With 16 months until ballots are cast in the primary, there are now four candidates who have placed their hats in the ring for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground.
The six-term GOP congresswoman is up for reelection in November 2022, and currently three candidates from Clark County and one from Cowlitz County have their eyes on the seat.
On Tuesday, March 9, Joe Kent of Battle Ground, Heidi St. John of Vancouver, John P. Wilson of Kelso and Wadi Yakhour of Brush Prairie joined a candidate forum at the Cowlitz County Republican Party headquarters to discuss their plans to unseat Herrera Beutler by supporting the most popular Republican candidate running against her, as well as strengthening the party at home and in Washington.
Nearly 120 maskless voters sat shoulder-to-shoulder Tuesday in the Kelso building. There was no discussion of social distancing or wearing masks in the crowded setting for the three-hour meeting.
The candidates’ announcements follow Herrera Beutler’s locally unpopular Jan. 13 vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. About a month later, the Cowlitz County Republican Central Committee wrote a letter to Herrera Beutler, asking her to resign and vowing to find a replacement candidate.
Fight Against the Left
Kent said his experience as a U.S. intelligence agent and nearly two decades as a Green Beret enable him to view a “clear and present threat,” just like on the battle field. He said he wants to defend voters against the Radical Left, who are trying to undermine the country’s democracy, free speech and gun rights.
“The end game for the left is total control,” said Kent. “These aren’t Socialists, these aren’t Communists, these are totalitarian dictators hiding behind elected officials.”
Heidi St. John is an author of seven books, mostly on religion and motherhood, and host of the podcast Off The Bench, which discusses topics like education, religion and politics.
She said Republicans are fighting “a war for the heart and soul of our nation,” and the party needs to unite by supporting similar positions like gun rights and free speech.
“If we’re going to win the battle,” she said, “it’s got to start right here at home.”
St. John said she wants to return the country to a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic, elected officials represent voters and are governed by a constitution, whereas in a direct democracy the power is vested in a majority vote.
Trump Support
Yakhour, a U.S. Navy veteran who was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal, said his experience working with local and national appointed and elected officials as a Trump appointee gives him the “skills to serve his community.” After working on Trump’s 2016 campaign, Yakhour was appointed by the former president to work in his administration, including as chief of staff at the Selective Service System. Yakhour’s mother was a Clark County Sheriff deputy for two decades.
Kent said he volunteered for Trump’s campaign in 2020, and was in active duty in 2016. He called Trump’s impeachment trial “a shame” and said citizens “weren’t even allowed to question” the results of the 2020 presidential election without being called “insurrectionists.”
Kent said he spoke with Trump after his wife, a U.S. veteran, was killed in active duty so he knows that Trump didn’t call Americans who died in war “losers” or “suckers,” as had been reported in the Atlantic.
According to a nonprofit veteran’s memorial foundation, Kent’s wife, Shannon, was killed in Syria in 2019 while part of a special operations task force. The website said Kent’s wife was a senior chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy.
Wilson said he is an Army veteran, who has operated John’s Title LLC in Kelso since the 1990s. He said he donated to Trump’s campaign and that the Mexican-U.S. border wall will still be built, even though Trump is no longer in office.
Herrera Beutler
Kent said that Herrera Beutler’s votes against building the Mexican-U.S. border wall and in support of the Affordable Care Act went against her constituents. He called Herrera Beutler’s impeachment vote “treasonous.”
“Just like President Trump said when he first came on the political stage — the Republican establishment is part of this too,” said Kent.
Yakhour said Herrera Beutler “feels entitled to this seat” and said he is running so voters can be proud of the district’s representation again.
“We have to be together, to get rid of her,” he said.
Yakhour added that, if elected, he would treat constitutes “with dignity and respect.”
“You’ll always know how I’m going to vote because it’s the vote of the community that elected me,” he said.
Without naming Herrera Beutler, St. John said that Washington’s 3rd Congressional District was not being represented.
“The job of a representative is not to represent themselves,” she said. “The job of a representative is to represent the people who voted to send them there in the first place.”
If she is elected, St. John said she will continue to live in Clark County where she and her husband have been raising seven children — ranging from 10 to 30 — since the birth of her oldest. She also has three grandchildren.
Beutler was not at the event but sent a response to The Daily News stating she still supports her constituents.
“Debunked election conspiracies and anger that I voted to uphold the Constitution and tell the truth make for a poor campaign platform here in Southwest Washington, no matter how many people run on it,” she said. “I’m still a Republican, I’m still a conservative, I haven’t stopped working to solve problems for all Southwest Washington residents, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Pandemic
Kent said leaders “greatly exaggerate how dangerous the pandemic is” and that economic shutdowns take jobs away from working class citizens, like small business owners, while leaving corporations like Amazon and Walmart open without limitations.
“Right now we’re living through the greatest transfer of wealth in this nation,” he said.
Education and Religion
Kent said Leftist teachings in schools are destroying the family unit and the country’s Judeo-Christian founding and replacing them with the government. He said Planned Parenthood’s support of abortions is “population control.”
“If you get rid of religion and get rid of families, people need the government,” he said.
St. John said “the federal government shouldn’t have anything to do with education,” and that parents should have more say in which schools their kids attend. She said students are being taught about transgender and slavery, which paints the nation negatively.
“Our children are no longer being taught how to think, they are being taught what to think,” she said.
St. John said her grandfather was a pastor who taught her “religion and politics actually mix, which is what we’re hearing the opposite of in the culture now.”
She said the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian roots and the country needs to return to those teachings.
According to her website, St. John runs a branch of a Christian homeschool cooperative in Clark County called Firmly Planted Family, which was previously called First Class Homeschool Ministries.
