🗳 Your 2026 Primary Ballot, Decoded: Inside Skamania's Candidate Forum - 7/14

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🗳 Special Edition: Meet the 2026 Primary Candidates

Days before primary ballots hit mailboxes, the Skamania County Chamber of Commerce and both the county Democratic and Republican parties co-hosted a candidate forum in Stevenson on July 14th. Contested races took the stage, from the nine-way scramble for Congress down to three county offices. Here is who was there, what they said, who is paying for their campaigns, and what you need to know to vote.

Quick Facts

• Races covered: U.S. House (Congressional District 3), State Legislature (17th District, Positions 1 and 2), County Assessor, County Clerk, and County Commissioner District 3.
• The bottom line: Timber and taxes ran through every tier of the ballot. On the tax lever the commissioners can take each year without a vote of the people, the automatic 1% property tax increase, both commissioner candidates said no.
• The vibe: Civil and tightly run. Two-minute clocks, questions vetted in advance by both parties, applause held to the end. More agreement than fireworks, especially in the county races.

🔎 What Changed

The field is set for August. Congressional District 3 drew nine candidates; six came to Stevenson. The county's three contested races each put two candidates side by side, and four more county offices drew a single candidate apiece.

⚠ What Escalated

Election rules were the sharpest divide. The federal candidates split hard over the "SAVE America Act," and in the legislative race the incumbent confirmed he signed onto a bill to repeal Washington's mail-in voting, even while saying he believes our elections are secure. In the assessor's race, the challenger questioned whether some properties are being valued too close to their sale price.

🧭 What's Next

Ballots are mailed by July 17. Register or update your registration online or by mail by July 27, or in person through Election Day. The primary is Tuesday, August 4. Return your ballot to an official drop box by 8 p.m. that night, or mail it postmarked by that date. The general election is November 3.

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🏛 U.S. House, Congressional District 3

Washington runs a top-two primary, so all nine candidates share one ballot and the two highest vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party. Six of the nine took part: incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D), Brent Hennrich (D), John Saulie-Rohman (Independent), Troy Rasband (D), state senator John Braun (R), and Lawrence Kellogg (R). Not participating: John P. Roco (R), Antony Barran (Cascade Party), and Austin Braswell (D).

Where they're coming from. Gluesenkamp Perez ran on her record, pointing to a Wind River tree nursery conveyance to the county, an HVAC project at Carson Elementary, restored funding for rural veteran transportation, Underwood water system money after the Tunnel 5 fire, and Secure Rural Schools dollars. She described her approach as voting like an independent. Braun leaned on his background as a Navy submarine officer, a 14-year state senator, and owner of a family emergency-vehicle business he said employs about 350 people. Hennrich pitched himself as "an actual Democrat" focused on checks on the current administration. Rasband ran as a Democratic Socialist on Medicare for All, Supreme Court term limits and expansion, and immigration. Saulie-Rohman centered foreign lobbying and the coming National Defense Authorization Act vote. Kellogg, a former cargo pilot, called himself a "solid Republican vote, not MAGA."

Question 1: the SAVE America Act. The most substantive exchange of the night. Gluesenkamp Perez drew a sharp line between two bills people often confuse: she said she voted three times for the earlier SAVE Act, which includes an attestation option for voters who cannot easily produce a birth certificate, but voted against the newer SAVE America Act, which she said would require voters to document citizenship every time they vote. Hennrich, Saulie-Rohman, and Rasband all opposed the measure, arguing it solves a problem the law already covers and risks disenfranchising married women and others who have changed their names. Braun took the other side, backing the concept of "reasonable" voter ID and predicting Congress lands on a workable bill. Kellogg said he mostly tunes out election-fraud claims and worries more about intimidation at the polls.

