Will Trump bring revenge tour to Washington state? The idea’s not all that farfetched
Donald Trump is no longer the ubiquitous media figure and indomitable political force he was last year, having been ousted from the White House and banned from major social media outlets.
Despite his army of diehard followers, Trump begrudgingly had to exit stage right.
Make that way, way right, judging by the extremists he stirred up on his way out the door. Like it or not, he will always be associated with the mob that stormed the Capitol.
And yet Trump still has his old showman’s talent for enthralling crowds at campaign rallies, like he did in Ohio last weekend.
We’ll be disappointed if he brings his shtick to our neck of the woods sometime over the next several months. But we won’t be surprised.
On a personal level, Washington state is a perfect place for Trump to exact revenge against Republican members of Congress he feels betrayed him — two for the price of one.
On a political level, he may see a chance to flip one of the five Democrat-held seats that his party needs to retake the US House next year.
Trump didn’t miss a beat from his routine when he appeared at a June 26 rally near Cleveland. Appearing before thousands at a county fairgrounds, he stumped for a former White House aide who’s trying to unseat US Rep. Anthony Gonzalez. The Ohio congressman is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 riots.
Of course the 45th president also used the occasion to peddle his election fraud canard, calling his loss to Joe Biden “the scam of the century” and “the crime of the century.”
Is it possible he could bring his desperate-to-stay-relevant act to Washington state?
The question isn’t all that farfetched.
No, Trump didn’t appear publicly in the upper left hand corner of the continental US while president. He dropped in for a handful of rallies while running against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Visiting a famously progressive state that hasn’t picked a Republican for president since 1984 might seem pointless.
But a trifecta of opportunities could prove hard to resist, given that three 2022 congressional elections in our state are attracting national attention.
Washington Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (3rd District) and Dan Newhouse (4th District) face stern challenges from the right after they voted to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection. Both are Republicans; she’s from Vancouver, he’s from Yakima County. Only one other state (Michigan) had two GOP representatives break ranks.
Meantime, Rep. Kim Schrier (8th District) will be tested to hold the swing seat for Democrats after seeing her voter support slip in 2020. Even with the advantages of incumbency and a more than 5-to-1 fundraising gap, Schrier, of Issaquah, beat newcomer Jesse Jensen by fewer than 15,000 votes, two years after she was the newcomer and beat veteran Dino Rossi by a larger margin.
How serious is the Washington GOP about taking back the 8th, which includes both sides of the state (including parts of East Pierce County) and didn’t go blue until 2018? On Wednesday, they brought in a heavy hitter who happens to be a staunch Trump ally.
Republican National Committee co-chair Tommy Hicks headlined a “Flip the 8th” reception in Maple Valley — a sign that the RNC is ready to pour money into the race, unlike last year.
“I think we have some really good momentum building on the ground,” Caleb Heimlich, chair of the Washington State Republican Party, told us Thursday.
State Democrats are trying to counter that momentum with pleas to their donors, sounding the alarm about the Hicks “fancy-pants winery fundraiser.”(Party officials weren’t available for comment this week.)
Looking at things through the Trumpian lens, it makes sense to continue his rally tour, whether to keep scratching the itch of his petty grievances or to help take back the House. It also gives him a soapbox to spin the new indictments for financial misconduct within the Trump Organization.
But so far there’s been no talk with the RNC about hosting Trump, Heimlich said. While having the former president here in the flesh would boost Republican enthusiasm and voter registration, it would also galvanize Democrats to mobilize their own base.
Simply put, Trump coming to Washington would be “a double-edged sword,” Heimlich said.
Veteran Pierce County Republican political consultant Alex Hays said he wouldn’t bet on a Trump visit because he’s so hard to predict. “It depends on if the former president flashes on these races,” he told us, adding that if it were to happen, “I suspect it will have no significant impact.”
The bigger X factor in determining control, both Hays and Heimlich said, is the congressional redistricting process now underway. The 8th District could switch from a competitive battleground to a stronghold for one party or the other, depending on how lines are redrawn on both sides of the state.
Also looming large for Democrats is the likelihood they’ll lose their slim majority in the midterm elections — a common course correction after a party wins the White House.
Defending more seats around the country will require the Democratic National Committee to make tough spending decisions in 2022, and Schrier could feel the triage. “They could run out of money before they get to Washington state,” Hays said.
Clearly Democrats have larger concerns than whether a polarizing one-term president heads west for campaign rallies.
But one thing’s for sure: Traditional Washington conservatives should feel no pride if Trump brings his tour of lies, bombast and self-aggrandizement to our state.
While that kind of hot air may play well in Ohio, it shouldn’t be given oxygen here.
News Tribune editorials reflect the views of our Editorial Board and are written by opinion editor Matt Misterek. Other board members are: Stephanie Pedersen, News Tribune president and editor; Matt Driscoll, local columnist; and Jim Walton, community representative. The Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom and does not influence the work of news reporting and editing staffs. For questions about the board or our editorials, email matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com