Republicans hoping to win a coveted seat representing Eastern Washington in Congress have begun to reach out to their base, distinguishing themselves by their strength of personality, their track record or their claim to be political outsiders and, in some cases, their support for former President Donald Trump. .
There has been a flurry of activity in Eastern Washington after last month’s surprise announcement that veteran Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers will seek re-election this year, creating a rare opportunity for a Republican political hope in Washington to run for higher office.
Although the deadline for submitting nominations is two months away, seven Republican candidates have been officially announced. Most had their first genuine opportunity to speak directly with members of their own party on March 2, while many others piled up for the Spokane County Republican Party. Party conference at the Valley Assembly of God in Spokane Valley.
They all tackled the same main themes, adding the U. S. -Mexico border and the dams of the Snake River, but most figured out tactics to differentiate themselves.
His ability to triumph among the crowd of party loyalists may become an early sign of his viskill as a candidate in a crowded field.
Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner, who billed himself as a “state senator in recovery,” introduced himself at the conference as the candidate with the utmost gleefulness and the longest record of political victories.
Baumgartner, known for his divisive political humor, also made top-hitting jokes that morning.
“If you like me, I grew up and went to church, heard the gospel and dreamed of one day being a tax collector, well, oh my God, I made that dream come true,” Baumgartner said.
He was quick to point out that the treasurer doesn’t set tax rates and pointed out that much of the taxes collected through his workplace were set through local voters.
‘I don’t know why do that!'” said Baumgartner. Why are they voting yes on all those bonuses and levies?Tell your neighbors to stop raising our taxes!
The Spokane County Republican Party campaigned this year opposing taxes and ballot needs in the Spokane, Central Valley and Mead school districts. All county bonds failed in February’s special election, though this is a consistent trend across the state.
Baumgartner said a candidate for that congressional seat will have to accomplish three things: defeat Democrats, “drain the swamp” and “make East Washington great. “He argued that his record in Olympia showed he can do all three, pointing to his victory over a sitting Democrat in his highly competitive 2010 Senate campaign.
He pointed to his roots in Eastern Washington, his studies at Harvard (which is rarely a great advantage when running in a Republican primary,” he joked) and his jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan as a State Department official. Baumgartner praised former President Donald Trump’s killing of Qased Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U. S. -designated foreign terrorist organization.
He said he met his wife, Eleanor, a British immigrant and former journalist, in Afghanistan.
“If someone here is not in God or has a friend who is not in God, tell them that Michael Baumgartner went to Afghanistan,” he said. “And between the Taliban and the opium poppy fields, I found the love of my life. We fell in love in the midst of bombs and bullets. We came home and we have five lovely kids.
It is for these young people that Baumgartner has said he is running for Congress, repeating his election argument that the American dream is dying and must be preserved for the sake of future generations.
Former pastor and Spokane councilman Jonathan Bingle looked home on the church’s main stage and delivered a speech about his religion and “a war for the soul of America” that earned some of the longest applause of the morning.
“I’m running because I think it’s smart to be a Christian, and I think one should be proud of the fact that God has given us sure commands to live our lives. . . “It’s not a means for us to stand up for things that we know to be true,” he said.
“I’m running because I need my kids to grow up in a school formula where there’s no confusion about their gender. I’m running because I don’t need my little ones taken away from me if we say, “It’s not a boy, it’s a girl,” and those who hate speech.
He told the crowd that doctors told him and his wife they would not have children. Now they have three.
“We pray and seek out little children more than anything in the world, and I felt the Holy Spirit ministering to me: You will have children and they will come to you naturally,” she said.
Bingle emphasized his roots in Spokane, his family and the small businesses he founded, Bent Trivia and Bent Events. He said he was drawn to the policy “earlier than expected” as a reaction to the hardships his company faced from the COVID-19 pandemic, which Bingle blamed on Gov. Jay Inslee’s shutdown orders.
“We had invested every penny in this business, and with a flick of the pen, it was stolen from me and my family,” Bingle said.
Bingle’s first bid for election came a year before the pandemic began, when he ran in 2019 for mayor of Spokane and came in fourth with Nadine Woodward, who won, and Ben Stuckart, who was city council president. Bingle ran for office in 2021, this time winning a seat on the city council.
Bingle reported that he had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and refused to wear a mask at City Hall after being sworn in as a council member.
