From left, Joe Kent, Heidi St. John, and Wadi Yakhour
U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler will have a host of challengers from her own party as three Clark County locals have thrown their hat in the ring more than a year-and-a-half before the 2022 election.
The announcements came roughly around the same time late last month, with candidates seeking to move representation of Washington’s Third Congressional District farther to the right. The candidates seek to unseat Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, who has represented the district following her first successful election in 2010.
Army veteran Joe Kent, said he was an “America-first” Republican in a campaign video. He had spent more than 20 years in the Army, including 11 deployments and assignments in the Ranger regiment and Special forces, a biography on his campaign website stated, retiring when his wife, Shannon, who was also a combat veteran, was killed fighting ISIS in Syria.
“I am mostly concerned that the person we elected to represent our values and make our voices heard decided to listen to deceptive and divisive media and radical left instead of standing strong for the people of Southwest Washington and the over 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump,” Kent said on his campaign page.
In his campaign video Kent said his decision to run for office was based on Herrera Beutler’s vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump following the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters Jan. 6. On his campaign page, Kent denounced those who participated in the storming, saying that “those who acted violently are criminals and have no place in our movement.”
“However, the violent actors are a small fringe group, not representative of our over 74 million strong, diverse populist movement,” Kent wrote.
Kent grew up in Portland, though he notes he spent a lot of time in Southwest Washington in his youth. He left Portland for Yacolt after “seeing how Portland had changed from being a vibrant small city into a hotbed of lawlessness and far left ideology,” his campaign page stated.
Kent, who has written opinion pieces about military operations for foxnews.com, listed pulling troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria was one of his policy points he mentioned on his campaign page, and he supports modernization of the military “to focus on our main threat, China.” He notes he is anti-abortion, supports strict immigration, and will not support any new firearms legislation.
Author Heidi St. John, a Battle Ground resident, said she was a “Reagan conservative through and through” during a speech at a Clark County Republican Party meeting Feb. 23, adding that “conservatism in this nation has taken a backseat to the Democrats for too long.”
“It’s time for us to get off the bench and get on the battlefield,” St. John remarked.
St. John, who noted she and her husband have a family with seven children and three grandchildren, took issue with the state of education in the U.S.
“There is no one in Washington D.C. advocating for children right now,” St. John said, adding that “the ‘woke’ Democrats and the progressive Left in this nation” were sources of issues with education. Among the issues she had was with comprehensive sex education being taught in schools.
“Someone needs to stand up and say ‘that’s enough, no farther,’” St. John remarked.
St. John also notes energy independence on her website and mentioned her opposition to the Affordable Care Act during her speech with Clark County Republicans as issues she would address if elected.
St. John, who has a social media following of more than 360,000, said she was not planning on making a career out of a House seat if elected, pointing to the inability of those serving multiple terms to achieve results during their tenures.
“It was astonishing to me to watch Republicans run for the hills when President Trump tried to get something done,” St. John said.
“I want to go to Washington, D.C. not because I have nothing better to do,” St. John said, “but because this is a war, and we need to step up to the plate.”
“Marxism is at the door of the United States, and we need to say ‘no more,’” St. John remarked.
United States Navy Veteran and Trump Administration Appointee Wadi Yakhour has also launched his campaign to unseat Herrera Beutler.
“For the last four years, I have watched self-serving politicians fight only for themselves and the powerful special interests who control them, instead of the voters who put them in office,” Yakhour said in a news release. “It is high-time our district and great country have representatives who steadfastly stand up for their values.”
“Censorship and socialism have no place in the United States of America, free speech should be free, our elections must be made secure, and our schools and businesses should be open,” Yakhour continued.
“One day, Jamie Herrera Beutler will make a great Biden Administration appointee, CNN contributor, or Lincoln Project Board Member — but she certainly no longer has a place representing the Republican party for Washington’s third district, and I am running to help her make that career change,” Yahkour concluded.
Yakhour moved to the Vancouver area when he was 11 years old and his mother served as a Deputy Sheriff at the Clark County Sheriff’s Office for nearly 20 years, according to the news release. Yakhour joined the United States Navy in 2008 and served as an Aviation Warfare Systems Operator. He later received the Navy Achievement Medal in recognition of his service to the country, according to the release.
