The first question Rep. Dan Newhouse got at the Grant County GOP's monthly meeting on Thursday is the one that has loomed over his past three years representing central Washington in Congress.
After saying he wanted to address the elephant in the room, Grant County GOP Chairman Andrew Koeppen asked Newhouse, "What are you doing to mend your relationship with Trump?"
It's a question the five-term congressman from Sunnyside hasn't been able to escape since he was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump for his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol after he spent weeks insisting, without evidence, that the 2020 election had been fraudulently stolen.
At the time, it briefly seemed that a large share of congressional Republicans were so appalled by the attack, when rioters injured at least 140 police officers, that they would move on from the man who had commandeered their party just four years earlier. But when the time came to vote on impeachment, most GOP lawmakers opposed the move, leaving Newhouse and a handful of others alone on a political island.
Newhouse, a third-generation farmer and former state agriculture commissioner, is the only one of the 10 so-called "impeachers" who survived a Trump-endorsed primary challenger in 2022, squeaking through a crowded primary field with barely a quarter of votes before easily defeating his Democratic opponent in the general election. With the exception of Rep. David Valadao of California, who represents a district President Joe Biden won in 2020, every other Republican who voted to impeach Trump either retired or lost re-election in 2022.
In the back room of a local pizza joint packed with precinct committee officers and other county GOP leaders, Newhouse told Koeppen he wanted to push back on the idea that his relationship with Trump is broken. He touted his strong relationships with Trump administration officials and said that in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans in June, Trump had delivered a message of party unity.
For at least some people in the room, that wasn't enough. Edwin Buchert, a precinct committee officer from Lakeview, stood up and thanked Newhouse for acknowledging that Trump has united their party. Then, echoing a Trump talking point that has permeated GOP politics, Buchert said impeaching Trump for inciting the Capitol riot was part of an effort by the political left "to destroy us."
"I guess I assumed that Republicans would stand behind him, Dan," Buchert said. "I was hurt, I was disgusted, I was dismayed when you came out and voted to impeach the man. And so I felt we not only have Democrats doing it, but we've got some of our own trying to do it."
Keeping the respectful tone of the exchange, Newhouse suggested that Buchert was "looking at this in a political lens." The congressman reminded the crowd that the Capitol riot took place three days after every member of Congress took the oath of office, pledging to defend the Constitution.
"I took that very literally, or else I couldn't come here and meet with you guys face to face, if I just said those words and didn't mean it," Newhouse said. "I think I made the right choice for upholding the Constitution. It's not political."
"But as it turned out, you were wrong," Buchert said. "Because he never, ever, ever did anything wrong."
Before the question-and-answer session, Newhouse gave his constituents an update on what he had been doing in Congress: Leading the Western Caucus, a group of mostly GOP lawmakers who represent rural districts across the country; heading a new working group dedicated to stopping the flow of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals from China; fighting efforts to breach the Lower Snake River dams.
He talked about how inflation and the Biden administration's regulatory policies have affected farmers and ranchers in heavily agricultural central Washington.
"Things are tough right now," Newhouse said. "It's tough to make a buck in agriculture. That's why I think it's so important that we have a strong representative that knows agriculture. And I'm a farmer. These issues are my issues."
For John Bates, a farmer from Warden, that didn't matter. Before Newhouse arrived, Bates said he had already decided he wouldn't vote for the congressman because of the vote to impeach Trump.
The decision for Newhouse's GOP critics in the district — a decision Bates said he still hadn't made with less than a week before ballots were due — is whether to back Jerrod Sessler, an entrepreneur from Prosser who received Trump's endorsement in April, or Tiffany Smiley, a veterans' advocate who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2022.
While Newhouse addressed the group in Ephrata, Sessler gathered with his supporters at another pizza place up the road in Moses Lake. David Hunt, who was officially ousted as chairman of the Grant County GOP in April after the party split into two factions, said Sessler is "somebody who's for the people and actually is going to be engaged with the people."
"Dan Newhouse hasn't done anything for the 4th District," Hunt said. "Him voting to impeach Trump without talking to his constituents is a betrayal, as far as I'm concerned."
While touring an Apollo Mechanical Contracting factory in Kennewick on Friday, Smiley, who shook up the race with a last-minute entry in May, said the 4th District needs a representative who can work with a second Trump administration.
"Joe Biden's destroying our country," she said. "And we don't have a voice. No one's standing up."
Smiley, who reported raising nearly $720,000 as of July 17, said Friday her campaign had nearly doubled that number to $1.4 million.
"I'm excited, I'm honored by the support," she said. "I think that shows the energy and the enthusiasm. And I'm not raising money from D.C.; I'm raising money from the people who are ready to elect someone who will fight and lead, and really someone who will listen and take their voice to Washington, D.C."
Since Newhouse was first elected in 2014, no Democrat has received more than a quarter of votes in Washington's free-for-all primary, from which the top two finishers advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. Democrat Doug White advanced with about 25% of primary votes in 2022, but this year's ballot includes four candidates who identify as Democrats, raising the likelihood of a Republican-on-Republican contest in November.
When ballots begin to be counted on Tuesday, voters in central Washington will make a statement on the defining question of modern Republican politics: In an era when the GOP is defined by loyalty to Trump, is there room for Dan Newhouse?
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