Michael Baumgartner

Voters across Washington’s 5th Congressional District have been inundated in recent weeks with mailers and video ads from mostly just two candidates: incumbent Michael Baumgartner and independent challenger Nate Powell – or in most cases, the super PACs supporting Powell.

They aren’t alone. Democratic candidate Bajun Mavalwalla loaned his own campaign $20,000 to try to keep up with the competition’s July spending blitz. Fellow Democrat Carmela Conroy appears to have largely avoided spending big on online ads or mailers, but has run at least one TV spot.

But it has been Powell’s independent backers burning through the most resources to reach voters in the waning days of the election, and the stuffed mailboxes of voters reflect that reality.

Many of the attack ads targeting incumbent Baumgartner effectively duplicate their criticisms on the broader economy, association with President Donald Trump or his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025.

Some ads simply highlight a person’s resume or connection to the district, which have been covered before. It’s also generally not possible to fact-check subjective claims – “X is bad for America,” for example – so many advertisements won’t appear in this story for that reason.

But many of the ads begging for the attention of voters ahead of a crowded Tuesday primary do make factual claims, and in many cases lack context or simply play fast and loose with the facts.

Statement: “Gas, rent and grocery prices are up, so are childcare and healthcare. Interest rates and inflation are on the rise, and we’re stuck in an unwinnable war that is costing us nearly a billion dollars a day.”

Source: Video paid for by the Mavalwalla campaign

There are a heap of claims here about the broader economy, most of which are true.

Gas prices have skyrocketed since the Iran war started in late February, reaching nearly the highest prices nationwide in the last decade.

Grocery prices continue to trend upwards overall – though egg prices, a key component of Trump’s re-election campaign, are way down. Childcare costs continue to rise faster than inflation, and healthcare costs have risen at a faster rate since Trump took office, even without factoring in cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies or Medicaid cuts.

Inflation is also up since Trump took office, though it’s well below the COVID-era spike overseen by Biden.

Mortgage interest rates are down slightly since Trump took office, however, and rents are stabilizing nationwide, even slightly decreasing since 2023, though it has done little to undo the massive price spike in the first few years of the decade.

The Mavalwalla campaign’s estimates for how much the U.S. is spending on its war with Iran are relatively conservative. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Linda Bilmes, a war budgeting expert, has estimated the U.S. is spending at least $2 billion a day on just short-term direct costs, such as munitions, maintenance and jets felled through combat and friendly fire, for example.

Statement: Powell is the only candidate who can defeat Baumgartner based on a Tavern Research poll.

Source: Video and mailers paid for by Fire House PAC and Fuse Washington.

All of these ads point to the same poll released in late May by Tavern Research, which asked respondents to weigh in on head-to-head contests between Baumgartner and three of his Democratic challengers, a generic Democrat, or Powell. In those polls, all of the Democrats lost to Baumgartner by 6 or 7 points. Powell flipped that, leading by 6 points.

The poll was paid for by the Progressive Vet PAC, which itself has received millions from Contours Inc., one of the biggest funders of independent spending in support of Powell.

Setting aside Tavern Research’s reliability – the organization hasn’t been around long enough or issued enough polls to be rated by organizations like the Silver Bulletin, and many of Powell’s challengers have criticized its methodology – it’s not clear that the poll says what the ads suggest.

The poll itself acknowledges that it effectively reflects voter sentiments about Democratic and Republican candidates vs independents, not about Powell himself. It also didn’t poll a generic independent or the other independent candidates in the race.

“Powell beats Baumgartner head-to-head while 83% of voters don’t recognize his name,” Tavern Research acknowledges on its website. “A share that big, built on voters who can’t describe the candidate, is soft. His 53% looks like a parking spot for voters who want to fire the incumbent but won’t vote for a Democrat, not real support for Powell himself.”

Tavern Research did not respond to a request for comment.

Statement: “(Baumgartner) supports the costly war in Iran driving up gas and diesel prices. Baumgartner also voted to protect Trump’s tariffs, raising prices on consumers and hurting our farmers and small businesses.”

Source: Video paid for by Fire House PAC

Baumgartner has supported the Iran war, and while he has publicly argued against tariffs, he also voted against a largely symbolic resolution to overturn tariffs against Canada because he wanted to give the president “leverage to use tariffs as a national security tool” at the behest of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Baumgartner and other Republicans point to Washington state policies, particularly the Climate Commitment Act, as having a greater influence on local gas prices. These policies, by most metrics, have also raised prices, but national gas prices have skyrocketed since March.

Statement: “Independent Nate Powell won’t take a dime of corporate PAC money, putting us first before any political party.”

