A Republican member of Congress from Washington state will join the list of GOP lawmakers members forced out of office at the hands of a Donald Trump-endorsed primary challenger after voting to impeach the former president.
Army Green Beret veteran Joe Kent took a 960-vote lead over incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Buetler on Tuesday in Washington’s 3rd District — a full week after primary election day.
Herrera Buetler conceded the election in a statement she emailed to The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Washington, on Tuesday evening.
The photo finish sets Kent up for a November matchup with Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
Joe Kent has won the WA-03 primary pic.twitter.com/pQexzY0sg0
— Jack Posobiec ? (@JackPosobiec) August 9, 2022
Washington has “jungle” primaries, in which the top two candidates advance to the November election, regardless of their party affiliation.
Perez is slated for a first-place finish in the primary once all votes are counted, but four Republicans split the vote in a district that Trump won by 4 percentage points in 2020.
Herrera Buetler was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump just before he left office, according to The Washington Post.
Kent trailed the incumbent for nearly a full week after election day, gradually narrowing a deficit with late-counted ballots. As of Tuesday, Kent’s margin of victory was high enough to avoid a mandatory recount of ballots, should it hold, according to Washington KGW8.
Emphasizing his military service, the Washington state native has described completing 11 combat deployments.
This is my original campaign launch video. It was pinned on my profile for over a year and had over 1 million views. It was mysteriously deleted after being labeled as sensitive content. pic.twitter.com/0GrSNyHSev
— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) July 25, 2022
Kent’s wife, Shannon, was killed in a 2019 deployment to Syria as a result of an Islamic State suicide bombing. Her death got a lengthy write-up in The Washington Post.
Herrera Buetler voted for the second Democratic impeachment of Trump in Jan. 2019.
Trump endorsed Kent and encouraged his Washington supporters to vote for him.
Kent has pledged to make the impeachment of President Joe Biden one of his top priorities if elected to Congress in November.
2023 day 1 priorities –
Ban vax & mask mandates
Impeachment papers for Biden Afghanistan & border)
Congressional committees –
election of 2020, lay out all evidence of fraud etc.
COVID, reparations from CCP & fire Fauci & hold him accountable for lying under oath
— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) December 14, 2021
With this week’s primary loss, she becomes the third anti-Trump Republican to lose to a Trump-backed challenger. In Michigan, Trump-endorsed John Gibbs defeated incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer last week. In South Carolina, Trump-endorsed Russell Fry defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice in June.
Four other Republicans who voted to impeach Trump have also retired.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.