A two-star general steps up to serve again — this time for Idaho’s First District.
The Coeur d’Alene Press covered the entry of Major General Sarah Zabel (Ret.) into the race for U.S. Congress in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District as an independent. The paper’s reporting captures why Sarah is running: after 31 years in the Air Force — a career in which she witnessed failed governments and authoritarianism abroad — she watched dysfunction take hold in her own country and decided she could not stand by.
The Press reports that Zabel, a Bayview resident, is building her platform on a foundation of competence: the conviction that America’s problems are serious but solvable, and that we have fixed harder problems before. She spent the announcement window doing exactly what independent leaders do — traveling the district and listening to Idahoans before telling them what to think.
Sarah Zabel is the highest-ranking officer in IVA’s entire 2026 class of endorsed candidates. A two-star general who led a global defense agency of 16,000 people doesn’t run for Congress for a party. She runs for her country. Idaho’s First District has been offered the same two-party matchup for decades. Now it has a genuine alternative.
Read the full Coeur d’Alene Press story.
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