President Donald Trump has vowed an aggressive political travel schedule over the next two months, hoping to boost Republicans’ chances of hanging on to majorities in the House and Senate.
Trump made a westward swing last week, holding a rally Thursday in Las Vegas, Nev., and Friday in Springfield, Mo. The Associated Press reported last month that Trump intends to spend more than 40 days on the campaign trail before the Nov. 6 election.
Washington’s Republican congressional candidates, however, are not exactly clamoring for a Pacific Northwest appearance from Trump, who received 38 percent of the statewide vote in the 2016 presidential election — and just 22 percent in King County.
The president so far has announced no plans to hold one of his signature “Make America Great Again” rallies in Washington, despite competitive House races in three GOP-held districts that will help determine which party controls the chamber next year.
Gov. Jay Inslee has mockingly begged Trump to visit, telling the president in a tweet last month that Washington Republicans “need your help! Please come and campaign for them in WA this fall!” In a subsequent TV interview, Inslee, who is chair of the Democratic Governors Association this year, said he’d even throw a parade for the president.
But Republican candidates say they’ll be just fine without a Trump bump.
“I am very self-sufficient. I really don’t need a lot of help … I have got a brand of my own,” said Dino Rossi, the former Republican state senator and real-estate investor running for the 8th Congressional District seat of retiring Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, when asked Monday whether a Trump visit would benefit him in his race against Democrat Kim Schrier, an Issaquah pediatrician.
Similar word came from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Vancouver, who is facing a challenge from Democrat Carolyn Long, a Vancouver political science professor, in a race that has drawn increased attention after the Republican incumbent’s relatively weak showing in the August primary.
“We haven’t heard anything about a visit, and we’ve never focused on getting big names from outside Southwest Washington to come campaign for us. This year’s no different,” said Angeline Riesterer, a spokeswoman for Herrera Beutler, in an email.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, has not requested a Trump visit, but wouldn’t object to one. Asked whether she’d like Trump to campaign for her, a McMorris Rodgers spokesman pointed to an MSNBC interview earlier this year. “I know a lot of people would love to see him come. I would always welcome the president to come to my district,” McMorris Rodgers said in the interview.
McMorris Rodgers has not been shy about calling in Trump administration heavyweights.
Vice President Mike Pence is tentatively scheduled to visit Spokane for a fundraiser Oct. 2, the Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Friday.
The fourth-ranking Republican in the U.S. House, McMorris Rodgers is up against her strongest challenger since being elected to Congress in 2004, facing Lisa Brown, the former state Senate Democratic leader and former chancellor of Washington State University’s Spokane campus.
Susan Hutchison, the former state Republican Party chair challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell this fall, said she hasn’t requested a Trump visit and hasn’t had time to analyze whether one would benefit her in a statewide race. She said while Trump may be divisive personally, “his policies are very popular.”
