#jaime herrera beutler

[annislittleshopofhorrors]

Washington Wednesday 🏛️

PCI - Jaime Herrera Beutler

[takeonmetakemeon]

The close margins in the US House have finally brought national attention to Vancouver, Washington and the areas surrounding it. Though much of that attention is poorly informed.

The rematch between moderate Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and far right Republican Joe Kent is expected to help determine which party controls the House next year. It is on everyone's top 5 list.

The race that was largely ignored by outsiders and seen as an easy Republican win in 2022 has attracted millions of campaign dollars from the parties this year.

The incorrect assumptions of faraway political analysts transformed Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez's almost predictable victory into the largest upset of the 2022 election.

There are a few things political analysts get wrong about the region. First, it is not Democrat but it is also not Republican. Second, the vote is a little more elastic than it is in areas with similar demographics. Third, the region rewards pragmatism and moderation. And most importantly, the population has been represented by women more often than men in the past 70 years. Yes, *70* years.

Pundits could not imagine that Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Hispanic woman, could have outperformed a typical Republican in the district. It was difficult to compare her to other Republicans since she was the only person who had represented it since it was reduced in size and lost liberal-leaning Olympia in 2012. So, unable to imagine that she could be individually popular, they took her numbers as the district baseline.

Jaime Herrera Beutler was moderate and pragmatic. That sells in the district. She was also originally from Clark County. That matters to long-term residents of the area who aren't necessarily thrilled with the flood of Portland and California housing refugees that has transformed the entire region.

She graduated from what was one of the largest high schools in the county at the time, one that straddled the rapidly urbanizing unincorporated areas outside Vancouver and more traditionally-minded, still-rural areas of Clark County. Middle-aged voters (or nearly middle-aged) could and did say online "I went to high school with her" or "I went to school with her brother." As a politician she lived in Camas, a formerly rural mill town that now encompasses firmly middle class neighborhoods filled with Portland's population overflow, a white working class central core and a rural fringe. Its most famous resident for something like 30 years now is Tonya Harding.

In 2020, WSU-Vancouver political science professor Carolyn Long, moved to the district from Oregon specifically to run in the race. As did Joe Kent before he ran in 2022.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez *also* moved to the district from Oregon a few years before running for the seat, though she plays up her mother's roots in the state. She's what J.D. Vance would be if he had moved to eastern Kentucky and shared the economic struggles and cultural outlook of the people he claims to represent and defended them instead of lecturing them.

Jaime Herrera Beutler was a talented politician who understood her district instinctively by way of living her entire life in its cultural midpoint. Her only mistake, politically speaking, was misjudging how primary voters would react to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and her subsequent vote to impeach Donald Trump. It could be decades before any politician matches her results. They were not the baseline.

So pundits universally overestimated the partisan makeup of the district. Then they could not imagine that a different but unknown Hispanic woman could compete against an inexperienced white man with a mystery income source who looked good on TV and sounds like he spends all his time on the internet.

She could and she did. A far right Republican (a label Joe Kent did not dispute in 2022 even as he claimed his repeated interactions with the Nick Fuentes crowd were coincidental and wholly unintentional) does not have a natural advantage against a moderate Democrat.

In this district a man also does not have an advantage against a woman. That was becoming true when my mother voted for the first time, though it took a highly qualified, unusually thick-skinned woman to win then. Repeatedly. But it is definitely true in an era when all her grandchildren can vote. What kind of expectations do you imagine her granddaughters have? In a one-time ship-building district that includes the great-granddaughters of a multitude of Rosie the Riveters?

It is not surprising that a centrist small business owner living in rural, heavily-forested Skamania County could perform better than a political science professor who moved to the district *after* declaring interest in the office, as center-left Democrat Carolyn Long did in 2020.

Nor is it surprising that this district would replace a popular moderate Republican who belonged to the Problem Solvers Caucus with a moderate Blue Dog Democrat whose policy positions are barely distinguishable from hers. General election voters liked Jaime Herrera Beutler so much they almost cloned her.

