Washington Representative Dan Newhouse, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump for instigating the January 6 Capitol attack, advances to November’s general election to seek a fifth term after finishing in the top two in a busy primary, according to The Associated Press. He will face Doug White, a Democratic businessman, who narrowly followed him Friday night.
Under Washington’s electoral laws, the top two candidates in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The race in Washington’s fourth congressional district was made up of seven Republicans, including Mr. Newhouse, and one Democrat, Mr. white.
Mr Newhouse, 66, angered Mr Trump and local Republicans after he backed his second impeachment.
Mr. Newhouse, a hops and alfalfa farmer, served as vice chairman of Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in Washington state. But after the impeachment vote, six Republican county presidents in his district called on him to resign.
Mr. Newhouse — who, like his father, served as a state legislator — opposed those demands, saying he remained a conservative Republican and urging the party to focus instead on holding the government accountable. Biden.
He was supported by the Defending Main Street super PAC, which ran an ad campaign worth about half a million dollars, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking company.
The super PAC’s most-watched TV spot attacked Loren Culp, Mr. Newhouse’s Trump-approved challenger, over an unpaid corporate tax bill, accusing him of “packing his own pockets” with campaign donations.
Culp, a former Republic, Wash. police chief, made contesting Trump’s 2020 defeat one of his top campaign issues, also pledging to dissolve the Department of Education and fight vaccine mandates. He was the Republican nominee in the 2020 governor’s race, a contest he never allowed despite losing Governor Jay Inslee by more than 13 percentage points.
Culp had raised just $310,700 as of July 13, according to campaign finance reports. That was a fraction of the $1.6 million raised by Mr. Newhouse and also trailing another Republican, Jerrod Sessler, who raised $508,900.
Mr. Sessler, a Navy veteran and former NASCAR driver, invested more than $350,000 of his own money in the race. He has said he attended Mr Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and marched to the Capitol with thousands of other supporters, but did not enter the building.
“I’m on the run because, right now, our rights for the people living in America today are being stolen,” Mr Sessler told The Spokesman-Review. “Literally. I think the 2020 election was the biggest heist in world history.”
Mr White, who raised $390,700, has described himself as a moderate politician who was motivated to seek federal office after the Capitol riots. In the heavily Republican district, Mr. White made no mention of his party membership in his lone TV spot, which he instead used to promote a platform that included cutting costs, reforming immigration and “making our communities safer.” .
Other Republican candidates included Corey Gibson, a marketing executive; Benancio Garcia III, a former Ministry of Agriculture loan specialist; Jacek Kobiesa, a mechanical engineer; and Brad Klippert, a state representative and deputy in the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