Source: Video paid for by Fire House PAC

The Powell campaign hasn’t directly taken any money from corporate PACs – only Baumgartner has, and in any case that kind of direct corporate support tends to follow incumbents or at least wait until the general election to pour in – but the advertisement’s wording is narrow for a reason.

Powell has directly taken money from a number of millionaires and billionaires, many of whom still own and operate businesses. Whether crypto executive Michael Novogratz, for instance, is donating to Powell because he likes the candidate personally or because Novogratz thinks Powell would be good for the crypto business is, of course, less clear than if a crypto PAC had donated.

But the advertisement is more ironic when a voter considers its source. The Fire House PAC is an independent super PAC that has poured over $600,000 into the congressional campaign to elevate Powell above his rivals, and it is essentially unknowable whether corporate interests are providing the cash. Fire House PAC’s biggest single donor is Contours Inc., a dark money group, which has poured millions into various races and is not required to disclose its own donors. Fire House’s second biggest donor is the Independent Candidates Action PAC – which also got most of its funding from Contours Inc.

The only way to know where Fire House’s or Contours’ money actually originates is if they decide to disclose it, and neither organization has responded to The Spokesman-Review’s request for comment.

Statement: “Who’s behind Nate Powell? A secretive PAC that hides its donors. Same playbook everywhere. Recruit a local and hand him a script. Who has contributed? Data center builders. Hedge fund traders. Silicon Valley billionaires.”

Source: Video paid for by the Baumgartner campaign

There are effectively three distinct claims in this advertisement. The last three sentences all point to the same person, Michael Novogratz, CEO and founder of crypto company Galaxy Digital, who gave Powell the maximum donation allowable by law. The hidden donor claim points to Contours Inc. covered above.

As for the “playbook” mentioned in the ad, Baumgartner’s campaign points to Daniel Moraff, a relatively unknown political insider who helped recruit Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn – who has significant indirect ties to the Powell campaign – and the scandal-ridden Graham Platner. Moraff also claims to be working to help Powell, and Moraff’s strategy has been consistent: find veterans and blue-collar workers with zero political experience (or political baggage) who have a compelling working-class message.

It’s also noteworthy that the Baumgartner campaign is attacking Powell for receiving money from “data center builders,” given the congressman hasn’t exactly been an enemy to the facilities.

He did introduce the Power and Water for Families Act, one of many bills recently introduced to prevent data centers from passing on the costs for their water and energy needs, though Baumgartner’s also offered tax incentives. Another of his bills, the Protect American AI Act, would have limited litigation against data centers during their environmental reviews, making it faster to build.

That latter bill was pulled, which Baumgartner has said was for logistical reasons, though it faced opposition from at least a few Republicans like Rep. Thomas Massie, who argued it gave a specific industry “special treatment.”

Statement: “Michael Baumgartner cut Medicaid funding for 230,000 people, including 87,000 children.”

Source: Video paid for by Fire House PAC

This video points to the incumbent’s vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill spending package in 2025, which placed new restrictions on Medicaid access. But the advertisement is more than a little squirrelly with its numbers.

To arrive at those figures, the ad cites a Families USA news release (which in turn cites another source, which finally cites raw data on people who use Medicaid). But those figures represent the total number of people in the congressional district on Medicaid in 2021, not the number whose access will be cut by the reforms Baumgartner supported.

Millions are expected to lose Medicaid coverage nationwide because of the One Big Beautiful Bill – the estimates range widely, from roughly 5 million to nearly 15 million, which is a sizable portion of the 74.3 million people currently enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. But no estimates suggest that 100% of Eastern Washington’s Medicaid recipients would lose coverage.

Statement: “Baumgartner voted to slash healthcare funding, including Medicaid for nearly 300,000 adults and half of all kids in Washington. This also threatens the closure of eight of our rural hospitals and could cause premiums to skyrocket.”

Source: Video paid for by Fire House PAC

This ad makes similar attacks to the one covered above, though some of its numbers are closer to real projections.

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office in 2025 projected that at least 250,000 Washingtonians are likely to lose healthcare as a direct result of Medicaid cuts. As for the kids, half of all kids in the state are reportedly Medicaid recipients, but once again the ad implies they’re all going to lose coverage, which isn’t true.

The ad doesn’t make clear which rural hospitals it’s referencing, so it’s harder to fact-check this claim; a 2025 letter from Democratic senators identified 14 hospitals in the entire state at risk of closure due to the cuts, of which only two are in Baumgartner’s district: Odessa Memorial Hospital in Odessa and Providence St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chewelah. The vast majority of the rest are in the neighboring central Washington district represented by Rep. Dan Newhouse, some of which may be used by residents in Baumgartner’s district.

