Washington House Races 2026: MGP and Schrier Defending Competitive Seats
10 seats total · 7D, 3R · WA-3 MGP defending R+6 upset win · WA-8 Kim Schrier D+3 suburbs · D+15 state
Washington Competitive Districts 2026
Key Races and District Analysis
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez: Auto Mechanic vs. The MAGA Flank
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is perhaps the most discussed House member of her cohort. She won WA-3 in 2022 by defeating Joe Kent — a far-right Republican endorsed by Trump who had beaten incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler in the primary — by 1.3 points in a district that leans R+6. Her win defied every structural expectation. An auto mechanic and co-owner of a small auto repair shop in rural Clark County, Gluesenkamp Perez ran a campaign centered on working-class economic populism, rejection of culture war extremism, and constituent services. She distanced herself from the national Democratic Party brand while maintaining a Democratic caucus vote. She has been among the loudest Democratic critics of progressives trying to nationalize rural races. Republicans have targeted her in every cycle. Her personal vote — the margin by which she outperforms her district's partisan lean — is one of the highest in the country. In 2026, Republicans will again spend heavily in WA-3. The race is likely to be decided by whether they nominate a Joe Kent-style extremist (which would help MGP) or a more conventional candidate.
Kim Schrier: Pediatrician Defending the Issaquah Suburbs
Kim Schrier (D) represents the eastern King County suburbs — Issaquah, Sammamish, Auburn, and the communities along the I-90 corridor between Seattle and the Cascades. The district at D+3 has been steadily shifting Democratic as tech workers, Microsoft and Amazon employees, and highly educated professionals have moved into communities like Sammamish and Issaquah. Schrier, a pediatrician, first won the seat in 2018 in the first competitive election the district had seen in years, defeating Republican Dino Rossi by 5 points. She has won re-election by similar margins in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Her D+3 partisan lean gives her a structural advantage, and she has built a constituent services operation focused on healthcare, tech industry issues, and Cascade recreation and environmental management. The district's professional-class composition makes it sensitive to healthcare polling, housing costs, and technology regulation — issues that favor Schrier's profile.
Eastern Washington: Red Territory in a Blue State
Washington's two safe Republican House seats reflect the state's profound east-west divide. WA-4 (Dan Newhouse, R) covers central Washington's agricultural interior — the Yakima Valley, Wenatchee, and the dryland wheat farms of the Columbia Plateau. Newhouse is a moderate Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6, 2021, and survived a Trump-backed primary challenge in 2022. WA-5 covers eastern Washington including Spokane, the state's second-largest city, and the rural Palouse agricultural region. Both seats vote R+12 to R+18 in presidential elections and are impervious to Democratic challenge. The cultural and economic divide between western Washington (tech-dominated, urban, liberal) and eastern Washington (agriculture-dominated, rural, conservative) is one of the starkest within a single state in the country. Eastern Washington politicians have periodically floated secession measures to form a new state called "Liberty," reflecting the depth of political alienation from the Seattle-dominated state government.
