Michael Baumgartner seeks another two years in Congress
Published in The Spokesman Review
When Congressman Michael Baumgartner jumped into the race in 2024 for a rare chance at a seat opened by former Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ retirement, he believed “that the American dream is dying” – but it didn’t need to.
“I’m just not going to let that happen,” he declared two years ago. “Together, we’re not going to let that happen.”
He felt that America was on the retreat on the world stage, and pledged to focus on inflation, border security, crime and homelessness if he was elected. Much of his political career had been spent railing against the national debt and calling for cuts to the social welfare programs that make up much of the nation’s discretionary spending
The needle has moved significantly on all of those issues since 2024, though not always positively; violent crime is down nationally and in Washington state, homelessness has ticked down locally and across the country, and migrant crossings at the southern border are at their lowest in 50 years. Inflation remains high, however: a June report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found prices increased 4.2% year-over-year, while gasoline surged 40.5%.
Outside of Baumgartner’s relatively minor involvement in housing legislation – he has advocated for easing some technical regulations on manufactured housing, for instance – he, like other freshmen members of Congress, has had little personal influence on those issues, aside from the vote he casts with the Republican House majority.
He touted the impact of those votes when he formally launched his re-election campaign shortly after jogging Bloomsday, arguing that the Republican trifecta in D.C. had avoided the “largest tax increases in history” with the One Big Beautiful Bill, extending the temporary tax cuts Republicans had approved in 2017 and set to expire at the end of 2025.
The same bill also included some of the most substantial cuts to federal health care and food assistance programs in history – while also adding upwards of $3.4 trillion to the national debt over its first 10 years. Baumgartner recently has argued that the national debt won’t be addressed until a president is elected on a deficit reduction platform; President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to balance the federal budget, but he has presided over trillions in additional debt in his first and second terms.
The freshman congressman also has thrown his support behind the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, one of the few other major pieces of legislation to move out of both chambers in recent years. While Trump initially voiced support for the bill, he has since declined to sign it until Congress approves his stalled SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote.
Baumgartner’s own legislation largely has focused on other priorities, particularly student athletics, weapons sales to foreign countries, and artificial intelligence regulations.
Decrying the deterioration of regional college conferences as universities seek lucrative TV deals, abandoning less wealthy institutions like Washington State University, Baumgartner pledged to make college athletics reform a major focus of his first term.