McKinney leads in race to replace WA Rep. Dan Newhouse

A Republican backed by President Donald Trump emerged Tuesday as the frontrunner in the central Washington race to succeed a retiring GOP congressman who voted to impeach the president.

Republican Yakima County Commissioner Amanda McKinney, along with Democrat John Duresky, moved comfortably ahead of nine others vying to replace U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse in the reliably Republican 4th Congressional District.

McKinney led with 34.9%, followed by Duresky, the lone Democrat in the race, with 30.8%. Republicans Jerrod Sessler and Matt Boehnke trailed far behind with 14.3% and 10.3%, respectively.

Meanwhile, moderate Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican state Sen. John Braun are headed to a November face-off in southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District after finishing well ahead of seven other candidates on Tuesday. 

Gluesenkamp Perez had 38.9%, followed closely by Braun with 38.7% and Brent Hennrich, a progressive Democrat who challenged the incumbent from the left, with 15.3%.

4th District

This year, nine of the state’s 10 members in the U.S. House are seeking reelection. 

The one vacancy is in the 4th District, where Newhouse is retiring after a decade. He voted to impeach the president after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. 

Trump tried unsuccessfully to unseat Newhouse in the past two elections. The president should get a solid ally this year. He has endorsed McKinney even though in 2024 she made a commercial backing Newhouse and assailing Sessler, who had Trump’s endorsement that year. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, is also backing McKinney, who has served on the county commission since 2019.

Duresky, of West Richland, is a retired Air Force officer who also worked at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site. He is trying to become the first Democrat to win the House seat since former Gov. Jay Inslee did so in 1992. Inslee lost reelection after one term to Doc Hastings, a Republican, who held the seat until retiring in 2015.

Tuesday did not go well for Sessler or Boehnke, who appeared unable to break through a crowded field and overcome the endorsements and money secured by McKinney

Sessler, of Prosser, was making his third run for the seat. He is a Navy veteran, businessman and former NASCAR driver.

Boehnke, of Kennewick, entered this race rather than seek a second term in the Senate. A GOP moderate, he pushed his legislative experience and pursued the voting bloc that kept Newhouse in office, though the congressman did not endorse any candidates.

McKinney leads in fundraising. As of June 30, she had raised nearly $1 million and, after spending, had roughly $215,000 on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings. 

She’s also benefitted from $700,000 in spending on direct mail and ads by Washington Rising Inc., a political committee. Robert Ramsey of Yakima, owner of First American Petroleum, is the largest donor at $500,000. Brian Heywood, hedge fund manager and leader of the political committee Let’s Go Washington, gave $50,000 to the group.

Sessler has raised a little over $600,000, including $300,000 in personal loans to the campaign. He had $67,000 available at the end of June, which was the close of the most recent filing period.

Boehnke reported raising roughly $212,000 and Duresky $179,000, though each spent the vast majority of their money by the end of the reporting period. 

The district stretches through the middle of the state from the Canadian border to Oregon. It includes the agriculture-heavy Yakima Valley, the Yakama Indian Reservation, and the Tri-Cities.

3rd District

In southwest Washington, a match-up between Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun, who has Trump’s endorsement, is one of a handful nationwide considered up for grabs by both parties this election cycle. The outcome this fall could help determine which party controls the House.

Tuesday’s vote foreshadows a November election that may not be as close as the GOP hoped.

The margin Tuesday between Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun was 263 votes. Braun was leading in five of seven counties, while Gluesenkamp Perez was ahead in Clark County, which is home to the largest bloc of Democratic voters. She also held a slim lead in Pacific County.

While Hennrich didn’t finish in the top two, his double-digit performance reveals the level of disaffection among loyal Democratic voters, especially in Clark County, where he garnered 18.5%. He and Gluesenkamp Perez combined for nearly 60% of the votes cast in the county.

Come November, if those Democrats skip the race, it will help Braun. If they side with the incumbent, Gluesenkamp Perez will be well-positioned for re-election.

Gluesenkamp Perez, in declaring victory, wasted little time attacking Braun.

“Our district has voted for Donald Trump in each of the last three elections, so I understand why his seal of approval is so important to Senator Braun. But voting for the president is a different question than wanting to go for a ride on his coattails,” she said in a statement. 

If re-elected, she said she would “continue to fight for respect and power for ordinary people to own homes and raise families, and to do it on the strength of our own two feet, without bowing to big names or exploiting their neighbors.”

Braun, speaking to supporters at an election night party in Chehalis, called Tuesday’s results a “milestone.”

“Here’s the deal. If Republicans and Independents show up to vote in November, we win this thing. The path is very, very obvious,” he said.

Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking a third term. She is a co-chair of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition and has been successful in part by positioning herself as a moderate, touting her willingness to work across party lines, at times angering those in her party.

She’s benefited from twice facing Republican Joe Kent, whose embrace of conspiracy theories, including that Trump won the 2020 election, lost him support of independent and moderate Republicans. Gluesenkamp Perez won narrowly in 2022, then easily in 2024.

Braun, of Centralia, isn’t cut from the same GOP cloth as Kent. In his four Senate terms, he’s worked with Democrats writing budgets and funding special education. He has legislative experience and electoral know-how, and his brand is more appealing to Republican moderates and independent voters.

But Braun has had to mend fences with the most hardcore Trump backers. Some of them weren’t happy that the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, under Braun’s guidance, recruited and backed candidates in legislative races in 2024 that were not on board with the MAGA agenda.

Since entering the race for Congress, Braun has shifted his tone rightward, endorsing the president’s signature tax cut and spending reform bill. He’s received the endorsements of Trump and Johnson, who badly wants to recapture the House seat that Republicans held for more than a decade before Gluesenkamp Perez’s 2022 victory. Johnson will be in Vancouver Thursday for a private fundraising event.

Gluesenkamp Perez is outraising and outspending Braun by a wide margin. She reported $6.3 million in contributions and $4.3 million in expenditures as of June 30, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. She had nearly $2.1 million in cash on hand.

Braun has raised $2 million and had roughly $1.1 million on hand per his filings.

In addition to Gluesenkamp Perez, Braun, and Hennrich, there are two Democrats in the race, one independent and one member of the Cascade Party, an embryonic centrist political party founded by the former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic.

The district’s southern boundary is the Columbia River. It includes Vancouver — a growing city just north of Portland, rural areas with ties to timber and agriculture, and coastal towns like Long Beach.