Dan Newhouse (R-WA) is a 5-term congressman who represents the swath of eastern Washington just east of the Cascade mountains, from the Canadian border to the Columbia River (see map here).
The district is so red it will go Republican in November. In every election there, the Democratic candidate struggles to get a third of the vote. So Newhouse should be a slam-dunk for re-election, right?
Not so fast. Newhouse voted to impeach Trump. That should make him vulnerable. Tiffany Smiley (photo left) thinks so, too.
You may remember Tiffany Smiley from her 2022 Senate run. I pointed out then that Republican candidates can’t win Washington statewide races, but are guaranteed 42% of the vote.
Smiley, despite an attractive personal story, fell flat with voters and got only 42.63%, less than 1% above the baseline. Even Loren Culp, an out-and-out flake, did better when he ran for governor in 2020.
Feeling bad for her, I made excuses, writing that “she doesn’t deserve the humiliation of being compared to Culp. The problem isn’t her, it’s Republican voters. She’s too good for them … it’s as simple as that.” (Read that post here.)
A few months later, I was less generous to her, for good reasons. She’d told GOP primary voters she was “100% pro-life,” then told general election voters she “respected” Washington’s abortion rights. She also deceived donors to pay off her campaign debt. I told this blog’s readers, “You might want to remember this if Smiley ever runs for public office again.” (Read that post here.)
I didn’t expect to see her in politics again, but here she is “primarying” Newhouse, presumably for having a conscience, which implies she doesn’t. Summing up, Tiffany Smiley is just another Trump-hugging, unprincipled, dishonest, two-faced wannabe who can’t be trusted.
Trump isn’t exactly reciprocating her love. Sure, he endorsed her, but he also endorsed another Republican in the same race (see Seattle Times story here). That could split the anti-Newhouse vote enough to enable him to survive the primary and be re-elected again.
What do polls show? The only one I know of, from late June, shows Smiley at 30%, Newhouse at 21%, and the other Trump endorsee at 11%. Back in 2022, when Newhouse was “primaried” by Culp, a poll showed Culp at 28% and Newhouse at 20%, yet Newhouse made it to the November ballot and Culp didn’t.
How was this possible? Washington has a blanket primary, which means the top two finishers advance to the general election. With the GOP vote split between Newhouse, Culp, and five others, the lone Democrat on the ballot finished ahead of Culp (see results here). In Washington primaries, there’s no medal for third place.
Note the 2024 poll percentages are nearly identical to those in 2022. The GOP vote probably will split again, especially with Trump endorsing two of Newhouse’s GOP rivals. In the 2022 primary, Newhouse got barely over 25% of the total vote, but it was enough.
What’s different in 2024 is Democrats aren’t united behind a candidate, so they may not have a second-place finisher this time. On the other hand, they might vote for Newhouse to fend off his less palatable challengers. (See story here.) And Newhouse does appear to still have a bedrock of support, shown by the fact he’s raised more money than his GOP rivals combined.
To knock out Newhouse in the primary, Republicans need to unite behind a challenger, but they didn’t do that in 2022, and they’re not doing it in 2024 either. Smiley may be destined to suffer Culp’s fate, and even if she makes it to the November ballot, with no Democrat on the ballot, the district’s Democratic voters likely will favor Newhouse over her. So, no, I don’t think she’ll get to Congress through Washington’s 4th congressional district.