Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, seen here in early 2024, is standing by controversial texts the state GOP sent in the 14th Legislative District. (Bill Lucia/Washington State Standard)
WASHINGTON – On the eve of an election marked by increasingly heated rhetoric, the Washington State Republican Party sent text messages to Spanish-speaking voters on Friday alleging that Democratic candidates want to “eliminate the Spanish language” and “support the chemical castration of your children in school without your knowledge or consent.”
“They hate you, they hate your family, they hate God and they hate the truth,” the message sent Friday reads in Spanish, referring to three Latina Democrats running in the majority-Hispanic 14th legislative district, which was redrawn in a contentious redistricting process that has angered Republicans.
Meanwhile, the state GOP sent an English-language message to voters in southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, where Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez – a Democrat who has repeatedly bucked her own party while representing a district that former President Donald Trump won in 2020 – is in a high-profile rematch with Republican Joe Kent.
That message, sent with an image of the communist hammer-and-sickle symbol on a rainbow background, calls the freshman congresswoman “a Democrat socialist” and claims that she lives in Portland and “supports defund the police, abortion until birth, castrating minor children/confusing them about their gender, higher taxes, and less efficient government spending.”
A spokesman for the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign, Phil Gardner, said the message is “typical of the kooky outright lies Joe Kent and his far-right supporters tell about Marie.” In a statement, Gardner said Gluesenkamp Perez “obviously does not live in Portland” and is endorsed by the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, “because of her strong support for the police.”
The Spanish-language message claims that Democratic candidates Maria Beltran, Ana Ruiz Kennedy and Chelsea Dimas “reject God’s design of two genders and want to confuse your children about whether they are boys or girls.”
“They are deranged to the point of wanting to eliminate the Spanish language, which is why the words are now neither feminine nor masculine, but rather non-binary,” the message says. “They call themselves ‘Latinx’ instead of ‘Latino.’ They hate you, they hate your family, they hate God and they hate the truth. Don’t let them represent you!”
Some people of Latin American origin use the term “Latinx” to avoid the gender-specific “Latino” or “Latina,” while others dislike the term. Beltran and Dimas are the daughters of Mexican immigrants and both identify as queer, while Ruiz Kennedy was born in Mexico.
The new 14th legislative district stretches from the eastern edge of Yakima to Pasco, encompassing the Yakama Reservation and much of the heavily agricultural lower Yakima Valley. The Republicans running against Dimas and Ruiz Kennedy for state House of Representatives, Gloria Mendoza and Deb Manjarrez, are also Latina.
Beltran, who is running against incumbent Republican state Sen. Curtis King, posted the text message on Instagram on Saturday and accused her opponent and the state GOP of “blatant lies and fear-mongering.”
“They accuse me of awful, flatly untrue things and disrespect my Catholic faith and Mexican heritage,” she wrote. “While I’ve run an informed, issue-based campaign to get our community the leadership we deserve, King and his allies have constantly lied, tried to manipulate our community, and personally attacked me rather than engage in real, truthful, debate. This kind of cheap, egregious personal attack is what makes people in our district want to tune out of politics, and the Republican Party should be ashamed of engaging in it.”
In a statement on Monday, King said he “very strongly” disavows the state GOP’s text message and he “knew nothing about it nor its content before it was sent.”
“In my 17 year political career, I have never made comments like those about any political opponent, whether on the campaign trail or on the Senate floor,” King said. “I believe my ability to work across the aisle with Democrat senators is testament to that.”
In a phone interview on Sunday, Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh stood by the text messages. He said the claim that Democrats support “chemical castration” was based on their responses to a Planned Parenthood survey, where they indicated support for transgender teenagers using drugs known as puberty blockers.
One such drug, Lupron, is a synthetic hormone also used to treat prostate and breast cancer. In some states, it is used to chemically castrate sex offenders.
“Nothing in the Democrats’ overwrought reactions denies the factual truth of the text messages,” Walsh said, defending the claim that Democrats hate families and God. “How else do you characterize the administration of Lupron to minors?
“Why is it OK for the left to accuse us of hate speech, but somehow questionable for us to point out that their actions, the actions of these candidates, show a hatred toward conventional families and traditional notions of gender identity?”
To illustrate what he called a double standard, Walsh said Beltran has called her opponent a “MAGA extremist,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and the brand of nationalist politics it has inspired.
“It’s definitely hate speech to the left,” Walsh said, explaining that the hateful part isn’t calling King “MAGA” but calling him an “extremist,” before using the same word to describe Democrats. “It’s a dog whistle to left-wing extremists, and it’s the reason why, you know, Donald Trump gets shot several times – or attempted to get shot.”
Deanna Martinez, chair of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, a moderate GOP group, objected to the state party’s rhetoric in the text messages. In an interview, the nurse and Moses Lake city councilwoman said that if the Washington State Republican Party was “hoping to win over hearts and minds,” they “missed badly.”
“It’s outrageous what they said in Spanish,” Martinez said, taking particular offense to the idea that the Democrats hate God.
“There are plenty of Democrats who are Christians and there are plenty of Republicans that are Christian. And if you call yourself Christian, would you really be using that language? You cannot assume that because someone’s a Democrat that they don’t believe in God, that they hate your family. No. No. That’s so wrong.”
In the Spanish-language message, Washington GOP Political Director Matthew Frohlich identifies himself as “Matteo” and omits Ruiz Kennedy’s Spanish surname, referring to her only as “Ana Kennedy.” The English-language message to voters in the predominantly non-Hispanic 3rd Congressional District does the opposite, calling the Democrat “Maria Perez,” using the wrong first name and dropping her non-Spanish surname.
In a text message, Frohlich told The Spokesman-Review that calling Gluesenkamp Perez by the wrong name – twice – was “just a typo.” He said he stood by everything in the messages to voters and added, “I don’t even understand why they are angry about it.”
Martinez said she couldn’t know whether the error was in fact a typo, “But it doesn’t look right if they’re trying to hide a person’s identity, ethnicity, whichever way you want to call it.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat who campaigned with Beltran, Dimas and Ruiz Kennedy on Friday, called the messages “despicable” and said they “have no place in politics.”
“A district that was drawn to protect voting rights is being assaulted with text messages meant to scare and trick the very voters the district was drawn to protect. The Republican Party should stop this false information immediately. Other elected officials should also repudiate these tactics.”
Cantwell’s Republican opponent, Dr. Raul Garcia, told The Spokesman-Review in a text message Sunday the language was “not acceptable” and later sent a lengthy statement, saying he hopes more politicians will follow the example he and Cantwell have set with their more respectful, policy-focused campaigns.
Garcia also called the redistricting process – which displaced state Sen. Nikki Torres and state Rep. Alex Ybarra – “obvious gerrymandering” that resulted in “eliminating Hispanic representation.”
“As I would be the first Latin American U.S. Senator from the State of Washington, standing up for individuals from cultures that have been marginalized for years is paramount to me,” Garcia said. “Personal attacks should have no place and should be condemned from either party. These do not promote a unified path forward as Americans.”
Martinez emphasized that the Mainstream Republicans and the state GOP aren’t always at odds, citing their collaboration earlier this year on a lawsuit related to language describing initiatives on the ballot, but she said she couldn’t condone the “very flagrant” language in the messages to voters.
“We need to speak in truths,” Martinez said. “That’s how people trust you. That’s how you’re going to convince people to listen to you.”