Democratic surge could swamp McMorris Rodgers

SPOKANE — Cathy McMorris Rodgers has never lost a race in her U.S. House district in Washington. The Republican has never even received less than 56 percent of the vote.

So it did not go unnoticed when the national GOP set up shop in Spokane 10 months before Election Day to help bolster her bid for an eighth term. The GOP’s move is a reminder that, with President Trump in the White House, once-safe Republicans may need all the help they can get.

McMorris Rodgers, the only woman in House GOP leadership, has joined the group of Republican lawmakers unexpectedly scrambling for political survival this year. Trump’s low approval ratings — and rising Democratic enthusiasm — have many Republicans braced for a beating in the midterm elections in November. The worry has spread from swing districts to areas once considered out of reach for Democrats: eastern Kansas, suburban Minneapolis, corners of Texas and even the eastern Washington district held by a Republican for nearly 25 years.

McMorris Rodgers has drawn a tough challenger in former state Democratic Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, who served for 20 years in the Legislature representing Spokane. Brown has seized on McMorris Rodgers’ alignment with Trump to cast her as out of touch with the district. She’s raising more money than previous Democratic challengers, and the national party has promised additional resources.

The non-partisan Elway Poll reported in January that in eastern Washington, a generic Republican candidate for Congress beats a generic Democrat by just four points, “hinting at vulnerability” for McMorris Rogers.

Brown is “the most high-quality opponent Democrats have ever recruited in the district,” said Chris Vance, a former state GOP chairman, who notes that a Democratic surge could swamp McMorris Rodgers.

“This is all about Trump and it depends how big an anti-Trump wave is out there,” Vance said.

Washington’s 5th Congressional District hugs the Idaho border and is dominated by Spokane, the state’s second-largest city. The area has been reliably Republican since George Nethercutt’s shocking defeat of Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley in 1994. Trump easily beat Hillary Clinton here in 2016, 52 percent to 39 percent.

Outside of Spokane, the sprawling district is mostly rural and home to farmers harvesting wheat, lentils and other products. While unemployment is low in much of Washington, the counties along the Canadian border in the 5th District have long struggled with high jobless rates as logging and other extraction industries have declined.

McMorris Rodgers spent more than a decade in the state Legislature before winning the 5th District seat in an open 2004 election when Nethercutt ran unsuccessfully for the Senate.