision-making at the center of the debate, a message that fits a candidate who has spent years inside Coeur d’Alene education politics.

Price, first elected to the Idaho House in 2022 and now seeking a third term, has presented herself as North Idaho’s voice in Boise. She has also aligned with hardline groups such as the Idaho Freedom Foundation. On education, her critics say her record leans far more toward social issues than toward direct support for public school funding.

That criticism sharpened after a public letter said Price voted against HB 907, the bill that provided additional funding for Career Technical Education. Supporters of that funding say CTE is one of the clearest ways to connect Kootenai County students with higher-paying jobs in local trades and industry. Price’s allies, by contrast, have emphasized issues such as protecting children from grooming and sexualization, along with book content in school libraries.

The divide matters because Idaho enacted House Bill 93 in February 2025, creating the state’s first private school choice tax credit. The $50 million program took effect retroactively to Jan. 1, 2025, and offers up to $5,000 per student, or $7,500 for students with special needs. For Coeur d’Alene families, the question is no longer abstract: one candidate is pushing more support for public school funding and local control, while the other is aligned with a new tax credit that shifts state dollars toward private and home-school expenses.

With all 105 Idaho legislative districts on the ballot in 2026, the contest in Kootenai County is more than a routine primary. It is a test of whether one of North Idaho’s most reliably Republican seats will keep backing the state’s public schools or move deeper into the school-choice agenda now driving the party’s education politics.