Rep. Dan Newhouse survived the first round of a Republican primary challenge in Washington’s 4th Congressional District on Friday, advancing to the November ballot in a race that was a test of political fortunes for GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Newhouse managed to emerge from Washington’s all-party primary with a narrow lead ahead of Democratic candidate Doug White. Newhouse’s biggest political foe, though, was another Republican running in the Aug. 2 all-party primary, Loren Culp. Updated results Friday night showed Culp in third place and out of the running.
That makes Newhouse a rare House Republican in 2022 who voted for Trump over his actions (and inactions) surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot likely to hold his seat. Newhouse and White will face off again in November.
Newhouse has represented the deep-red district, which encompasses a large swath of central Washington from the Oregon state line to the U.S.-Canada border, since 2015 and easily won reelection in 2020.
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The 4th District primary result comes as another Washington seat in which the incumbent Republican voted for impeachment hangs in the balance. In Washington’s 3rd District, in the southwest part of the state, straddling Oregon across the Columbia River, GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is clinging to second place, a spot on the November ballot, over another Trump-backed Republican rival, Army veteran Joe Kent.
On Tuesday, a pro-impeachment House Republican, Rep. Peter Meijer, lost his bid for renomination in Michigan’s 3rd District to a Trump-backed GOP rival. Another House Republican who voted to impeach Trump, Rep. Tom Rice (SC), lost his bid for renomination on June 14. And Rep. Liz Cheney, who holds Wyoming’s lone House seat, faces long odds in winning her Aug. 16 Republican primary bid against Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman.
Four other pro-impeachment House Republicans are retiring after the 2022 elections. And Rep. David Valadao of California made it to the November ballot by finishing in one of the top two spots in his state, which, like Washington, has all candidates run together in the primary.
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In Washington’s 4th District, the primary fight proved a proxy war of sorts between a more traditional GOP candidate and a Trump-aligned one.
Newhouse holds more centrist views on issues such as immigration compared to some of his colleagues on the Right, supporting legislation that would codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which prevents the deportation of illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Several of his primary opponents sought to use this against him, pushing immigration reform and border security in their campaigns.
