When Tom Zuiderveld picked up his phone while driving near his home in southern Idaho last month, he had no idea the call would unravel years of professional relationships and cost his family as much as $125,000 a year.
His district manager was on the line with word that three dairy farms he supplied synthetic oil to had decided to stop doing business with him — not because of anything he had done wrong, but because of the politics of his wife.
Glenneda Zuiderveld is a Republican state senator aligned with a far-right bloc that has been pushing for some of Idaho’s strictest immigration legislation. The dairy industry in Idaho’s Magic Valley region — the economic backbone of an area anchored by Twin Falls — runs overwhelmingly on foreign-born labour and has fought those measures hard. A fourth dairy, Riverbend, cut ties with Zuiderveld in April.
“We live in a free country, and we can actually do business with whoever we want to,” said Riverbend owner Arie Roeloffs. “What his wife is doing in the state legislature are things that I don’t agree with. And he stands behind her.”
Tom Zuiderveld, who also serves as his wife’s campaign treasurer, called the move an ambush. “You couldn’t have come to me first?” he said. “They did exactly what they wanted to do: send a message.”
The episode has thrown into sharp relief a bitter fracture inside Idaho’s Republican Party — between a hard-right wing pushing aggressive immigration enforcement and more traditional GOP members who worry about the economic consequences for agriculture. Idaho’s dairy sector employs roughly 4,500 workers, about 90 percent of whom are immigrants, many of whom lack legal work authorization, according to The Washington Post.
“We’ve seen Republicans openly hostile to farmers, which is extremely unusual,” said Rick Naerebout, chief executive of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “This will be a potential tipping point for Idaho: Do we continue to shift further to the right, or do we moderate some?”
The answer may come on May 19, when Idaho holds its Republican primary — effectively the general election in many of the state’s deep-red districts.
Glenneda Zuiderveld, 59, remains unapologetic. She says her constituents rank illegal immigration among their top concerns, and that dairy employers who rely on undocumented workers are, in her words, their “accomplices.”
“Agriculture and dairy, they might have the money behind them,” she said. “But they don’t have the votes and they don’t really understand the area.”
The couple, who met as teenagers and raised three sons in the Magic Valley, say they are living off savings as the campaign intensifies. The rupture has struck close to home — one of the dairy families that dropped Tom Zuiderveld attended the same church as the couple.
The Zuiderveld case is not the first time Idaho’s immigration debate has turned personal. Last year, federal officers raided the farm of moderate Republican state representative Stephanie Mickelsen after a far-right activist reported her businesses to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line, according to InvestigateWest.
With the primary days away, dairy lobbyists and immigration hardliners alike are watching closely — each convinced that what happens next will define the direction of Idaho’s Republican Party for years to come.