I wouldn't make any predictions about the outcome of the race, though. The great majority of voters are voting to decide which party will control the House, making individual candidates irrelevant to them. I considered it a toss-up in 2022 and consider it one again, though I think Gluesenkamp Perez has slightly higher chances this time around.

If Joe Kent can add all of the votes for the other Republican in the primary to his 39.3% share, he would win the general election with 51.5% of the vote. But he is not the automatic heir of every vote that went to the more reasonable Republican, Camas City Council member and retired attorney Leslie Lewallen (i.e. a reasonable person with actual qualifications).

That's not how the district works. It's probably not how any district works.

Note that despite Gluesenkamp Perez's decidedly un-liberal voting record, not a single Democrat ran against her in the primary. Her only non-Republican opponent was an independent who ran against the genocide in Gaza and received 2.55% of the vote. All but the most die-hard liberals voted for a Democrat who is currently conspicuously absent at the national convention.

Local Democrats rallied around her in 2022 (her liberal Democratic opponent withdrew from the primary and supported her campaign instead) and they did it again in 2024, just as they and Democrats across the nation have rallied around Vice President Harris.

In today's partisan times, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is not guaranteed victory, but she has the advantage. Washington's top-two primary system means there will be no third candidate on the general election ballot. There will be no one for liberals to vote for in protest. All they can do is decline to vote at all in a race where the only other candidate is a far right conservative. Some may do that, which is one reason the race is unpredictable.

At the same time, moderate Republicans can see her as someone who will represent them on multiple issues but won't join with the establishment-hating, democracy-undermining, party-destroying Republican fringe. As some did in 2022.

Given the candidates in the race, House Speaker Mike Johnson's recent embrace of Joe Kent is embarrassing. Not only is he unqualified, he's an extremist who would get along well with Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lorena Boebert. Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez was certainly more supportive of him than Kent would have been had he represented the district during Republicans' internecine political wars.

He is, it seems, more concerned with reaching out to the Republicans who fought him than the Democrats who supported him. In the process, he may have stabbed himself in the back.

And oh yeah, I also wouldn't bet on Trump winning in the district a third time. Not that anyone really cares.

[npi]

Two Republicans ahead for Commissioner of Public Lands; Dave Upthegrove in third place but could rise to second in late ballots

Unless Democratic King County Council Chair Dave Upthegrove can mount a comeback in the late ballots, the contest for Commissioner of Public Lands will be a runoff between two Republicans this fall, as NPI has repeatedly warned that it could be. Upthegrove and four other Democratic contenders for the post are splitting the vote so effectively that Republicans Jaime Herrera Beutler and Sue Kuehl…

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

Can you follow the hearsay?

Can you follow the hearsay? So this NY Times article is stating a fact based off of what a house member said, she overheard McCarthy talking about a phone call he had with Donald Trump. Do you see how crazy that is? Would that hold up in court? Then everyone else said that it didn’t happen?

The NY Times did not use this colorful language with the mob, besiegement during the summer of 2020.

Remember when reading this article everything in quotes that Beutler said, is what she supposedly heard from McCarthy.

Direct Quotes:

In a statement on Friday night, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, Republican of Washington, recounted a phone call relayed to her by Mr. McCarthy of California, the minority leader, in which Mr. Trump was said to have sided with the rioters, telling the top House Republican that members of the mob who had stormed the Capitol were “more upset about the election than you are.”

 Her account of the call between Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump, first reported by CNN, addressed a crucial question in the impeachment trial: what Mr. Trump was doing and saying privately while the Capitol was being overrun.

Hours after the assault began, Mr. Trump tweeted a video in which he asked those ransacking the Capitol to leave. “Go home. We love you. You’re very special,” he said.