“When I walked into City Hall, the first month I was censored because I refused to wear a mask at City Hall,” he said to loud applause. “They threatened me with a fine of $14,000 a day and they didn’t give us in. “
Some council members have called for Bingle to be expelled from City Hall, in part because a violation of the state’s mask ordinance can result in fines from the Washington Labor and Industries Breakdown. Bingle said in an interview Wednesday that city officials said they can simply pass the ticket on him because he knowingly violated the order.
Medical Lake Mayor Terri Cooper, who has held the position since 2021, opened her speech by saying it’s a policy.
“I ran for mayor because I saw problems, and that’s how I put it through my military father: If you see a problem, you find a solution and you work to solve it,” he said. “You don’t just sit around complaining. “
First, she struggled to get a reaction from the crowd, who heard her talk about her past experience as a municipal court commissioner “trying to rebuild the lives of other people who are addicted to drugs and who have fallen into all sorts of evils, some of which are not of their own making.
Her first round of applause came when she pointed out that she had been married to her husband for 44 years and had three children and 11 grandchildren. He gained momentum by speaking out about his leadership in the wake of a devastating fire last summer that destroyed dozens of people. of homes in his city, saying he stood up to Inslee and President Joe Biden to do more.
That experience convinced her she had the ability to lead and cleared up gaps in federal and state policies that have hampered recovery efforts, she said.
“When they gave us 22,000 acres on fire and your state government and the U. S. government tell you, ‘Call your insurance company and blank your position; I want to reposition politics at the federal level,'” he said.
Cooper reiterated that she was not a career politician in her speech, and while she said she was friends with the other candidates, she argued that it set her apart from the rest.
“I like people, I don’t like politics; no one belongs to me, no one can buy me; I don’t care what your opinion is, I know who I am,” she said. “I’m a maid and I’m here for you. “
No other candidate has worked more intensively with the Trump White House than Ferry County Commissioner Brian Dansel, an arrangement he highlighted in his speech at the county convention.
Dansel worked as an advisor to the National Economic Council and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. He was appointed through the White House to serve first as state director of the USDA’s Washington Farm Service Agency and then as the agency’s Pacific regional director. Region.
Elected to the state Senate in 2013, Dansel claimed to be the first elected member west of Mississippi to endorse Trump for president in 2015.
“You have to believe in the aid to Donald Trump in 2015, until Election Day; It wasn’t all roses and flowers along the way,” she said. “I had to be sure of my decision, but you know, I do. “I won’t call anything if I don’t do it. “
Dansel argued that he has held elected office or worked as a government administrator since 2010, he did not speak with the “pentameter, tone or tenor” typical of a politician.
“It’s not the most polished, shiny car that wins the race. It’s the one that’s been a little bit pushed, maybe even a little rough around the edges,” Dansel added. “But you know what’s going to come out of them because they’re consistent. “
He called for slashing regulations and moving away from the state’s Growth Management Act, which imposes restrictions on land use to save urban sprawl and the environment.
“When you want a permit to have a shed at Costco, this country has anything,” he said to applause.
Dansel claimed that most Republican congressional candidates had broadly advocated the same goals.
“We’re for borders, or Second Amendment protection, or tax cuts, less regulation, all the things that everybody says all the time,” he said.
“But I think what you need to do is take a look at the effects of our voting to compare and contrast and see where we’re different, and put personality aside. “
John Guenther, a member of the Alaska Aleutian Tribe who recently retired after a nearly three-decade career in Washington’s child protective services, claimed he was not as “polite” as some of the other applicants and praised Bingle’s speech, which promptly preceded Günther.
“I’m not skilled, but if you send me, you send me strength,” he said. “If you vote for other people, well, maybe you don’t, maybe you have a RINO and you wish you hadn’t. “”.
He distanced himself from the Republican wing of “Nikki Haley, Bush, Mitch McConnell and, forgive me, Reichert,” referring to former Congressman David Reichert, a candidate for governor of Washington, and former Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Se aligned himself with Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. , and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. , whom he singles out.
Guenther said he would save the dams on the Snake River, increasing domestic production of fossil fuels, and argued that social media corporations “are publishers,” alluding to the argument that corporations should be held legally at fault for content that appears on their sites.
Although Guenther struggled at times to connect with the crowd, his two biggest applauses in his speech came one after the other, when he said the U. S. “stop handing billions of dollars to Ukraine” and when he said it would. Vote for term limits in Congress.
“We want to coalesce around someone who may not make it through Congress and mislead it,” Guenther said.
Guenther has said twice at the conference that he has portrayed himself as a law enforcement officer, something he does not appear to have discussed before with reporters, adding his failed 2022 Senate campaign, and that the work he delights is not discussed on the candidacy site or on his LinkedIn page. Günther may not be available for comment.
