A House district in Washington state may be harder for the GOP to hold after primary voters drove out a Republican lawmaker who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
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An internal poll from Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign showed her Republican rival Joe Kent trailing by 2 percentage points. The survey has Perez leading him in favorability ratings by more than 10 points, with her camp suggesting in a memo that this shows substantial room to win over undecided voters.
?#WA03: Trump and Thiel-endorsed Republican Joe Kent trailing Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, according to a new internal poll from her campaign.
Kent defeated impeachment supporting GOP Rep. Herrera Beutler in the Republican primary. pic.twitter.com/OH6fsOCd9g
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) September 2, 2022
Although the poll is not an independent survey, it follows other warning signs that Republicans will have a tougher fight nationally than expected in November as forecasts have shifted to show Democrats’ odds improving in the midterm elections.
The Kent campaign has not responded to a request for comment.
Kent’s successful Trump-backed primary bid against incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) was part of the former president’s efforts to defeat Republican lawmakers who backed his second impeachment effort. Kent defeated Herrera Beutler in a primary last month. After Kent became the district’s Republican nominee, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the race from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican.”
Herrera Beutler was first elected to the House in 2010, flipping the district to Republican control after the retirement of former Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA).
In 2020, Trump carried the district with about 51% of the vote, marking a 4-point margin of victory. Although Republican primary voters rejected her in 2022, Herrera Beutler outperformed Trump in 2020 in the general election, carrying the district by about 13 points.
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GOP strategists fear Republican-leaning independents previously inclined to vote for Herrera Beutler in the general election may not support Kent, who is running on a hard-right platform including his embrace of Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Although Trump’s efforts have driven out some of the Republicans who voted to impeach him in primaries, it remains to be seen how many of his selected candidates can win their general election contests.
