Sessler backs out of 2 TV debates with Newhouse after trying to change rules. Here’s why
Jerrod Sessler, the Republican candidate running to represent Central Washington in Congress, backed out of two upcoming TV debates with incumbent Dan Newhouse.
A news release sent Wednesday announced he will not participate in debates sponsored by KNDU and the Tri-City Herald in the Tri-Cities and another hosted by KIMA in Yakima.
Now, one station says it will plan to hold a forum with just Newhouse alone. The second broadcast on Oct. 11 has been called off.
The Prosser businessman agreed a week ago to debate Newhouse, also a Republican, but now Sessler is adamant that a write-in Democrat be allowed to join the debate. He’s also wanted her included in other forums and candidate meet-and-greets across the region.
Over the weekend, Matt Braynard — a former Trump campaign director who now advises the Sessler campaign — called both TV station managers requesting they include Democrat Cherissa Boyd. The demand came days after both stations had agreed to programs with the just the two candidates who made it through the primary.
Braynard lashed out and even went so far as to call the KIMA news director “a little b----” in a series of text messages that he posted Monday to Twitter/X.
Braynard says the news director hung up on him, and the director alleges Braynard was trying to intimidate him.
“If you decided to do a one-on-one interview with Dan Newhouse, we will request equal time as we are legally entitled to. I expect Boyd will as well,” Braynard said in one text.
Both stations independently declined Braynard’s request over the weekend, and on Wednesday the Sessler campaign announced their candidate would no longer participate.
In the announcement, Sessler’s campaign manager Matt Brown also falsely claimed the stations were caving to “Dan Newhouse’s demand to exclude Cherissa Boyd,” when in fact the Newhouse campaign did not make that request.
“Jerrod maintains the commitment to fair debates that include all qualified candidates that he made in early September,” Brown said. “While he disagrees with the politics of Boyd, he believes she and her party must not be disenfranchised for the health of our democracy.”
Boyd is registered with the Washington Secretary of State and Federal Elections Commission to run as a candidate in the race for Washington’s 4th Congressional District. But her name and information will not be included on either the ballot or voter pamphlets.
Boyd is not officially backed by the Washington state Democratic Party.
She jumped into the race after three other Democrats failed to earn enough votes to make it past the Aug. 6 primary election. Instead, voters chose to back Newhouse and Sessler — both Republicans — to advance to the Nov. 5 general election.
Sessler’s campaign has claimed that Boyd — a political newcomer with few campaign donations — could draw up to 16% of the vote in that race, pulling more moderate voters away from Newhouse.
That support from Democrats saved him in 2014 and 2016 against Clint Didier, now a Franklin County commissioner.
Sessler is endorsed by Donald Trump and admitted he was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 but didn’t go inside. He later posted videos outside a Washington, D.C., jail that was holding Jan. 6 insurrectionists, calling for their release.
General election debates hosted by television stations do not normally include write-in candidates.
Robert Bugner, Newhouse’s campaign manager, told the Herald on Wednesday it’s unfortunate Sessler “chose to deprive the voters of the only two televised debates this election season after previously agreeing to participate.”
“Given that Sessler supports a 30% national sales tax on everything we buy, believes the agricultural products we grow and raise here are killing Americans and wants to tax them into extinction, and advocated for defunding the Border Patrol at the height of the border crisis, perhaps it’s understandable he doesn’t want his strange ideas broadcast for all the world to see,” he added.
KIMA Action New’s forum with Newhouse is planned for 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28. The station plans to include an empty seat where Sessler would have sat.
Washington’s 4th Congressional District is the state’s most Republican-leaning congressional district and 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.
Ballots will be mailed out to registered voters by Friday, Oct. 18.
This story was originally published October 2, 2024 at 6:01 PM.
