Party split questioned after majority of Republican PCO incumbents lose (2024)

Precinct committee officers, or PCOs, are considered to be the grassroots link between voters in officers’ neighborhoods and the official party.

There were 19 competitive races for Republican PCO races on August’s ballot. Many of those races pitted a candidate backed by the county party chairperson Christy Tseu, against a new candidate or moderate Republican. Even some of the officers questioned Tseu’s choice to post public recommendations for the local races on the party’s official Facebook page.

“These candidates are active in the Republican Central Committee and actively attend monthly meetings. A majority of their challengers rarely, if ever, attend meetings,” Tseu’s Aug. 6 message said in all-caps.

Her endorsed candidates lost in 13 of the 19 races, including prominent local Republicans like Larry Crosby, publisher of the conservative Watchdog of Cowlitz County magazine, and former Longview school board candidate Scott Beck. Of the 11 races that included an incumbent officer, only three were reelected.

“We are at war with the LCRU,” Tseu said in an email to Spencer Boudreau, Longview’s mayor and a current Republican PCO, obtained by The Daily News. “Sheriff (Brad) Thurman is attempting a hostile takeover of the CCRCC. These are exciting times!”

Tseu did not return The Daily News’ calls or emails by deadline.

Thurman told The Daily News there was an organized attempt to bring in new officers in the competitive races and in the precincts that only had one person apply. Thurman said the goal was to broaden the options available for Cowlitz County conservatives and help the party.

“In terms of having success and getting people behind the Republican candidates’ platform, you need to widen your base instead of shrinking it,” Thurman said.

While Thurman is a board member for Lower Columbia Republicans United, he said the effort was not an official action or policy by that group, which formed in 2015 and is not structured like the official county party.

Longview City Councilmember Erik Halvorson won a competitive three-person election for a Longview PCO seat. Halvorson said it is overblown to read a malicious intent into the election results.

“They said the same thing about our City Council election,” Halvorson said. “It’s just the will of the people and I don’t agree with the sentiment that it’s hostile.”

‘Certain Republican candidates’

One of Thurman’s biggest criticisms of the current party is the way they’ve handled recent endorsem*nts. In 2023 the party decided to back Joe Kent in the 3rd Congressional District and Semi Bird in the Washington governor’s race, nearly a year before either election had a primary.

Bird ended up finishing well outside the top two in the gubernatorial primary, despite the endorsem*nt of many of Washington’s county Republican parties. The Republican who advanced was Dave Reichert, a more moderate candidate who didn’t enter the race until this year. Reichert was endorsed by the Lower Columbia Republicans United.

“That’s been a concern with the current folks who are in charge, is they have only been open to certain Republican candidates,” Thurman said.

Randy Knox is the incumbent precinct committee officer who ran against Halvorson. He lost to Halvorson by seven votes, 76 to 69, with a third candidate Riley McNeal earning 40 votes in the race.

Knox has served on the party’s candidate vetting committee for the last two years. He said the committee has asked candidates about the Constitution, a mix of big-picture government issues and topics they’d be dealing with once elected.

Knox pointed out that McNeal was one of several PCO candidates who worked for Thurman at the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office.

Knox said the recent push for new PCO officers seemed like Thurman’s “personal agenda,” and not about a bigger-picture effort to get Republicans elected in the county. He also wasn’t sure how long the new officers would stay active with the party beyond the first meeting in January, when they vote on the chair and party board makeup.

“If they can proceed with what I think they want to get done, I think you’re not going to see a majority of these people ever showing up to meetings,” Knox said.

In another three-person precinct race, Longview councilman Keith Young was narrowly elected over former Longview councilmember Mike Wallin and the current PCO Elizabeth Buchan.

Crosby lost his PCO race in Castle Rock to Scott Spencer by 70 votes. Spencer said he might have won because he’s well-known locally as a Castle Rock resident for decades and the former girls basketball coach at Castle Rock High School.

Spencer said he wants Washington to be more conservative but isn’t super familiar with Crosby or disagreements between local Republican factions.

“It doesn’t consume me or anything like that. I just thought I could see what opportunity presents itself and try to get involved in a small way,” Spencer said.

Dawn Courtney, who also works with Watchdog of Cowlitz County, won reelection in her precinct. The Watchdog of Cowlitz County and the County Republican Party shared the same endorsem*nts for the Cowlitz County commissioner primaries.

Kalama mayor and County Commissioner candidate Mike Reuter said he shared some of the goals of the new officers, including wanting to tone down the rhetoric coming from Republican officials. Reuter said little benefit comes from Republicans publicly criticizing each other.

“It’s going back to the good ol’ days of the classic Republican mantras, when the parties got along with each other and it’s not the extreme right and extreme left kind of taking over both parties,” Reuter said.