Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is again mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), picked up an expected albeit influential endorsement Friday from former president and presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Newhouse, who has used his House Appropriations Committee post to push for greater nuclear cleanup funding for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, is one of only two remaining House Republicans members who voted to impeach Trump, NBC News reported Friday. Newhouse voted to impeach the then president following the Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s endorsement of Sessler, a former NASCAR driver and U.S. Navy veteran, was posted Friday on the Trump Media and Technology Group platform, Truth Social. “Jerrod Sessler is a fantastic candidate and will be a GREAT congressman for Washington’s 4th Congressional district,” Trump said, in the post, which was reported on Sessler’s Facebook page. Sessler “has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump added.
Whether Trump’s endorsement is enough to help unseat Newhouse, who has represented the Tri-Cities area in congress since 2015, remains unknown. Sessler finished fourth, behind Newhouse, a Democrat and one other Republican, in the August 2022 open primary. Then in November 2022, Newhouse took two-thirds of the vote in the general election to easily defeat Democrat Doug White. The 2024 open primary is set for Aug. 6.
The Washington state Republican Party’s two-day convention was scheduled to conclude Friday in Spokane. The convention was expected to make its own endorsement in the race, according to the Spokesman-Review newspaper.
