After August victory, PAC money started flowing for Baumgartner in his congressional bid

In the months after Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers announced she would not run for re-election, throwing open the floodgates for more than a dozen people to announce bids to succeed her, partisan and corporate political action committees largely kept their checkbooks closed.

That changed after the primary election in August, when Republican Michael Baumgartner and Democrat Carmela Conroy emerged victorious. In a district that favors the Republican candidate, Baumgartner has been the recipient of most of that PAC cash, receiving around $230,000 from dozens of groups.

A steady flow of cash has gone to both candidates in the past three months, each doubling their prior contributions. Baumgartner, though, continues to have a commanding lead, having raised $1.3 million, up from $617,000 since the end of June; Conroy has raised $528,000, up from $224,000.

The trend of Conroy’s donations is largely unchanged, consisting mostly of individuals, with current or former employees of the State Department, other government offices or nongovernment organizations making up many of the top donors. In some cases, individual donors who had given the maximum amount during the primary were able to donate more for the general.

Conroy has received some PAC money since the primary ended, mostly from various labor organizations, such as $600 from the Washington State Machinists and $5,000 each from the Laborers’ International Union of North America and United Food and Commercial Workers International. She also received $1,000 from the American Defense and Military PAC, which, despite its name, is not a military industry group, but rather the Seattle-based leadership PAC of Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington.

But in a race that had seen little corporate or partisan PAC money in its initial months, those groups could be trying to send a friendly nod to the man who is the odds-on favorite to become the district’s next congressman.

Much of the money is coming from partisan committees, mostly re-election committees or leadership PACs for incumbent Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. The names on these funds range from relative unknowns for locals to some of the most prominent Republicans in the country, such as $4,000 from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, $2,000 from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and another $5,000 from former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California.

Many did not wait long after the primary election to start showing their support for Baumgartner. The House Conservatives Fund, which has provided $4,500 to the candidate, sent him the first $2,000 of its contributions on election day.

Baumgartner’s top partisan donations include $10,000 from American Revival PAC, formed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and another $10,000 from Electing Majority Making Effective Republicans, formed by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minnesota; Emmer’s re-election campaign separately gave Baumgartner another $4,000.

More than 20 corporate or industry PACs also gave Baumgartner money since the end of the primary election, including $10,000 from the American Optometric Association PAC and $10,000 from the Premera Blue Cross PAC. These donations range from the local, including $5,000 from Avista Employees for Effective Government, to the regional, such as $1,000 from the Alaska Air Group Inc. PAC, to the national, such as $5,000 from the KOCH Inc. PAC.

A number of donations seem to reflect Baumgartner’s political priorities; the candidate has talked on the campaign trail about the importance of timber harvesting and continued natural gas extraction; he has received $4,000 from two PACs involved in the timber trade industry and an another $7,500 from two PACs involved in natural gas collection.

Some corporate or industry PACs that gave to Baumgartner donate more or only to Republicans, such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association PAC, which gave $5,000. Others give equally to candidates from both parties, such as the National Beer Wholesalers Association PAC, which gave $2,500.

As of mid-October, Conroy had a bit more than $52,000 in unspent campaign cash, having spent most of what her campaign’s taken in since the primary, including a $75,000 purchase with Illinois-based Thematic Campaigns on digital advertising and $27,000 with California-based FM3 Research for polling. The campaign also transferred $15,000 to the state Democratic Central Committee in September.

Baumgartner has also been spending heavily in the past months of the campaign, including more than $80,000 on digital ads with Virginia-based Gen2 Solutions and paying back the $150,000 loan he made to his campaign ahead of the primary.

Unless he sets a large pile of cash on fire, he’s unlikely to spend the entirety of the $321,000 he had left on hand by mid-October. Any leftover funds could be transferred to political parties, PACs or other candidates’ races next year, returning the favor incumbents have paid him in recent months, or, if he wins , on his re-election campaign in 2026.