Question 2: the biggest economic challenge for Skamania County. Timber, in nearly every answer. Braun blamed litigation and what he called environmental extremism for the industry's decline and called for a smoother process to log national forests. Hennrich backed sustainable forestry now while transitioning some timber uses over time, plus rural healthcare and shifting the tax burden off working people. Rasband tied timber to a Green New Deal build-out of renewable manufacturing. Gluesenkamp Perez reached back to the spotted owl era, argued that shutting mills just imports petroleum-based plastics, and pointed to the housing shortage and cost of living driving workers out of the county. Saulie-Rohman redirected to federal military spending and the national debt.

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🏛 State Legislature, 17th District

Skamania County sits entirely inside the 17th District, a seat that runs along the Washington side of the Gorge from the Vancouver area east to Goldendale. Redistricting reshaped it after 2021, adding all of Skamania and reaching into Klickitat County, and it now leans more Democratic than it used to. That is part of why both House seats are genuinely contested.

Position 1: Kevin Waters (R) vs. Ben Christly (D)

Incumbent Kevin Waters, a fourth-generation Skamania County resident who also serves as the county's economic development director, and challenger Ben Christly, a Navy veteran, flight nurse, and county charter review commissioner. A third candidate, Thomas Everett Haynes of the Pro Gun Liberal Party, did not attend. Waters noted this was their second forum of the day.

• Openings. Waters put timber first, saying it still provides roughly 29% of county revenue, alongside aging schools, the Hood River Bridge, and the poor condition of State Route 14. Christly argued timber will not return to its old heights and pushed B&O tax relief for small business, plus rural healthcare, calling the area a "maternity desert" where residents must travel to Vancouver or Hood River to have a baby.
• Question 1: mail-in voting. Waters confirmed he signed onto a bill to repeal mail-in voting, but framed it as opening a conversation about why school levies and bonds are failing, and said he believes Washington's voting is secure. Christly opposed repeal, cited a rate of about one improper case per 16.7 million votes, and defended mail-in voting for letting people research the ballot at home.
• Question 2: family-wage forest jobs. Christly leaned on B&O relief, economic diversification, and forest thinning as family-wage work. Waters pointed to low state harvest levels forcing mills to haul logs long distances, which adds wear to SR-14, floated biomass uses for slash and sawdust, and called Skamania the "greenest county" in the state.

Position 2: Diana Perez (D) vs. David Stuebe (R)

Diana H. Perez, a Vancouver City Councilwoman and retired 35-year federal employee who worked as a Forest Service biologist, against incumbent David Stuebe, a former Marine Corps colonel and former Washougal mayor who has served about a year and a half in Olympia.

• Question 1: the state "millionaire" tax. The moderators asked about what they called the new state millionaire income tax. It is actually the state's capital gains tax, which the Legislature made tiered in 2025: 7% on annual investment gains up to $1 million, and 9.9% on gains above that. It applies to investment profits, not wages, and Washington still has no general income tax. Perez supported it as one tool to fix what she called a regressive tax system, while saying she would not support lowering the $1 million threshold. Stuebe opposed it, said he offered dozens of amendments that were rejected, and argued the state has a spending problem rather than a revenue problem. He said he would rather cut the sales tax for immediate relief.
• Question 2: priorities for Skamania. Stuebe named jobs, timber, keeping young people in the county, and pushing back on Olympia. Perez called for a diversified rural economy, and named childcare and healthcare access, workforce housing, and clean energy, including carbon tax credits, as priorities.

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🏛 County Races

This is the part of the ballot no one else covers closely, so here is a fuller look. None of the county candidates run full campaign websites, but all six answered a written questionnaire from the Chamber, which you can read in full here.

County Commissioner, District 3: Paul Mosbrucker (D) vs. Asa Leckie (R)

Incumbent Asa Leckie and challenger Paul Mosbrucker, an Underwood resident with a background in timber and agriculture and 15 years on the White Salmon Valley School Board.

