Chuck Perine processes empty ballot envelopes at the Clark County Elections Office in Vancouver, Wash. on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
As of Wednesday night, Camas City Councilor Leslie Lewallen was trailing in her re-election bid by 12.5 percentage points. In Longview, Mayor Spencer Boudreau was losing by 14.6 percentage points. Both failed to close substantial gaps in the latest election counts after Tuesday’s election.
They’re just two examples of notable Southwest Washington Republicans losing in elections as the party saw several defeats across the country.
Lewallen has been a city councilor since 2021. Last year, she sought the Republican nomination for Washington’s Congressional District 3 but lost in the primary to challenger Joe Kent. In campaign videos from the time, Lewallen described herself as an “America First Conservative” and excoriated what she called the radical left.
Boudreau is a city councilor in Longview who has served as mayor since 2022. He’s one of four conservative city officials who have been embroiled in a slow-moving lawsuit that alleges they broke state open meetings laws when they fired a city manager in early 2024.
Both city council seats in Camas and Longview are nonpartisan, but Lewallen and Boudreau have received endorsements from Republicans.
In September, Boudreau removed a proposal from the city council to change the name of a Longview thoroughfare from Maple Street to Charlie Kirk Way, after the conservative speaker was assassinated in Utah.
Boudreau removed the proposal citing controversy it had created in the community and the forecast $50,000 price tag. But the drama surrounding these events and his connections with other conservative councilors may have contributed to the outcome of his election Tuesday.
“The city council, which a lot of people view as having a conservative side and a liberal side, has been beat up over the last year over events that I think were blown up by the Democrats,” said Randy Knox, Cowlitz County’s central committee chairman for the Republican Party.
He said Tuesday’s seeming losses were likely because of a motivated Democratic party.
“One side was more fired up than the other,” Knox said.
The chair of the Clark County Republicans did not respond to an interview request.
Turnout in both Clark and Cowlitz counties was low, cresting around 20% for each. While that’s typical for off-year elections, turnout this year was lower than previous elections in 2021 and 2023.
Some of that low turnout could be due to Republicans who stayed home because they were content with national politics, according to Mark Stephan, associate professor of political science at Washington State University Vancouver.
“If you’re a Republican and a conservative, you might be just so happy with things overall that you’re not even checking in on local politics because that doesn’t matter,” Stephan said. “Your president and your Congress is what you want it to be.”
Motivated liberals also may have shown up in force.
“You can’t know for sure, but there is some reason to think that for a percentage of voters in all of these cases, that the national scene really matters to them,” he added.
The political winds are being closely watched in Southwest Washington due to next year’s race for Congressional District 3, which encompasses both Clark and Cowlitz counties. The purple district has shifted from Republican to Democratic control in recent years, and incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a moderate Democrat, is once again expected to face a close race. She’s being challenged by Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, the minority leader in the state Senate.
If anything, Stephan said, this week’s results suggest another year of intense competition in the district.
