Washington State's Two Messiest Primaries— End Of The Road For Dan Newhouse (R) & Marie Perez (D)?

10 Republicans put country ahead of party and voted to impeach Trump after his attempted J-6 coup. Only two— David Valadao (CA) and Dan Newhouse (WA) are left in the House… and Trump has been trying to defeat Newhouse ever since, albeit clumsily. On Tuesday, despite, another awkward move, he may have come one step closer to replacing Newhouse with a MAGAt. Last April, Trump endorsed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler who seemed to be riding that endorsement to a primary win. And then for an undisclosed reason, Trump suddenly endorsed failed 2022 Senate nominee Tiffany Smiley for the same seat. He had just done the same thing in Arizona, where he was paid by Blake Master’s ex-lover, fascist gay billionaire Peter Thiel, to co-endorse Masters at the last minute. The maneuver failed and the original MAGAt Trump endorsed, Abe Hamadeh, won the primary and will go on to win the general in the blood-red district.

Washington has a different kind of primary in which all candidates, regardless of party, run together and the top two vote-getters, again, regardless of party, go to the general election. The 4th district is the reddest in the state and cuts right through the middle of the state from the Canadian border to the Oregonian border, very rural and very politically backward. The PVI is R+11 and the partisan lean is R+25. In 2020, Trump beat Biden there 57.2% to 40.3%.

Two years later, in the 2022 midterm, 6 anti-Newhouse Republicans jumped in against him— plus one popular Democrat, Doug White. Newhouse benefited by having a strong Democrat on the ballot and he and White essentially tied at the top of the primary ticket:

• Newhouse- 37,006 (25.5%)

• Doug White- 36,605 (25.2%)

• Loren Culp- 31,152 (21.5%)

• Jerrod Sessler 17,744 (12.2%)

• Brad Klippert- 15,065 (10.4%)

• 3 other Republicans with 5.1% between them

When November rolled around, there wasn’t much of a contest as Newhouse won all 8 counties and outpolled Trump’s 2020 margin:

• Dan Newhouse- 150,619 (68.1%)

• Doug White (D)- 70,710 (31.9%)

White had been a serious candidate and he raised $772,005 but he didn’t run again and the Democrats had no serious contender and couldn’t even unite behind any of the 3 hopeless candidates, none of whom rise any money. The three pathetic campaigns together managed to capture 24.2% of the vote, just under White’s 25.2% 2022 primary performance— just under enough so that November will see a Republican (Newhouse) vs MAGAt (Sessler) election. Sessler wrote a $300,000 check to his campaign and managed to raise around $100,000. Between money left over from her Senate campaign and new money raised, Smiley had $719,671 former campaign. Newhouse raised $1,583,420. Smiley’s SuperPAC, MWSA Inc, illegally coordinating with her campaign spent $163,773 smearing Sessler (as a vegan), $163,773 against Newhouse and $163,773 bolstering her. All Smiley’s spending— and the last minute endorsement she managed to weasel out of Trump— didn’t do her much good. Sessler won every county in the district and Smiley didn't come close to second place in any.

In November, Newhouse’s only shot will be if Democrats and independents join his GOP supporters to back him against Sessler. But why should they? He’s extremely conservative on every issue. Writing for Politico Tuesday morning, Natalie Fertig noted that Smiley, who campaigned as a moderate in the 2022 Senate race, and Sessler, a former vegan, fought each other over who was more of an extreme MAGAt. “Sessler,” she wrote, “told Politico he went vegan when fighting cancer in the 1990s, but eats meat now and even raises cattle. But the attack on his one-time dietary philosophy in an agriculture-heavy district prompted a response from the candidate in one his TV ads. ‘I’m a cattle-raising, gun-carrying, brisket-loving conservative,’ he said resolutely over a clip of him gnawing a beef rib.”

Over the weekend, Señor T ranted on his fake Twitter platform that “They are both running against a weak and pathetic RINO, Dan Newhouse, who stupidly voted to impeach me for absolutely no reason, and he now strongly wishes he didn’t make that Decision.” 

Smiley and Sessler have focused their campaigns on the U.S.-Mexico border, an issue that both right- and left-leaning voters in the district told Politico they cared deeply about. Smiley also told Politico that Newhouse’s impeachment vote would be a liability in working with a future Trump administration, should the former president win in November.

On the airwaves, Smiley and a super PAC backing her candidacy are the top two spenders. The latest ad from that super PAC, MWSA, Inc., cites Newhouse’s vote to impeach Trump— and Sessler’s alleged veganism— in an attempt to woo Republicans.

Because of Washington state’s unique system, however, Newhouse still has a fighting chance if he can somehow cobble together an unusual coalition sizable enough to finish first or second.

“He’s definitely more vulnerable this time around,” said Todd Schaefer, a professor of American politics at Central Washington University. “The big question is… how much hold does Trump have over the grassroots voters in the district, versus how much does Newhouse have his own following that might allow him to survive?”

And if he gets into the general election, a matchup between Newhouse and either Sessler and Smiley could favor the incumbent, with independents and Democrats potentially pushing Newhouse over the edge. Sessler said he’s prepared to face Newhouse in the general.

“A lot of Democrats, especially in this district, they’re not radical like in some of the big cities,” Sessler told Politico in a phone interview. “They’ll vote for someone they feel like they can trust, and they don’t feel like they can trust someone from the uniparty, which is what Newhouse represents.”

The southwest corner of the state— WA-03— is delivering a rematch between one of Congress’ worst Democrats, less-than-worthless Blue Dog co-chair Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and neo-Nazi fanatic Joe Kent. Be sure to watch the new Perez ad above. With Kent leading in Cowlitz, Skamania, Thurston and Lewis and Perez ahead in Clark, Wahkiakum and Pacific counties, the 4-person primary is yielding the rematch:

The district has an R+5 PVI and the partisan lean is R+12, tough for any Democrat, let alone for one as conservative as Perez. The theory of the race, though, is that non-Nazis will band together to keep the Nazi out of Congress, as they did in 2022, when Perez narrowly beat Kent 160,323 (50.41%) to 157,690 (49.59%) after Kent eliminated GOP incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had voted to impeach Trump. This year, Kent will have the advantage of having Trump on the ballot. In 2020, Trump beat Biden by over 4 points. In 2022 Republican Party leaders sabotaged Kent. That won’t happen again this year. If Kent loses again, Republicans are sure to nominate a more normal, establishment conservative in 2026 and win back the seat.