2026 Virginia/Washington U.S. House primary preview
As stated before, I decided to focus on Michigan over Washington when it came to state legislatures, but I will do some sort of post-primary piece for the Primary Previews tier on the Washington legislature once the primary season ends in about a month, so you'll get analysis of all the Dem-on-Dem battles well in advance of the regular November election day preview. There are still four U.S. House primaries I'm watching between Virginia and Washington, though, so I'll walk you through them here.
A note for watching Washington results: early results should be modestly more Republican and way more friendly to moderate Democrats than the final result, as late-returned ballots in vote-by-mail states like Washington skew young, Democratic, and left-wing. We won't have a good idea of the final results in Washington until we've gotten at least a little bit of post-election day tabulation done. And now, for your semi-regular reminder that the paywall will be going up on August 9th for all content:
Virginia
VA-01
Richmond suburbs and rural eastern Virginia | Trump+4.9
Salaam Bhatti vs. Tim Cywinski vs. Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs vs. Jason Knapp vs. Ericka Kopp vs. Shannon Taylor vs. Mel Tull
Realistically, Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor needed no help to get through this primary. The moderate prosecutor had name recognition from her unsuccessful AG run in 2025 and her years as the top prosecutor in suburban Richmond’s Henrico County, and the field that stepped up to challenge her for the nomination included no candidate with similar advantages. That makes it all the weirder that the DCCC has played with an extremely heavy hand and endorsed Taylor before the primary, prompting outcry from the other candidates led by veteran Jason Knapp, the strongest fundraiser in the field other than Taylor. The winner gets to face Republican Rep. Rob Wittman in one of the few congressional districts where Kamala Harris did better in 2024 than Joe Biden did in 2020.
VA-08
Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, inner Fairfax County | Harris+49.7
Don Beyer (i) vs. Lorena Bruner vs. Michael Duffin vs. Adam Dunigan vs. Mo Seifeldein
This deep-blue district across the Potomac from Washington, DC seemed like a prime target for a progressive primary challenge—urban, diverse, highly educated, and devastated by DOGE’s gutting of the federal workforce. Then none of Don Beyer’s challengers got off the ground, not even former Alexandria City Councilor Mo Seifeldein. Tonight’s primary will serve as a gauge of how many Northern Virginians are angry enough to cast protest votes, rather than a best-case scenario for a primary challenge in VA-08.
Washington
WA-03
Vancouver, Longview | Trump+3.3
Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez (i) vs. Brent Hennrich vs. Austin Braswell vs. Troy Rasband (vs. Republicans)
Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez has made a name for herself as one of the more combatively—and eccentrically—moderate Democrats in Congress over her two terms representing southwest Washington, often with a scolding tone about how Democrats need to listen to rural voters and the working class. (Never mind that MGP went to Reed.) That has prompted some constituents to primary her, most notably cinema technician Brent Hennrich. While Hennrich may not share Gluesenkamp Pérez’s artsy educational background (he’s a college dropout) or her hatred for sea lions, he is more authentically working-class—and, he argues, more authentically a Democrat. This has been enough to win over a bunch of local Indivisible chapters, the state College Dems chapter, some Democratic clubs, and a stray union local, which is impressive for a thinly-resourced first-time candidate. Additionally, MGP has been spending like she’s at least a little worried about how the primary shakes out.
Because of Washington’s top-two primary system, a range of outcomes is possible—while the most likely is that MGP and a Republican (almost certainly state Sen. John Braun) advance as usual, it could be Hennrich and a Republican, MGP and Hennrich, or two Republicans, all depending on how blue the electorate is and how annoyed those blue voters are with their mildly famous representative. Claims that the district is lost forever without MGP should be rejected out of hand—look at those presidential numbers and tell me we can’t crack that in a blue midterm—but it could make things harder, which will surely factor into the deliberations of cautious Democratic voters.
WA-09
South Seattle, Renton, Auburn, Kent | Harris+41.2
Adam Smith (i) vs. Melissa Chaudhry vs. Kshama Sawant (Ind.) vs. Douglas Basler (R)
Rep. Adam Smith is a screamingly obvious primary target who keeps getting lucky enough to draw unserious cranks as his only primary opposition. This year is no different, with lying homophobe Melissa Chaudhry and socialist third-party crank/diva extraordinaire Kshama Sawant being the only ones to step up and offer something different in this deep-blue, majority-minority district. We’ll see if Republicans are once again locked out of the general election; it happens in WA-09 a lot.