WA-5 · House

The district, in brief

Washington's 5th district encompasses much of eastern Washington, including Spokane, Pullman, and Walla Walla. It is on the map first used in 2022 and is not redrawn for 2026; the facts carry no presidential baseline for these lines. The text says the district has strongly favored Republicans, though Democrats were more competitive in the 2018 midterm, when Democratic nominee Lisa Brown lost by 9.5 percentage points; the facts put that year's two-party margin at -9.52 for the Democrat.

The incumbent is Republican Michael Baumgartner, elected with 60.6% of the vote in 2024, a two-party margin of -21.31 for the Democrat in the facts, which record Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) holding the seat through 2022. The Democratic nominee is Carmela Conroy, former chair of the Spokane County Democratic Party and runner-up for this district in 2024. In the blanket primary Baumgartner took 47.4%, Conroy 18.8% and independent Nate Powell, a firefighter and marine veteran, 16.4%; nine others were eliminated. As of July 15, 2026 Baumgartner had raised $1,738,226 with $953,783 on hand; Conroy had raised $396,216, of which $9,940 was self-funded, with $74,462 on hand.

Every rater listed calls the seat R: Decision Desk HQ (September 8, 2026), the Cook Political Report (February 6, 2025, and 'Safe R' in the text), Inside Elections (March 7, 2025), Sabato's Crystal Ball (August 14, 2025), RealClearPolitics (May 24, 2026), The Economist (June 4, 2026), Split Ticket (July 28, 2026) and Fox News (August 5, 2026). One general-election poll is recorded: Tavern Research, a Democratic firm (May 18–25, 2026), had Baumgartner 53%, Conroy 47%.

A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.

The facts, each beside its sentence

Not in the source: The model's basis says no district polls, but the text records one general-election poll (Tavern Research, May 2026) and one primary poll (Change Research, March 2026).; The text gives no presidential result for the district and the facts have no presidential baseline.; Ratings other than Cook's 'Safe R' are given only as 'R' (no Lean/Likely/Safe).; The endorsements section is empty.

Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 77b3209be57f; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.

Who holds the seat now

Michael Baumgartner (Republican), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term. Committees: House Committee on the Judiciary; House Committee on Foreign Affairs; House Committee on Education and Workforce.

From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.

How it has voted for president

A shift of 4.1 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.

Who are the voters?

Of about 524,602 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 44.9% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 45.6% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 1.5 points toward Democrats. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.

Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.

The money

FEC bulk candidate summaries through September 01, 2026; $434,644 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.

The district in numbers

ACS 5-year 2023, the Census Bureau's own tabulation of this district (118th Congress lines). Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.

Who is favoured, and by how much?

The 90% interval runs from -20.1 to +7.6 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.

What is this built on?

A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.

Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.

Why does the model say this?

Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: outside money balance: 3.8 pts toward the Democrat; 2024 House lean (R+18.6): 2.8 pts toward the Republican; 2024 presidential lean (R+9.8): 1.8 pts toward the Republican; experience gap (-4 levels, D minus R): 1.3 pts toward the Republican; asian share (2.3%): 0.7 pts toward the Republican.

How sure is it, and of what?

Total sd 8.46 points, made of the seat's own volatility 90%, correlated polling error 10%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.

Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.

How was this number made?

Run 6f211e6f-2bdc-4dda-8f72-81fc628dab0b, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).