An analysis from Public Citizen released in March identified 446 hospitals that are “at heightened risk due to Medicaid cuts,” because the hospitals are particularly reliant on low-income programs like Medicaid and were already unprofitable, including eight in Baumgartner’s district.

“The list of at-risk hospitals is meant to be descriptive rather than predictive; it does not forecast that these hospitals will close, but rather identifies the hospitals most financially at risk from severe Medicaid cuts,” Public Citizen clarifies.

Baumgartner argues that Medicaid spending is still projected to continue to rise precipitously over the next decade, which is true. He also points to support elsewhere for rural hospitals, including the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, though the ad is specifically attacking his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Statement: “Carmela Conroy had her chance in 2024 and she lost by a whopping 20 points.”

Source: Video paid for by Fire House PAC

Conroy faced Baumgartner for an open seat in the 2024 election, and she lost by a little over 21 points. Conroy has argued that it was a good showing for a first-time candidate with little name recognition.

What’s more odd about the several variations of this ad run by Fire House PAC is that it uses fake photos of both Baumgartner and Conroy – tricky to catch since they’re both small in the ad. It’s not entirely clear what the purpose of this swap is, particularly since some of the ads also run actual photos of the candidates, nor is it clear whether they’re stock photos or AI-generated.

Statement: “No matter what scary stories politicians try to tell, Social Security and Medicare are not getting cut. I’m Michael Baumgartner, and I approve this message, because I know Social Security and Medicare are sacred promises made to our seniors, and I’ll defend them, always.”

Source: Video paid for by the Baumgartner campaign

It’s hard to fact-check a promise, but it’s certainly a change from Baumgartner’s position earlier in his political career.

When running for the U.S. Senate in 2012, Baumgartner supported means-testing Medicare – limiting benefits to those who earn too much. Asked during his 2024 run for Congress whether he still supports such a policy, Baumgartner admitted he had “walked away from that position,” broadly arguing it had clearly become political poison, but he didn’t rule out returning to it.

He also supported cuts to Medicaid in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and has argued the nation is spending too much on social welfare programs and needs to balance the budget – though not until a president is elected with a mandate to do so.

It is true that Baumgartner has not joined any of the limited efforts to directly cut either Social Security or Medicare during his time in office, though Congress has also done little to ensure the programs are protected in the long term. Social Security is facing insolvency in six years, with benefits expected to be cut by a quarter in 2032, according to a June report from the Social Security Board of Trustees.

It’s a longstanding problem that the trustees wrote was only exacerbated by the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is “projected to have a substantial effect on Social Security’s financial status,” and which Baumgartner supported.

Statement: “Baumgartner’s votes have put our VA facilities at risk.”

Source: Video paid for by the Powell campaign

Like many attack ads against Baumgartner, this again points to his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill spending package.

That bill made significant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, potentially impacting lower-income military families. That includes those with special-needs children, who may benefit from Medicaid in addition to the military health insurance program called TRICARE.

Civilian hospitals, which service members and their families often go to for urgent or specialized care, or because they live in an area that lacks a military treatment facility, may also face financial strain as a result of Medicaid reforms.

Those hospitals may be among those whose already-strained finances may see added revenue decline due to Medicaid cuts.

And some have argued that if service members have increased difficulty affording rising premiums as a result of Affordable Care Act subsidy cuts, they may turn instead to VA hospitals.

“And we’ll see a dramatically increased reliance on VA health care, stretching the capacities of our docs, our nurses, our VA facilities generally, which are already suffering from cuts and furloughs unnecessarily imposed by this administration … cuts that have already eroded the Department’s ability to support the needs of veterans,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal in November.

However, the One Big Beautiful Bill did include spending to directly benefit military members and their families, including $2.9 billion to supplement Basic Allowance for Housing.

Baumgartner dismisses the broader criticism as dishonest and points to his vote in May for the fiscal year 2027 Military Construction-VA appropriations bill, which passed 400-15 and increased discretionary spending for the agency by about $4 billion, a roughly 3% increase over 2026.

Statement: Powell said “I don’t think so” when asked by a voter whether Trump committed treason during the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol.

Source: Video paid for by Red State, Blue Resources

This advertisement lacks any audio or video of the statement in question and ostensibly relies on an anonymous tip to the organization Red State, Blue Resources. Reached for comment, the Powell campaign denied that the candidate said this.

“Nate believes storming the Capitol was an attack on our constitutional order,” wrote campaign manager Adam Sherrill.