Horse breeder, radio host and former legislative aide René Holaday, the only candidate to announce his candidacy for the 5th Congressional District, has yet to attend the convention. Instead, a pre-recorded introductory video was played.
“Don’t waste your vote on career politicians who are just there to collect their paycheck,” said Holaday, who was an aide to former state Rep. Matt Shea. “Vote for the only genuine communist fighter in this race. “
She indexed seven pillars of her campaign, adding “restore God to this nation,” “restore the Constitution to this nation,” ban electronic voting machines nationwide, secure U. S. borders, and end child trafficking. Holaday also said he would “deport all illegals. “foreigners” and “blocking the entry of Chinese into the United States. “
Holaday did not respond to a request for comment to explain those positions.
He said he had drafted a bill that would ban electronic voting machines, close the U. S. -Mexico border and end child trafficking, and that Trump thanked him for doing so. “The Checkmate bill,” so named because “each issue is similar to each other,” is not found on Holaday’s website and has not been introduced in Congress.
Holaday claimed to have written the first U. S. e-book on the United Nations’ Agenda 21, a 1992 nonbinding solution signed by then-President George H. W. Bush and the leaders of 177 other countries, who have shown a collective goal to take on overpopulation and sustainability in the 21st century.
In January 2012, Holaday published “The Perils of Sustainable Development,” which claimed that Agenda 21 was a plan to “completely abolish things like rights to personal property, individual rights, air conditioning, driving, rural life, meat consumption, livestock ownership. “agriculture, forestry, and much more. It’s true that Holaday wrote about the U. N. document before many others, and he added conservative political commentator Glenn Beck, whose dystopian novel “Agenda 21” was published 10 months later and describes a long run in the United States under the dominance of a global economy. government.
But “Behind the Green Mask: The United Nations’ Agenda 21,” via retired real estate appraiser Rosa Koire, which mentions the endorsement of Washington state Rep. Jim McCune, R-Graham, published weeks before Holaday’s book.
Tom DeWeese, founder of the American Policy Center, has been writing about Agenda 21 for decades and published an e-book of his articles in 2011.
Holaday also reiterated the claim that fellow candidate Dansel gave his e-book to Trump during his tenure in the Trump administration.
“Who would you fight for yourself in Congress: the user who praises my e-book or the user who wrote that e-book?”Holaday said in his video.
Dansel has denied giving Trump a copy of Holaday’s e-book since at least 2019, when the Inlander asked him.
State Rep. Jacquelyn Maycumber, R-Calif. , has roots in Eastern Washington and said she lived on a century-old farm with its own cemetery.
“So I know I’m going to be buried,” he said.
Like Dansel, Maycumber noted that all Republican congressional candidates would agree on many hot-button issues, such as border security and protecting the Snake River dams from being eliminated, and suggested to conference attendees her record as a lawmaker. The Washington-based pro-life organization Human Life and an A rating from the National Rifle Association.
“And let me tell you, it’s very hard to do, very hard to do,” he added.
He promoted his work on federal veterans bills, developed learning systems in Washington’s best schools, and helped cap insulin prices for the state’s residents.
“My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes,” she said. Nothing would prepare us for this. Just to get him out of Sacred Heart, it took more than $1,000 worth of insulin and equipment.
She noted that she is a prolific political fundraiser and claims to have raised more money for other Republicans’ crusades than any other Eastern Washington politician.
“I promise you that I will continue to fight to ensure that Republicans continue to get elected, because we will not stay here if we lose some other seat,” Maycumber said. “We can’t stay here if we lose some other seat. “war in Spokane.
While Maycumber’s fundraising prowess would possibly prove to be genuine merit to the election campaign, it did not seem to resonate with conference attendees.
Maycumber has come under fire from some prominent Republicans for her fundraising, as well as by her for Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and until Wednesday the Republican presidential nominee. While the Spokane County Republican Party conference was still underway, Loren Culp, who ran as a Republican and lost to Inslee in the 2020 gubernatorial race and to U. S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, in 2022, posted on X a photo of Maycumber with the writing, “I hope the electorate doesn’t realize that I won thousands of dollars from BIG PHARMA. “
Hours later, Culp called Maycumber a “stab in the back (inserting a)” in a social media post that literally read “insert a. “The post was heavily criticized by Baumgartner, conservative commentators Jason Rantz and Brandi Cruz, among others.
“My family has fought for this country since the Revolutionary War,” Maycumber told the audience. “I want you to be by my side, because now it’s just words, but it’s the most important thing you and I do. “”.