Michael Baumgartner seeks another two years in Congress

When Congressman Michael Baumgartner jumped into the race in 2024 for a rare chance at a seat opened by former Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ retirement, he believed “that the American dream is dying” – but it didn’t need to.

“I’m just not going to let that happen,” he declared two years ago. “Together, we’re not going to let that happen.”

He felt that America was on the retreat on the world stage, and pledged to focus on inflation, border security, crime and homelessness if he was elected. Much of his political career had been spent railing against the national debt and calling for cuts to the social welfare programs that make up much of the nation’s discretionary spending

The needle has moved significantly on all of those issues since 2024, though not always positively; violent crime is down nationally and in Washington state, homelessness has ticked down locally and across the country, and migrant crossings at the southern border are at their lowest in 50 years. Inflation remains high, however: a June report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found prices increased 4.2% year-over-year, while gasoline surged 40.5%.

Outside of Baumgartner’s relatively minor involvement in housing legislation – he has advocated for easing some technical regulations on manufactured housing, for instance – he, like other freshmen members of Congress, has had little personal influence on those issues, aside from the vote he casts with the Republican House majority.

He touted the impact of those votes when he formally launched his re-election campaign shortly after jogging Bloomsday, arguing that the Republican trifecta in D.C. had avoided the “largest tax increases in history” with the One Big Beautiful Bill, extending the temporary tax cuts Republicans had approved in 2017 and set to expire at the end of 2025.

The same bill also included some of the most substantial cuts to federal health care and food assistance programs in history – while also adding upwards of $3.4 trillion to the national debt over its first 10 years. Baumgartner recently has argued that the national debt won’t be addressed until a president is elected on a deficit reduction platform; President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to balance the federal budget, but he has presided over trillions in additional debt in his first and second terms.

The freshman congressman also has thrown his support behind the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, one of the few other major pieces of legislation to move out of both chambers in recent years. While Trump initially voiced support for the bill, he has since declined to sign it until Congress approves his stalled SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote.

Baumgartner’s own legislation largely has focused on other priorities, particularly student athletics, weapons sales to foreign countries, and artificial intelligence regulations.

Decrying the deterioration of regional college conferences as universities seek lucrative TV deals, abandoning less wealthy institutions like Washington State University, Baumgartner pledged to make college athletics reform a major focus of his first term.

He became the chair of the nine-member Congressional College Sports Caucus and worked across the aisle with Sen. Maria Cantwell to oppose legislation they believed would cement the power of wealthier schools. More than a third of the bills Baumgartner has introduced in D.C. involve college sports, including the Restore College Sports Act, which would effectively dissolve the NCAA.

Like much of the Republican Party in recent years, he also has waded into the debate over whether transgender girls should be allowed to participate in high school sports. On the House floor and at fundraising events, he has publicly honored Lauren Matthew, a West Valley High School student athlete, as the “rightful winner” of the 2025 2A 400-meter dash, which Matthew lost to a transgender East Valley High School athlete, Veronica Garcia.

None of the roughly 20 bills or resolutions Baumgartner has introduced have become law, though that’s not unusual for a freshman Congressman, especially given how relatively little legislation Congress has passed in recent years. Many are stuck in their respective committees, though some have been rejected outright, including a proposal that would have made it easier for more foreign countries to use U.S. grants and loans to purchase military equipment from private U.S. vendors.

Two Baumgartner bills have passed the House, however: an act meant to make it quicker for foreign countries to apply to export U.S.-made military equipment and a proposal requiring colleges and universities to disclose gifts from foreign countries and prohibiting contracts with countries of concern. He also successfully introduced an amendment to the 2026 Farm Bill that potentially provides access to federal conservation funds for water infrastructure in the Columbia Basin Project.

Outside of House chambers, Baumgartner has been a vocal defender of the Trump administration’s policies, despite being one of the few sitting congressional Republicans to openly acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election – a key litmus test in a coalition that still sits squarely in Trump’s shadow.

He has been a regular on C-SPAN and the big network news outlets, explaining his support for the war in Iran and praising the work of administration officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

When Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly clashed last year in a diplomatic meltdown, Baumgartner publicly called for Zelenskyy to resign. While congressional Republicans have split on issues like Trump’s push to take over Greenland, Baumgartner argued a peaceful annexation would be a strategic and economic boon, though he was less enthusiastic about similar calls to seize Canada as the “51st state.”

“America needs more allies, not less, and I think the 51st state stuff was, was some stuff that didn’t really accomplish a lot,” Baumgartner said at a May town hall.

He has quietly clashed with the president on a few other issues, including an “inappropriate” image posted by Trump that depicted the president as Christ-like.

He also opposed the sweeping tariffs introduced by Trump last year, though he voted against a House resolution to overturn them, arguing the president needed “leverage to use tariffs as a national security tool.” The congressman has also “probably changed a few of my views” on tariffs in the last year, he said in May to a defense contractor concerned about unfair foreign competition.

Baumgartner faces more challengers in 2026 than he did when the seat was open two years ago, a possible signal that at least 11 people in the district believe his position has been made vulnerable by association with a president whose approval rating is more than 20 points underwater. Still, he has no challenge from any Republican, a sign he has consolidated support among conservatives.

His status as the lone Republican makes him a shoe-in to advance to the November election and a favorite to retain his seat in a district that has reliably elected Republicans for 30 years. He had raised $1.4 million for his re-election campaign by the end of March, well before many candidates jumped into the race. While that figure is larger than all of Baumgartner’s opponents campaign funds combined, it’s not a particularly large sum for a House election or even for the district’s incumbent – in McMorris Rodgers’ last election, she raised more than $6 million.

The drop in fundraising compared to Baumgartner’s predecessor isn’t particularly surprising; he’s not the chair of a powerful committee, as McMorris Rodgers was, and he hasn’t launched any leadership political action committees to boost his Republican colleagues.

In a way, the middle-of-the-road fundraising could be seen as a positive signal for Baumgartner, a sign that the national party and major donors don’t sense he has anything to worry about. The Cook Political Report considers the district “Solid Red,” and the election hasn’t attracted much attention outside of its borders.

Baumgartner’s confident attitude to the election thus far seems to largely reflect that sentiment; the same day he formally kicked off his re-election campaign, he said he was too busy to participate in any primary election forums with his challengers.

During his subsequent whistlestop tour of the district, he made no significant public appearances in Spokane County, the district’s population center. Campaign staff said it was too difficult to secure a venue.