Orion Donovan Smith

WASHINGTON – When the House of Representatives convened at the Capitol on Friday, the opening prayer was delivered not by the House chaplain but by a Spokane pastor who prayed for national healing in a divisive time for the United States.

WASHINGTON – It’s not easy to get elected to statewide office as a Republican in Washington state. When voters don’t know your name, it’s just about impossible.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris met on stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday in a debate that kicked off the final stretch of an unusually short and tumultuous presidential campaign.

CHICAGO – The Democratic National Convention came to a euphoric close on Thursday as Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president, leaving delegates from the Inland Northwest feeling confident as they gear up for the final stretch of an election they don’t expect to be easy.

CHICAGO – Delegates at the Democratic National Convention were fired up on Wednesday as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the party’s vice presidential nominee, took the stage to rally the party faithful and make a pitch to the voters who will decide the election.

CHICAGO – In the first month of her campaign for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris has emphasized broad principles more than specific policies, capitalizing on enthusiasm among Democrats without making it clear how she would govern differently from President Joe Biden.

CHICAGO – When President Joe Biden took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, it wasn’t the way he planned to do it just a month earlier.

Military families and their advocates gathered at Fairchild Air Force Base on Wednesday to share resources, reflect on the progress they have made and highlight the barriers that still make it hard for troops and their families to access adequate food, housing, employment and education.

When Rep. Dan Newhouse was first elected in 2014 to represent central Washington in Congress, he did it by beating fellow Republican Clint Didier by a single percentage point in the general election after a primary in which Didier won about 30% of votes and Newhouse won roughly a quarter.

Two Republicans appeared on track to advance in Tuesday’s top-two primary and face off to represent central Washington’s 4th Congressional District in November’s general election.

Donald Trump shook up an already-unsettled race for the state’s 4th Congressional District on Saturday, endorsing a second Republican vying to unseat Rep. Dan Newhouse, whose vote to impeach Trump for his role in the 2021 Capitol riot made him one of the prime targets of the former president’s revenge campaign.

EPHRATA, Wash. – 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.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It may have been the most momentous fortnight in modern U.S. political history.

WASHINGTON – In a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel forcefully defended his nation’s war against Hamas in response to the Palestinian armed group’s attack last year in which it killed nearly 1,200 people and took hundreds of hostages.

WASHINGTON – When Israel’s prime minister delivers a controversial address to Congress on Wednesday, it won’t be with the usual backdrop for such an occasion.

WASHINGTON – In the hours after President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he would end his re-election bid, elected Democrats swiftly coalesced around his vice president. By Monday afternoon, nearly all Washington Democrats holding federal or statewide office had endorsed Kamala Harris as their party’s nominee for president.

MILWAUKEE – At the Republican National Convention in 2016, delegates from Washington and Idaho arrived with their loyalties split between two candidates. When former President Donald Trump took the stage at the close of this year’s convention on Thursday, the GOP appeared more united than ever.

MILWAUKEE – Two men stood outside the gates of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, one on each side of a mass of people inching through a security checkpoint, and put on display what may be the biggest divide in the otherwise unified delegates who had approved a new party platform the previous day.

MILWAUKEE – The Republican National Convention is teeming with journalists eager to interview the thousands of delegates and other party faithful in attendance. Unlike many other states, Washington’s delegation doesn’t include members of Congress or other statewide elected officials with experience talking to the news media, but it does have a secret weapon to help them deliver the message of GOP unity that has defined the convention.

MILWAUKEE – The Republican National Convention kicked off Monday with a roll call vote that officially made former President Donald Trump his party’s nominee for another term in office. But in a day heavy on nostalgia for Trump’s years in office, his choice of Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate turned delegates’ attention to the future.

MILWAUKEE – Over breakfast at their hotel on Monday, Washington state’s delegation began the first day of the Republican National Convention with a prayer acknowledging the shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania two days earlier that left one supporter of former President Donald Trump dead and two others wounded, while Trump himself seemingly escaped death by mere inches as a bulletpierced his ear.

WASHINGTON – The United States and Canada announced Thursday that they have reached an agreement in principle to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, a 60-year-old pact that governs how the two nations use the Columbia Basin’s water resources.