Serving Franklin County, WA
Serving Franklin County, WA
Republican challengers split remaining votes to give incumbent the edge
Dan Newhouse
PASCO - Despite being censured by most Republican committees in the 4th Congressional District, incumbent Dan Newhouse holds a slim lead in the Tuesday, Aug. 2, primary after the initial count.
Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, had 20,542 votes, or 27.32%, at the end of the first day of counting early arriving ballots. Democrat Doug White was a close second with 19,534 votes, or 25.98%.
White was the only Democrat on the ballot.
Running in third and fourth places, respectively, were Republican challengers Loren Culp and Jerrod Sessler. Culp had 16,352 votes, or 21.74%, and Sessler had 8,214 votes, or 10.92%.
Other Republicans siphoned votes off of Culp and Sessler to give Newhouse's incumbency an edge.
Legislative Rep. Brad Klippert claimed an early tally of 6,434 votes, Corey Gibson had 2,675 votes, Benancio "Benny" Garcia III had1,118 votes and Jacek Kobiesa had 248 votes.
Newhouse's lead was echoed locally by Franklin County voters.
Here, Newhouse had an early count of 2,320 votes, or 27.56%.
White was second with 2,056 votes, or 24.43%, and Culp third with 1,432 votes, or 17.01%.
Culp is endorsed by President Trump and Newhouse was one of only 10 Republicans to follow Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, in voting to impeach the former president.
Jamie Herrera Beutler
Meanwhile in the 3rd Congressional District race in Southwest Washington, incumbent Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler also appeared to be surviving the primary with Republican challengers splitting the vote to unseat her.
Beutler was another Republican who joined with Pelosi in the failed bid to find President Trump at fault in the Jan. 6 Capitol protest in Washington, D.C.
Beutler was second in the early tally with 26,373 votes, or 24.48%.
Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was leading that race with 34,229 votes, or 31.77%.
Republicans Joe Kent and Heidi St. John were running third and fourth, respectively.
Kent had 21,666 votes, or 20.11%, and St. John had 16,248 votes, or 15.08%.
Kent was endorsed by President Trump after Beutler voted to impeach the former president.
More to count
Despite the early returns, the election is far from over with millions of ballots left to be counted statewide.
In Franklin County alone, approximately 33,000 ballots that were mailed to voters have yet to be counted.
The county sent out 42,659 ballots and only 9,700 were counted Tuesday.
Additional counts of late-arriving ballots are planned over the next couple weeks prior to certification of results.
Roger Harnack is the owner/publisher of Free Press Publishing. Having grown up Benton City, Roger is an award-winning journalist, photographer, editor and publisher. He's one of only two editorial/commentary writers from Washington state to ever receive the international Golden Quill. Roger is dedicated to the preservation of local media, and the voice it retains for Eastern Washington.
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