The next Congress will include two House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, with NBC News projecting that Reps. David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington have won re-election.
NBC News projected Valadao as the victor Tuesday evening in his Central Valley district, where he won a close rematch against Democratic former state legislator Rudy Salas.
Valadao is the lone House Republican who voted to impeach Trump who has not drawn Trump’s wrath in the form of an endorsement against him, although Valadao has faced challenges from his right since his impeachment vote.
But he has fended off those challenges thanks in part to California’s top-two primary system, in which candidates from all parties compete on the same primary ballot and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Washington also has a top-two primary system. Newhouse easily won re-election two Novembers ago against a Democrat after he emerged from the primary.
But in this year’s general election, Newhouse faced a fellow Republican endorsed by Trump, former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler. Trump initially endorsed Sessler ahead of the primary, but he also hedged his bets and backed another Republican, Tiffany Smiley, though Sessler ended up nabbing one of the top two spots alongside Newhouse.
Trump boosted Sessler again one week before Election Day, writing on Truth Social that Newhouse is “a Weak and Pathetic RINO,” or Republican in Name Only, and that Sessler “will do an incredible job — He is MAGA all the way, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
But that was the extent of Trump’s help in the race, and Sessler was vastly outspent on the airwaves after the August primary.
A GOP super PAC called National Interest Action, which played in two other House primaries, dropped $1.6 million on ads to boost Newhouse after the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Newhouse’s campaign spent $471,000 on the air, to Sessler’s $227,000.
Newhouse’s most-aired spot focused on immigration and his work in the House, painting Sessler’s policies as too extreme.
Newhouse and Valadao are the only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump who are still serving in the chamber. Four retired and four others — Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, Michigan’s Peter Meijer, South Carolina’s Tom Rice and Washington state’s Jaime Herrera Beutler — lost primaries to Trump-backed challengers in 2022.
Three of the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial will return to the chamber next year: Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and Maine’s Susan Collins.
Cassidy and Collins are both up for re-election in 2026.
Jake Traylor contributed.