Washington, Idaho send incumbents back to Congress

No matter what the pollsters say about the nation’s frustration with Congress, Washington and Idaho voters are sending all of the incumbents who wanted to keep their jobs back to the nation’s capital.

Eastern Washington voters gave Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers a sixth term in the House. After the first round of ballots from the 5th Congressional District’s 10 counties were totaled Tuesday night, she had a lead of more than 26,000 votes over her Democratic opponent, Joe Pakootas, the chief executive officer of the Colville Tribal Federal Corp.

In Idaho, Republican incumbents seemed to be coasting to easy victories. U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, a tea party favorite, appeared to be easily holding off a challenge from Democratic state Rep. Shirley Ringo of Moscow to win his third two-year term.

GOP Sen. Jim Risch appeared headed to another six-year term, turning back a challenge from Boise attorney Nels Mitchell. Risch, 71, has been rated the Senate’s most conservative member three times by the National Journal and is known for frequently voting “no.”

The only incumbent in the two states not headed back to Congress is the one who decided to retire, Richard “Doc” Hastings of Central Washington’s 4th District. In the battle for the open seat, Yakima farmer Dan Newhouse, a former legislator and state agriculture director, had a 3,000-vote lead over Eltopia farmer Clint Didier, a former NFL player who ran a strong populist campaign.

McMorris Rodgers thanked a crowd of sign-waving supporters at the Davenport Hotel on Tuesday night. She said she believed the shift in Senate leadership would allow several bills that have stagnated in that chamber to reach the desk of President Barack Obama, who has invited House and Senate Republican leaders to meet at the White House later this week.

“I think that is a good sign, as far as opening up the lines of communication and having a discussion about priorities and getting the job done for America.”

Pakootas said his campaign suffered from a shortage of money that made it hard to gain the needed name recognition against the well-known incumbent.

He told supporters at the Lincoln Center he did better than he expected when he first started the campaign. “For a regular guy from the rez, I think we did damn good,” said the former Colville tribal chairman.