[truck-fump]

Pro-<b>Trump</b> Republican who lost Wash. House seat will run again - NBC News

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/-trump-republican-lost-wash-house-seat-will-run-rcna65361&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw3KycZw7HN7ZkAWbPDTPeMJ

Pro-Trump Republican who lost Wash. House seat will run again - NBC News

Kent edged out then-GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the state’s top-two primary, making her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump after the …

[tomorrowusa]

Trump totally knew what was going on at the US Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. Yet he did nothing to stop it despite the pleas of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy placed the call to Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter. Another source told NBC News that McCarthy was shaken up during the call and was asking the president for help.

Trump told McCarthy on the call, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," according to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., and another Republican member familiar with the conversation.

[ ... ]

"When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol," Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wa., said in a statement posted to Twitter on Friday night.

At one point during the phone call, McCarthy told Trump: “Who the f—k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker briefed on the conversation.

Trump needs to be punished and punished bigtime.

[takeonmetakemeon]

It was considered to be a swing district before it lost Democratic-leaning Thurston County after 2010. After reapportionament the remaining voters chose Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler by large margins. Rep. Herrera Beutler lost in the 2022 primary after voting to impeach Donald Trump. Democrat and small business owner Marie Gluesenkamp Perez beat telegenic veteran and right-wing commentator Joe Kent by a hair in the general election later that year. She beat him by a slightly larger margin in a rematch this year, proving her surprise (to national observers) victory was not a fluke. Since electing trailblazer Julia Butler Hansen in 1960, the district has voted for five women and two men. It has not elected any Republican men in that 64-year period.

Pragmatist Wins In District That Favors Pragmatism

[npi]

Maria Cantwell retains fifteen point lead over hypothetical opponent Jaime Herrera Beutler

Senator Maria Cantwell remains well positioned for reelection to the U.S. Senate next year in the Evergreen State, the Northwest Progressive Institute’s June 2023 survey of likely 2024 Washington general election voters has confirmed. Cantwell continues to enjoy a fifteen point lead over hypothetical Republican opponent Jaime Herrera Beutler, a margin unchanged from our last survey back in March.…

[indelicateink]

"Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.  McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump's supporters and begged Trump to call them off.  

Trump's comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, "Who the f--k do you think you are talking to?" according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call. [...]

"You have to look at what he did during the insurrection to confirm where his mind was at," Herrera Beutler, one of 10 House Republicans who voted last month to impeach Trump, told CNN. "That line right there demonstrates to me that either he didn't care, which is impeachable, because you cannot allow an attack on your soil, or he wanted it to happen and was OK with it, which makes me so angry."

"We should never stand for that, for any reason, under any party flag," she added, voicing her extreme frustration: "I'm trying really hard not to say the F-word."

[theredandwhitequeen]

Jaime Herrera Beutler who voted to impeach Trump, is in 3rd place in her re-election to a house seat, she’s a Republican. Washington State is still counting ballots, but I’m not sure she will be able to get into 2nd place. The other two house Republicans that usually win look to be fine, but not her. Interesting. She’s losing to a Trump person so that sucks, but the Democrat has the most votes in the primary so far.

[reportwire]

GOP's links to extremism surface in congressional primary

GOP’s links to extremism surface in congressional primary

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional candidate whose compelling personal story of military valor and unfathomable loss helped him win former President Donald Trump’s support has connections to right-wing extremists, including a campaign consultant who was a member of the Proud Boys. Republican Joe Kent, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state in the Aug. 2 primary, has…

[tomorrowusa]

Extreme loyalty to Donald Trump will never be returned by him. If lucky, you’ll avoid getting murdered by his depraved followers. Mike Pence may somehow still be in denial about that.

It’s possible that some of the terrorists involved in the Capitol insurrection will be charged with attempting to assassinate Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and other officials. Given the recent report by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03), there may be probable cause to have Trump charged as an accessory. 

We need to get Merrick Garland confirmed as attorney general and make sure that the Justice Department has all the resources needed to conduct a thorough investigation of the assault on the US Capitol by pro-Trump terrorists.