Can Newhouse survive Trump’s wrath in WA 4th District primary? Here are early results
Central Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse will face off against a Trump-endorsed challenger later this year if early results from Tuesday night’s primary hold.
Jerrod Sessler was leading Newhouse with 30% of the vote, or 20,700 ballots. The five-term Republican was holding down 25% of the vote, or 17,400 ballots.
Tiffany Smiley, another candidate backed by the former president, was trailing with 20%, or 13,545 votes, and was at risk of being knocked out of the race.
Nearly 70,000 votes had been tallied in the race for Washington’s 4th Congressional District. There were an estimated 43,000 ballots left to count across eight counties in the coming days.
But Trump declared the victory for Sessler in a Tuesday evening social media post.
“Once again, the vast majority of this district who know Dan Newhouse well voted to end his congressional career and, unlike in 2022, Republicans succeeded in unifying behind a single campaign that stands for secure borders, traditional constitutional values and a robust America First agenda,” Sessler said in a late Tuesday evening statement.
He also thanked Smiley for helping “raise the voters’ awareness of Dan Newhouse’s betrayal of our values.”
The two candidates who earn the most votes move on to the Nov. 5 general election.
Three Democrats were also in the race and won’t make it past the primary.
Mary Baechler had 15% of the vote, or 10,400 ballots. Jane Muchlinski had nearly 7%, or 4,500 ballots. And Barry Knowles had almost 3%, or 1,800 votes.
Impeachment and Trump
Newhouse’s 2021 vote to impeach former President Donald Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol continues to dog him. Smiley and Sessler centered their campaigns around their alliance to the former president and their disapproval over Newhouse’s vote.
The Sunnyside farmer and one other California representative are the last remaining pro-impeachment Republicans serving in the U.S. House. Eight other Republicans have since either retired or lost their reelection bids. That includes former Southwestern Washington Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, who leads the race for Washington state lands commission.
The 10 Republicans voted with Democrats in favor of the articles of impeachment, but they failed to get enough “guilty” votes in the U.S. Senate.
The race for the Central Washington district was also shaken up over the weekend with a co-endorsement from Trump to both Smiley and Sessler.
“Newhouse has to go, and Republicans need to unite behind a winner to ensure we have a tremendous victory in November,” the former president wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Therefore, I give my complete and total endorsement to both Tiffany Smiley and Jerrod Kessler (sic) — either of which will do a tremendous job and never let you down.”
Washington’s 4th Congressional District is the state’s most conservative. Trump won the district by an 18-point margin during the 2020 presidential election.
It stretches from the U.S.-Canada border down to the Columbia River, and includes the Tri-Cities, Omak, East Wenatchee, Moses Lake, Yakima and the Yakama Indian Reservation.
Conservatives in the district previously tried ousting Newhouse in 2022 over his impeachment vote, but six challengers split up the Republican vote during the primary and allowed Democrat Doug White and Newhouse to advance to the general.
Sessler is a Prosser businessman and former regional circuit race car driver who is running for a second time to oust Newhouse. During the 2022 primary, Sessler came in fourth with 12% of the vote.
He’s a U.S. Navy veteran who overcame stage four metastasized melanoma cancer and authored several books.
Smiley is a veterans advocate and former triage nurse based in Pasco.
She put her career on hold after her husband was injured by a suicide car bomber while deployed in Mosul, Iraq. The incident blinded him and turned Smiley into an overnight activist for wounded vets. Her work to make sure that her husband’s recovery was not compromised by inefficient government bureaucracy expanded to ensure other veterans received the benefit and care they deserve.
Smiley was plucked from political obscurity in 2022 to challenge longtime U.S. Sen. Patty Murray for her seat, but lost by nearly 15 points.
Neither Sessler nor Smiley have held public office before.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 8:55 PM.