• Openings. Leckie framed the county's squeeze: a small property tax base, heavy reliance on timber, rising wildfire insurance and energy costs, and the lapse of the federal Secure Rural Schools program, which he said state DNR trust-land revenue helped backfill. That fight over federal timber dollars is one we have followed all year. He said the county added more than $400,000 in new revenue without raising taxes, and noted that the National Scenic Area and Gifford Pinchot National Forest limit developable land, which makes affordable housing and commercial space hard to create, a constraint that has repeatedly stalled local housing efforts. Mosbrucker pointed to his school board record, turning a budget at risk into a surplus, and asked why the county still has not diversified nearly 40 years after losing its timber cut.
• Question 1: the automatic 1% property tax increase. Both said no. Mosbrucker's answer was one word: "Absolutely not." Leckie agreed, saying last cycle the 1% increase came to roughly $28,000, which he said "solves nothing" while residents are already stretched. (The current Board did adopt that 1% increase when it passed the 2026 budget.)
• Question 2: what property rights mean. Leckie described a balance between property freedom and the regulation a denser community needs, warning against over-regulation that becomes a de facto taking, and said comprehensive-plan changes should start with community input. Mosbrucker said owners can use their land as they wish within community-set boundaries, but should not degrade neighbors' peace and quiet, and raised concern about Underwood timberland being carved into small home lots that keep a timber tax exemption without producing timber, an echo of the North Underwood rezoning fight the Planning Commission wrestled with last fall.

County Assessor: Cora Moser (R) vs. Gabriel Spencer (D)

Challenger Cora Moser, with a paralegal and real estate law background, against 20-year incumbent Gabriel "Gabe" Spencer, an accredited appraiser and mapper.

• The substantive split was methodology. Moser said she has heard from property owners whose values appear set at or near their purchase price, and argued sale price should be only one factor, not the whole valuation. Spencer defended two decades of ratio studies under professional appraisal standards with no significant audit findings, and said he deliberately values in the lower-middle of comparable sales. He also highlighted new online tools, including a senior-exemption calculator, and pointed to a state senior-exemption expansion he advocated for that raises the qualifying income level.
• Note: a third question, about "taxing unrealized property-value gains," was set aside during this segment after a candidate said they were not familiar with the term, and the moderators substituted a different question.

County Clerk: Grace Cross (D) vs. Olivia Munsch (R)

Incumbent Grace Cross, with about a decade as elected clerk and nearly 30 years in the county's justice system, against Olivia Munsch, an 18-year county employee and 14-year deputy clerk. The two largely agreed on the job. Both described it the same way: protect the integrity of the court record and treat people with compassion during hard moments. Cross emphasized modernization, including e-filing, online records, and jury response. Munsch emphasized approachability and stronger working relationships across county offices.

Uncontested county offices

Four county offices drew a single candidate and were not part of the contested forum: Auditor Robert J. Waymire (R), Prosecuting Attorney Adam N. Kick (Non-Partisan), Sheriff Summer Scheyer (R), and Treasurer Emily Sabo (R).

One bit of forum housekeeping

Before the county segment, a party chair asked people to stop removing campaign yard signs from county right-of-way, noting the signs are permitted to be there. A small reminder that the season is heating up.

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💰 Follow the Money

Campaign-finance filings tell their own story about this ballot, and it is a story of two very different elections stacked on top of each other. The figures below come from the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, the official state record, as reported through mid-July. More reports will land before Election Day. The congressional candidates report to the federal FEC instead, so they are not included here.

The through-line: the two legislative seats on your ballot are $70,000 to $80,000 races funded largely from Olympia and beyond. The county races sitting right below them run on a few thousand dollars, most of it the candidates' own money.

The legislative races (17th District)

In Position 2, Democrat Diana Perez out-raised the Republican incumbent, David Stuebe, about $78,100 to $69,900, and she did it with far more separate donations, roughly 204 to his 65. Their support looks nothing alike. Stuebe's largest check was $20,000 from the House Republican caucus, followed by a stack of maxed business and building-industry PACs: Associated Builders and Contractors, Associated General Contractors, the Realtors, the Multi-Family Housing Association, Puget Sound Energy, and, from out of state, KOCHPAC of Wichita, Kansas. Perez leaned on the House Democratic caucus ($13,900), the county and district Democrats, and a long list of smaller individual donors.

