Newhouse’s Medicaid vote spurs 2 candidates to join 2026 midterms. Who they are
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Two progressive challengers announced 2026 bids after Newhouse backed Medicaid cuts.
- Democrat Duresky and independent Poore cite Medicaid, campaign finance and rural services.
- Newhouse and Sessler are also running, setting the stage for a contentious 2026 primary.
U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse’s alignment with President Trump on cuts to Medicaid and domestic issues in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has spurred two candidates to challenge the Central Washington Republican.
Both John Duresky, a Democrat from West Richland, and Devin Poore, an independent from East Wenatchee, say they plan to run for the 4th Congressional District in the 2026 midterms.
The early declarations reflect palpable bitterness among progressives with the way Trump has reshaped the business of the federal government and how he’s influenced Congress since coming into his second term in January.
Newhouse’s reelection campaign confirmed to the Tri-City Herald that he will be running next year for a seventh term. Jerrod Sessler, the Trump-endorsed Prosser businessman, is also running.
But it’s still too early to get a clear picture of how the August 2026 jungle primary will shake out since candidates won’t file to be on the ballot until May. More candidates might declare after the new year, and there will likely be some jockeying among the contenders after that.
The partial federal government shutdown will stretch into a second month as gridlocked and frustrated Democrats and Republicans continue to trade blame on budget appropriations. A Gallup poll published last week showed Americans’ approval of Congress dropped to just 15%.
The 4th Congressional District encompasses Central Washington, and stretches from the U.S.-Canada border down to the Columbia River. It includes Omak, East Wenatchee, Moses Lake, Yakima, the Yakama Indian Reservation and the Tri-Cities. It’s Washington state’s most conservative-leaning congressional district, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
West Richland Democrat, Air Force vet jumps in
Duresky, 57, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served 24 years, says he was pushed into early retirement by Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. He had worked four years at the Hanford site as a project control officer when he received the “fork in the road” email.
“I felt like there were a bunch of hard-working, young, dedicated people, and because I had veteran’s preference I certainly could have stayed, but it felt dumb to keep me working when some of these young people were counting on this job,” he told the Tri-City Herald.
After talking it over with his wife of 30 years, Robin, and seeing the response to Trump’s months back in office, the self-described outdoorsman says he came to the conclusion that this was the cycle for a Democrat to oust Newhouse.
That’s when he hit the road to get advice from former congressional candidates and to talk with Central Washington Democrats at their local meetings. In one event, just minutes after a July telephone town hall with Newhouse, Duresky told a room full of Yakima Democrats that he thought Trump’s actions were “apocalyptic.”
“The regular voter does not know the damage that is being done today,” said the first-time candidate.
Duresky says he wants to eliminate Trump’s tariffs on imports, protect residents from deportation, restore Medicaid and keep rural hospitals open, and make “politicians in D.C. accountable again.”
He feels federal workers are also being demonized by the White House. Duresky says Newhouse has not been responsive to the concerns of Central Washington residents, and that Congress isn’t standing up to the Trump administration’s plan to “hollow out” the federal government.
“Some of Trump’s most loyal voters — some of Newhouse’s most loyal voters — are these agricultural people that are now getting burned by that vote” on H.R. 1., Duresky said. “My message is we are going to return a sense of normalcy, and we’re going to start getting our markets back where they were before.”
Despite having tallied some mileage on the campaign trail, Duresky’s first quarter fundraising has proven piddly.
Since starting in April, he’s received just over $4,000. It’s a far cry from the $25,000 raised by Sessler or $160,000 raised by Newhouse from individuals and PACs between July and the end of September. Duresky acknowledged the weakness, but says he’s mostly focused on getting the word out that a Democrat is running.
An issue he might break from Democrats on is the removal of the lower Snake River dams.
Duresky says he’s not 100% sold on the proposal to remove those four dams between Burbank and Colton, Washington, due to the risk to commerce and loss of reliable clean energy. Trump says he’s committed to retaining the dams, reversing plans by the Biden administration to support removal efforts. Newhouse also introduced legislation recently to restrict federal funds from studying dam breaching.
“I think climate change is a greater risk to the salmon than the dams,” he said. “The dams are important. I think we’ve got a ways to go on doing everything we can to protect the salmon.”
Central WA independent seeks to end ‘legalized corruption’
Devin Poore, 31, a lifelong independent and critic of the political system, says he’ll run next year to “end legalized corruption destroying our democracy.”
If elected, he plans to reform campaign finance, pass congressional term limits, ban stock trading for members of Congress, improve wildfire prevention and management, and reverse Republican reforms on Medicaid.
“A better future is possible,” the tech consultant told the Tri-City Herald. “I think there are low-hanging-fruit solutions, and I hope to be talking about them more in this campaign.”
Poore has not filed paperwork yet declaring his candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission. He says he’s working to get the word out about his campaign before kickstarting operations.
He grew up in Ferry County and studied computer science at the University of Washington. He says his experience working in both blue- and white-collar jobs, as well as living in both urban and rural Washington, gives him a unique perspective.
Poore says he’s a “big fan” of independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and that he contributed cash earlier this year to Zohran Mamdani, the populist Democrat and frontrunner in November’s open race for New York City mayor.
He says he was spurred to challenge Newhouse after witnessing the Democrats’ tone-deaf response to Sanders and other critics who spoke up about the party’s lack of support from working-class people in last year’s election.
Poore believes the Democratic Party is “not coming to save America.”
“It’s really been 35, 40 years of non-stop corporate bipartisan consensus in favor of corporations. That has come down hard on a lot of Americans,” Poore said, adding that he’s running on issues that 80% of Americans already support.
“I’ve seen communities that feel forgotten, I’ve worked jobs where you’re just trying to make rent, and I’ve been inside industries where I saw firsthand how much power gets concentrated in the hands of people who aren’t accountable to anyone,” he wrote.
In a recent Reddit Q&A, Poore wrote that he believes abortion should be “safe and legal,” that he would support universal health care and that immigration enforcement officers are “thugs acting unconstitutionally” who should be unmasked.
He says his pitch isn’t to discipline or shame his political opponents, but to instill “common-ground, common-sense issues” that would benefit voters and incentivize Congress to listen to their constituents.
Former race car driver set on 3rd challenge
Jerrod Sessler, the former regional circuit NASCAR driver, says he’ll attempt to unseat Newhouse for a third time in 2026.
Sessler failed to make it past the primary in 2022 because of a crowded Republican race, despite his hopes to oust the Sunnyside Republican over his vote to impeach the MAGA president. Then, in 2024, with the backing of Trump, Sessler cruised to the general election but failed to beat Newhouse in a 1-on-1 by 6 percentage points.
Though Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2026, Sessler says there’s still a viable path forward for his campaign. He says Newhouse will be vulnerable in a jungle primary where Democrats coalesce around a single candidate. Then, in a general contest against a Democrat, Sessler says he would be the favorite to win it all.
“We have what we need to win the primary, the question is how much will Dan Newhouse manipulate the primary to try and make sure he gets another shot?” said the Navy veteran.
Last year, Sessler’s campaign tried propping up a write-in Democrat, hoping to shed moderate votes away from Newhouse in the general election.
Sessler believes that Trump will be just as influential in congressional races next year as he was in 2024. But he also hopes that Democrats running for the 4th Congressioanl District run transparent campaigns and come out to debates.
