After a career in the military and civil service, he’s one of five, and the only Democratm vying for Rep Newhouse’s seat
BINGEN — John Duresky, currently the sole Democrat running amongst a crowded field to replace Rep. Dan Newhouse in Washington’s 4th Congressional District, held town halls in Goldendale and Bingen last Friday, Feb. 27.
A retired Air Force Major and former Project Control Officer at the Hanford nuclear site, Duresky took the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency’s early resignation offer last year, ending 37 years of service. Fundamentally, he’s campaigning on a promise to “drag the Democratic Party back to its working class roots,” and lives in West Richland.
After voting to impeach the president in early 2021 and fending off a Trump-endorsed candidate (Jerrod Sessler of Prosser, who’s running once again) in 2024, Newhouse announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in December, denying that pressure from the White House factored into his decision. Also in the race are Yakima County Commissioner Amanda McKinney, state Sen. Matt Boehnke and Devin Pooré, an independent from East Wenatchee.
The 4th Congressional District spans the middle of Washington state, stretching from Canada to Oregon and including the Yakima Valley, Tri-Cities, Yakama Indian Reservation and all of Klickitat County.
In Bingen, Duresky denounced the Big Beautiful Bill’s healthcare cuts, which will cause a cumulative $665 billion reduction in state Medicaid budgets through 2034, according to one recent study, and instability for rural hospitals that are more dependent on federally insured patients, as previously reported by Columbia Gorge News.
Beyond fixing Medicaid reimbursement rates and restoring the Affordable Care Act subsidies, Duresky called reforming U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement a must and railed against the two-party system.
“We’re a bit disappointed in Democrats ourselves,” he said. “They’re not helping candidates run campaigns like this — they come to me and say, ‘Pay us,’ literally. They are not doing the messaging outreach. And they are not effectively countering what has been a decades-long project to dismantle our state by the Republican Party.”
Given a successful general election in November, Duresky joined 60 other Democratic candidates nationwide who have committed to the “Take BAC Congress” pledge, which has five key policies: institute term limits, overturn the infamous Citizens United decision, enact a moratorium on lobbying after members leave office, prohibit stock trading across both chambers and establish a code of ethics for the Supreme Court.
Other items on his list of “pipe dreams” include removing emergency authority from legislation, putting guardrails on pardon power and eliminating the ability of states to gerrymander voting districts, but Duresky said that any potential progress requires “a governing partner that isn’t just looking to score points.” For that reason, he intends to avoid “culture war” issues.
A lifelong outdoorsman and amateur birdwatcher, Duresky also acknowledged that climate change “is the greatest challenge that requires a unified country working on commonsense solutions.” Hesitant to remove an emissions-free source of electricity, it would take much convincing for him to support removing the four Lower Snake River dams, though they play a relatively marginal role in the Pacific Northwest’s total capacity.
On foreign affairs, Duresky said the military’s killings of at least 150 people in the Caribbean violate the basic rules of armed conflict, firmly believing that something akin to South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in America’s future. He said that Israel’s actions against Palestinians constitute a genocide as well, and refused to take money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
Although the district is solidly Republican, with former Gov. Jay Inslee being the last Democrat to successfully reach the House in 1992, Duresky sees a clear path forward.
“There’s nothing conservative about what the current administration is doing in our country, and so every day that Amanda McKinney runs an ad with her standing next to Trump, I get one more vote,” he said. “Independents, moderate Republicans, Democrats, socialists, there’s way more things that pull us together. We’re going to message on that for sure, but we’re also go to hold the line on MAGA and say, ‘Not in our country.’”
After mingling with those interested at Ayutlense Mexican Restaurant last Friday afternoon, Duresky set off to the Goldendale Community Library for another town hall.
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