In Position 1, incumbent Kevin Waters leads challenger Ben Christly better than two to one in dollars, about $80,000 to $37,600, though the two have almost the same number of donors, so Waters' checks are simply bigger. His donor list reads like a corporate directory: Amazon, Chevron, Boeing, Puget Sound Energy, Avista, Weyerhaeuser, and locally, SDS Lumber of Bingen, along with three tribal governments. Christly's biggest single check was $2,500 from the 17th District Democratic committee, with $2,000 more from the Clark County Democrats and $1,000 from the Skamania County party. A cluster of labor and progressive PACs each gave the $1,200 maximum, among them the teachers' WEA PAC and the Retired Public Employees Council.

The county races

The best-funded county race is the one for County Clerk, and it is running mostly on the candidates' own checkbooks. Republican Olivia Munsch has raised about $6,500 and Democratic incumbent Grace Cross about $6,200. Munsch has self-funded roughly 60 percent of hers, Cross roughly 75 percent of hers. Munsch has spent less than half of what she raised, leaving her the most cash on hand of any county candidate.

In the County Commissioner race, incumbent Republican Asa Leckie reports raising and spending nothing at all. He is a "mini-reporting" candidate, meaning he has declared he expects to stay under the roughly $7,000 threshold and files no itemized reports, a pattern he has followed every cycle. His challenger, Democrat Paul Mosbrucker, has raised about $3,300, roughly half of it his own money, and is the only one of the two spending anything.

The County Assessor race is the quietest of all on paper. Both Republican Cora Moser and 20-year Democratic incumbent Gabe Spencer are mini-reporters, with no money raised or spent on record. A genuinely contested race for a technical office, running on nothing reported.

A note on reading these: state contribution limits cap most donors at $1,200 per election, which is why so many PAC checks land at exactly that figure. County mini-reporting is legal and common for small local campaigns, and is not a red flag by itself.

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🛠 Jargon Buster

• Top-two primary: Washington's system where every candidate for an office appears on one August ballot and the top two vote-getters advance to November, even if they share a party.
• SAVE Act vs. SAVE America Act: Two different federal bills. Candidates disagreed sharply on which one requires what. Worth reading the actual bill text before you decide.
• The state "millionaire" tax: Washington's capital gains tax. Since 2025 it is tiered: 7% on annual investment gains up to $1 million, and 9.9% on gains above that. It applies to investment profits like stock sales, not wages, and it is separate from the fact that Washington has no general income tax.
• Secure Rural Schools (SRS): A federal program that sent money to timber-dependent counties to offset reduced logging on federal land. Its lapse is why counties like ours lean on state DNR trust-land revenue.
• The 1% levy cap: State law lets a county raise its total property tax collection by up to 1% per year without a public vote. In a small-base county that 1% is a small dollar figure, which is why both commissioner candidates called it more burden than fix.
• Mini-reporting: A simplified campaign-finance option for candidates who expect to raise and spend under about $7,000. They file no itemized donor or spending reports.

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✅ How to Vote in the August 4 Primary

• By July 17: Ballots mailed to registered voters.
• By July 27: Deadline to register or update your registration online or by mail.
• Through August 4: Register or update in person at the county elections office.
• By 8 p.m., August 4: Return your ballot to an official drop box, or mail it postmarked by that date.
• Check your registration and see your full ballot at the state voter portal, and read the official voters' guide for every candidate's statement.

Then mark your calendar: the general election is November 3.

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⚠️ Editor's Note: how this was reported

The forum coverage in this edition was built from the Youtube recording. Every candidate name, office, and party was reconciled against the official Washington voters' guide, and the campaign-finance figures come straight from the state Public Disclosure Commission. But the recording and subsequent transcript garbled some of the wording, so we have paraphrased in our own voice and kept direct quotes to a minimum. Specific figures a candidate cited about their own record or their opponents (revenue shares, dollar amounts, vote-rarity statistics) are their claims as we heard them, not independently verified.

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