Congressional candidate Nate Powell shares his District 5 vision in Dayton

Nate Powell, an independent candidate, said health care cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act were one of the primary reasons he decided to run for Congress during a town hall Monday, June 15.

"Our middle class is collapsing in this country," he said.

Powell is a Spokane firefighter, Marine veteran and union committee member. He is one of 11 candidates across the political spectrum challenging freshman U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner for Washington's 5th Congressional District seat in 2026.

"I'm running as an independent because I do not want to be a part of the same system that has got us to the place that we are now, where our parties focus on those who fund their elections instead of the people they're supposed to represent," he said.

The event was held at Buckwheat Brewing Co. in Dayton as part of Powell's tour across eastern Washington. While addressing a crowd of nine, he shared his vision for the district and responded to voters' concerns on issues such as affordability, clean energy and detention centers.

"As I go into people's houses every single day, I see stacks of unaddressed problems," he said. "People are struggling just to make it to the end of the month."

Health care

Powell said he is a proponent of Medicare and Medicaid for all "so that every single person in this country has medical insurance and access to that primary and preventative medicine."

He said this would save the government money overall because people would have better health outcomes. If everyone has full coverage, uncompensated care would no longer strain rural hospitals, he said.

Cuts to Medicaid in H.R. 1, he said, were the impetus for him to run for election.

Energy

When asked where he stands on clean energy issues, he said, "if we just let each energy source compete on its own merit, then solar, wind and hydroelectric look pretty good."

He said there should be appropriate regulations, so land resources are not overutilized, even for clean energy sources.

Having good trade relations with China, he said, is also important because the country is the world's largest producer of solar panels.

"I would like to partner with some of their manufacturing technology, bring it over here," he said.

Detention centers

When asked whether he would support having Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in eastern Washington, Powell said, "if we're going to have detention centers, which I think we are going to as a country, I would rather them be built here than built somewhere else."

Having detention centers closer to home would help Washington authorities provide better oversight and conditions than if they were built in another state, he said.

He said he believes ICE has been overly aggressive with its enforcement activities and that people should not be detained solely because of their legal status. However, he continued, if an undocumented individual commits a crime, "they need to be held accountable for those crimes."

"I think that we need a place to house you as we bring you through our legal process," he said.

At the same time, he said, the current administration is overfunding ICE and underfunding immigration judges and attorneys, "which seems like the absolute wrong direction to be moving."

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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 10:08 PM.