Crowded GOP primary in Washington's 4th District signals party's direction

No Trump-backed candidate has won the district

Voters in Washington’s 4th Congressional District go to the polls Aug. 4 in a primary that will determine which candidates advance to the November general election in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of just two Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump in 2021 and still serve in the House. President Trump has endorsed Yakima County Commissioner Amanda McKinney, one of three leading Republicans in the contest. Jerrod Sessler, a businessman running as an anti-establishment outsider, and state Sen. Matt Boehnke, the most moderate of the three, round out the top of the field. John Duresky, an Air Force veteran and former government employee who is the sole Democrat in the race, is expected to take one of the two general-election spots under Washington’s top-two primary system.

NPR described Newhouse’s retirement as opening a rare electoral opportunity for Republicans in a deeply blue state, and the race to replace him as a case study in what Republican voters who previously picked someone who impeached the president will do now that the field is open. The 4th District is Washington’s most conservative — rural, heavily dependent on agriculture and energy production, more than 40 percent Latino and rated solidly Republican by the Cook Political Report. Trump carried it handily in 2024, and Newhouse held the seat that year despite facing a Trump-endorsed primary challenger, as he did in both of the past two elections.

Republicans in Yakima, one of the district’s only cities, said the open seat is a chance to elect a more conservative representative.

“This district has an opportunity to elect some of the most conservative candidates we’ve had,” said Matt Brown, mayor of Yakima and chair of the Yakima County Republicans.

The district’s recent primaries also give Republicans reason to be cautious about the power of a Trump endorsement. According to NPR, a Trump-backed candidate has never won the district, even though voters there support the president.

“In Washington state, I’m not convinced that the only thing voters are looking for is whether they’re endorsed by President Trump or not. And I think it’s been proven,” Brown said. “I mean, look at all the people that have had that endorsement and it hasn’t played out in their favor.”

Trump has already intervened in the race by endorsing McKinney, calling her an “America First Patriot” and saying she would “grow” the economy, lower “migrant crime,” reduce red tape regulations and lower taxes. The endorsement post ended with his signature phrase: “Amanda McKinney has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” the post read. “SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.” House Speaker Mike Johnson has also endorsed her.

McKinney’s campaign team declined NPR’s interview request, telling the outlet to “connect after the Aug 4th primary.” She has described herself in other interviews with local news outlets as an America First and MAGA Republican, and at a candidate forum hosted by the Yakima Women’s Republican Club that NPR attended, she said she was the only Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.

McKinney’s path to that endorsement ran through Newhouse. McKinney endorsed Newhouse in 2024 and stood by him after his impeachment vote, saying she disagreed with the decision, and NPR reported that distancing herself from Newhouse proved advantageous when it came to Trump’s backing. A few days after Newhouse announced his retirement, she told a crowd at AmericaFest, a convention hosted by Turning Point USA, that Newhouse was the reason she was running for Congress.

“My congressman voted for impeachment and I knew that I needed to find a way to retire him,” she said. “I decided to create a strategy to retire him.”

She did not elaborate on the strategy. In an interview with KIMA, a Yakima TV news station, she said she is willing to cooperate with members of Congress she does not agree with.

“I’m not here to be an obstructionist. I’m not here to drop bombs. I’m here to get work done. And I’m here to make people feel like they have someone fighting for them,” she said.

Sessler is running again after unsuccessful campaigns in 2022 and 2024, and he argued that Trump’s endorsement still carries “tremendous” weight in the district.

“The landscape is different in every race, but I wouldn’t have won the primary [in 2024] by ten plus percent if it wasn’t for President Trump’s endorsement. So, it’s incredibly important,” he told NPR.

He also said the endorsement is not a silver bullet and that candidates have to do the hard campaign work, referring to McKinney, who has been criticized for turning down interviews, debates and public forums ahead of the primary.

“If you’re going to sit around and think you can just buy a race by sending out postcards and taking pictures and, you know, making TV commercials, like I just don’t see it,” Sessler said.

Sessler said Trump’s approval in the district has “waned a little bit” over the last few months because of “the Iran situation, the Israel situation, the Russia Ukraine situation,” while arguing that the president does not get credit for “all the great things he does.”

“But the reality is, there’s propaganda out there that wants people to not like President Trump,” he said.

Trump faces low approval ratings nationwide, NPR reported, and his support among rural voters was underwater by 10 percentage points in the most recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

Sessler, who has never held elected office, is leaning into that distinction. “We have made it a habit of electing people that are more interested in their political resume than in serving the people. And I want to change that,” he said, adding that he is a “regular guy who raised a family, built a business from the ground up, got to experience politics from that side and see how we were being ripped off.”

Boehnke is campaigning on the style of politics Newhouse represented. According to NPR, he has the most experience of the three passing legislation across party lines, built while serving in a Democratic supermajority legislature.

“I feel this need to try to bring back the moderate voice and what we talk about in politics and do it in a civil way,” he told NPR.

He said he would build on Newhouse’s legacy by protecting agriculture, addressing water issues and investing in critical infrastructure at the Hanford site, a decommissioned nuclear production complex that helped build atomic weapons. Boehnke said he voted for Trump three times but would not hesitate to disagree with him; he served in the military for 21 years and said he has seen politicians blindly follow orders “in dictatorships in other countries across the globe.” He said he respects Trump and would rather have a cordial conversation about their approaches to a policy.

“I think it’ll tell you if we’re going to continue down this divide or if we’re going to unite,” Boehnke said of the race.

Duresky, who retired after DOGE notified him that his job would be eliminated, does not describe himself as a progressive Democrat. He calls himself a pragmatist who is not dogmatic on any issue and says he wants to help correct what he sees as the wrongs Trump has inflicted on the district. NPR reported that the district has not had a viable Democratic candidate in a while, and Duresky argued it is winnable if Democrats invest in rural areas, pointing to the division among Republican voters across the crowded ballot.

“You win exactly zero races that you don’t compete in. That simple. We can’t build a durable electoral majority without rural America. We can’t build a durable coalition without working class Americans,” he told NPR.

“We have got to find a way to communicate in these rural areas, and we’ve got to run like they matter to us,” he said. He said he hopes the race sends a message to the national Democratic Party about the direction it should head.

NPR reported that the Republican Party faces a future without President Trump on the ballot beyond 2026, and that races like this one can signal the direction in which the party is moving. On Aug. 4, the primary will decide which of the three leading Republicans takes the remaining general-election spot alongside Duresky, who is expected to advance.