SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state voters are deciding in Tuesday’s primary between U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of the last remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, and two conservative rivals endorsed by the GOP presidential nominee.
Other high profile races include the battle to become the next governor in a Democratic stronghold that hasn’t had an open race for the state’s top job in more than a decade.
In other congressional races, Trump-endorsed Joe Kent is trying to set up another showdown against Democrat U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who defeated him two years ago. And Democrat U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier’s bid to return to office has been shaken up by an upstart campaign started because of the response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Under Washington’s primary system, the top two vote getters in each of Tuesday’s races advance to the November election, regardless of party. Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state, with ballots due to be postmarked by Election Day, it often takes days to learn final results in close races.
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Newhouse’s bid for a sixth term has meant going up against Trump-endorsed candidates Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran, and Tiffany Smiley, a former nurse who entered the race after losing to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray two years ago. Trump’s backing for Sessler came months ago, while his endorsement for Smiley happened three days before the primary, marking a unique, though not unprecedented, dual endorsement by the former president.
Newhouse’s opponents believe his vote to impeach Trump is a huge liability, but political experts caution it’s difficult to say whether the endorsements will sway voters who already stuck with Newhouse two years ago.
Newhouse is endorsed by the NRA and the National Right to Life, and he has mostly steered clear of the subject of Trump. He’s instead focused on agriculture and border security in a state with millions of acres of pastures, orchards and cereal grain lands where immigrant labor is extremely important.
Democrat Bob Ferguson, who has served as attorney general since 2013, and Republican former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert are the two biggest names among the more than two dozen candidates running. Reichert is also a former sheriff known for his work hunting down Gary Ridgway, the so-called Green River Killer.
Weeks of intense sparring between the frontrunners has seen Ferguson frame Reichert as a two-faced candidate whose more moderate rhetoric during this campaign does not align with statements he’s made in private or actions he’s taken in Congress. Meanwhile, Reichert has painted Ferguson as a candidate who wouldn’t change anything about the state, while providing a continuation of “one-party rule.”
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The race is considered competitive, but in a state that hasn’t had a Republican governor in nearly 40 years, any conservative candidate faces an uphill battle.
Two years ago, Gluesenkamp Perez came out of nowhere to win a congressional seat against Kent, who had Trump’s backing in a district that hadn’t been in Democratic hands for over a decade. She took over a seat held by a more moderate Republican who lost the primary in part because she voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Now, armed once again with Trump’s endorsement, Kent is back to try to take the seat in the southwest corner of the state. But he is facing stiff competition as former King County Prosecutor Leslie Lewallen gains a groundswell of support from conservatives looking to move the seat back into more moderate Republican hands.
Gluesenkamp Perez, who was ranked by the Lugar Center and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy as having one of the most bipartisan voting records in the U.S. House, has far outraised her competitors. She is expected to make it out of the primary and face one of the tightest general elections in the country.
Imraan Siddiqi, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, has made the war in Gaza a centerpiece of his platform and has gained some traction as he derides Schrier for her approach, which often aligns with President Joe Biden’s.
The district is a mix of wealthy Seattle exurbs populated by tech workers and central Washington farmland, and until 2019 had been held by the GOP. Siddiqi’s presence could make Schrier appear more moderate, something she has historically sought by way of Republican endorsements in the purple district.
Schrier, a pediatrician, has stayed quiet about the war recently, instead showcasing the 14 bills she’s had signed into law by Trump and Biden. Experts anticipate she will go head-to-head in November with the Republican in the race, Carmen Goers, a commercial banker running to tamp down inflation and cut back on crime.