Jim Brunner The Seattle Times (TNS)
UPDATE: New story with more recent results
In a nationally watched racee testing Donald Trump’s continued hold over the Republican Party, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Battle Ground was leading her pro-Trump challenger despite backlash over her vote to impeach the former president.
In Tuesday’s primary vote count, the incumbent was placing in the top two, which would secure her a spot on the general election ballot, putting her in position to win reelection this fall. The same was true for another Washington member of Congress, Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside, a Republican who also voted to impeach Trump.
In results as of Tuesday evening, Herrera Beutler was in second place with 24.5% of the vote, behind Democratic challenger Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who had nearly 32%. Joe Kent, the Trump-endorsed Republican challenger, trailed in third place with 20% of the vote.
Newhouse led Loren Culp, his Trump-endorsed challenger. In Tuesday’s initial vote count, Newhouse was taking 27.3% of the vote, with Democrat Doug White at 26% and Culp at 21.7%.
Meanwhile, in the swing 8th Congressional District — the top Republican target for flipping a House seat in Washington — U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Sammamish, led the field with about 49%, with Republican businessman Matt Larkin at about 16% and Reagan Dunn in third place with 15% of the vote.
The top two vote recipients in each primary contest, regardless of party, will advance to the Nov. 8 general election.
Hundreds of thousands of ballots remain to be counted statewide, so the final outcomes of the closer races likely won’t be determined until later in the week.
Herrera Beutler and Newhouse risked their political careers when they joined eight other House Republicans breaking with their party to vote for Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of the ex-president’s supporters.
Both endured blowback from Republicans back home, with county GOP organizations condemning them and vowing to support primary challengers.
Herrera Beutler, in an interview before polls closed, had no regrets about her impeachment vote and said she was the only candidate talking about local issues like a new I-5 bridge and salmon populations.
“I’m the only one in this race who has the temerity and the fortitude to stand up to either party to do what’s right on behalf of people,” she said in an interview after doing some last-minute campaigning Tuesday afternoon, waving to cars from a freeway overpass.
Herrera Beutler was seeking a seventh term in the 3rd District of Southwest Washington. Newhouse was running for a fifth term in the 4th District, which covers Central Washington.
Outside a party at a packed sports bar in Battle Ground Tuesday, Kent stressed Trump’s endorsement and criticized Herrera Beutler for her impeachment vote.
“It’s important that we have bold conservatives that are ready to really fight against the establishment and not just be like Jaime Herrera Butler and go along to get along because we’re in a blue state,” he said.
He denied a recent Associated Press report about his campaign’s ties to right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys. “It’s absolutely garbage,” he said. “I don’t have any ties to any racist organizations, any antisemitic organizations.”
Herrera Beutler and Newhouse didn’t dwell on their impeachment votes while campaigning for reelection, preferring to focus on criticism of the Biden administration and local issues such as opposition to breaching the four Lower Snake River Dams.
Their leading Republican challengers attacked them as betraying constituents by impeaching Trump and echoed the ex-president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud, even as they urged voters to send in their primary ballots.
Kent is a decorated Green Beret combat veteran whose wife, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria in 2019 while fighting the Islamic State terrorist group — a death he blamed on the U.S. foreign policy elite’s addiction to foreign wars and entanglements.
He ran a campaign of hundreds of in-person town halls, in contrast with Herrera Beutler, who ceased such appearances several years ago.
Both Herrera Beutler and Newhouse benefited from a bevy of GOP challengers potentially splitting the pro-Trump revenge vote against them.
A flood of outside PAC money — nearly $6 million — poured into the Herrera Beutler and Newhouse races, bashing their challengers and seeking to squeeze the incumbents through the primary. A large chunk of that cash in the 3rd District race came from a pop-up super PAC exploiting campaign-finance rules to avoid disclosing its donors until well after the primary.
This year, Republicans are itching to capitalize on a different midterm environment, with President Joe Biden facing sagging approval ratings amid public dissatisfaction about inflation and crime.
But the political environment shifted to some extent following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling striking down federal protections for abortion rights. Democrats have seized on the issue to remind voters of the stakes if the GOP wins control of Congress.
All other congressional incumbents in Washington were advancing easily to the general election against vastly outspent challengers.
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(Seattle Times staff reporters David Gutman and Mike Lindblom contributed to this report.)
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