Food, rent, electricity, healthcare - in America we should be able to afford these basic necessities of life without going bankrupt.
Michael Baumgartner has supported the current administration's tariffs and other policies which have led to:
Half of all Americans struggling to afford groceries
47% struggling to afford their utility bills
47% struggling to afford healthcare
48% struggling to afford housing
1 in 4 Americans saying they have skipped a medical checkup due to affordability
23% skipping a prescription dose
Gas prices skyrocketing
In March 2025, Baumgartner co-wrote an op-ed declaring "tariffs are taxes" that hurt Washington farmers and businesses. Then, when Congress had an actual vote to rebuke Trump's tariffs on Canada, he voted to keep them anyway.
We are feeling this directly in our wallets. What is Michael Baumgartner doing about that? Making things worse. We deserve better.
We all deserve access to quality healthcare so we can live healthy and productive lives.
Michael Baumgartner disagrees:
He voted to cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance as part of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"
He voted to let ACA tax credits expire, increasing health costs for millions of Americans, driving many of them to switch to cheaper plans or abandon health insurance coverage altogether. And the less people there are with coverage, the higher the rest of our premiums will be.
He wants to repeal the ACA, reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, and add work requirements to Medicaid.
An estimated 250,000 Washingtonians will lose Medicaid coverage under Trump's budget bill — and Washington stands to lose billions in federal Medicaid funding over the next decade, straining hospitals and clinics statewide.
In January 2026, Baumgartner voted against H.R. 1834, the bill to extend enhanced ACA premium subsidies. It passed the House 230–196 — 17 Republicans crossed over to spare their constituents from steep premium hikes, but he wasn't one of them.
We need healthcare to live. Literally. What is Michael Baumgartner doing to help us? Making things worse. We deserve better.
We all need to pay our fair share to the government so it can provide the services that benefit all of us.
But billionaires in the U.S. pay a smaller tax rate than most teachers and nurses. That's not fair.
The wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
23 of the largest and most profitable companies in the US paid no federal corporate income taxes from 2018-2022. And 109 corporations paid zero federal tax in at least one of those years.
Michael Baumgartner is on the side of the billionaires and big business. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that he supported will reduce taxes for the top 1 percent of taxpayers by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, while raising taxes for the poorest Americans. We deserve better.
We all deserve clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet to live on.
Michael Baumgartner has supported the repealing and rolling back of environmental protections and climate change regulations, all so that billionaires and big business can plunder natural resources and destroy our environment in the name of profit.
He has a 0% score from the League of Conservation Voters in 2025 — voting against the environment every single time, 33 out of 33 votes.
We're all going to pay the price for this with increased rates of asthma, cancer, and premature deaths. We deserve better.
I think we can all agree that nobody in America, the richest country in the world, should go hungry.
Michael Baumgartner disagrees. He supported the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that dramatically cuts funding for SNAP, and the people that need food assistance most.
Here in Washington, 1 in 6 kids faces hunger every day.
About 39% of SNAP participants are children, and 20% are elderly
A good job where we can make a living to support our families, own a home, and have a good life. That's the American Dream.
Michael Baumgartner supports policies and an administration that are turning the American Dream into a nightmare.
There were 20.8 million layoffs in the U.S. in 2025
55% of employed Americans say they're concerned about losing their jobs
The unemployment rate is 4.6%, the highest level since the pandemic
In 2025 the U.S. economy averaged just 15,000 jobs added per month, a dramatic decrease from the monthly average of 125,000 the year before Trump took office.
Overall employment for workers without college degrees fell by 361,000 jobs from January to September 2025.
58,000 net manufacturing jobs have been lost from April, when the administration announced "Liberation Day" tariffs, to September 2025.
As a member of Congress, part of Michael Baumgartner's job is to act as a check and balance to the executive branch. He and his fellow members of Congress from Washington have completely abdicated their responsibility. These spineless cowards are rubber stamping everything Donald Trump wants to do, no matter how crazy, dangerous or harmful. And we've seen the results. We deserve better.
Protected Pedophiles by Blocking Release of the Epstein Files
Jeffrey Epstein ran a global sex trafficking network that sexually abused dozens of girls and women for decades. The FBI identified at least 35 minors with similar abuse histories. When finally released in 2026, the files — over 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images — revealed what UN human rights experts called "disturbing and credible evidence" of a possible global criminal enterprise. Those experts said some of the conduct may meet the threshold for crimes against humanity, including sexual slavery, torture, and enforced disappearance.
For months, House Republican leadership blocked every vote to release these files — and Michael Baumgartner went along.
Michael Baumgartner voted to block the bipartisan effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files (Roll Call 194, 211–210), protecting the accused pedophiles and powerful elites that were named in them, including Donald Trump. He never signed the discharge petition or co-sponsored the bipartisan release resolution — only reversing after Donald Trump gave House Republicans permission, 11 months later.
We deserve to feel safe in our neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship.
In order to do that, we need to take real steps to prevent gun violence. And despite what we've been told, it is possible to support the 2nd Amendment and support common-sense gun safety laws at the same time. But Michael Baumgartner has opposed bipartisan gun safety laws, while offering meaningless thoughts and prayers every time there's a new mass shooting.
A child or adolescent is killed with a gun every 2 hours and 48 minutes in the U.S.
Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the U.S. are 33 times greater than in Australia and 77 times greater than in Germany
Every day, 125 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 200 are shot and wounded
Women in the U.S. are 28 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries.
Wants the Government Control to Control Our Bodies
America is the land of FREEDOM. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to start a business, freedom to choose your own career path, freedom to make your own medical decisions, freedom to raise your children according to your values, and freedom to pursue happiness. Freedom is what makes America great.
Unless you're a woman and you're making the deeply personal decision about whether to have a baby or not. A decision that will dramatically affect the rest of your life. In that case Michael Baumgartner thinks that your freedom doesn't matter and that the government should get to control your body. That's not freedom, that's tyranny.
Michael Baumgartner:
Opposed Roe v. Wade
Attacked Planned Parenthood throughout his career
Voted for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, requiring emergency medical care for infants born after failed abortions — a bill used to stigmatize abortion providers and restrict access.
Arkansas House of Representatives candidate (and pastor) Robb Ryerse stated it well: "Abortion should remain safe and legal. These are personal decisions best made by patients, their doctors, and their faith — not politicians. You don't have to agree with every decision someone makes to believe they should be free to make it. That's what personal liberty means." Almost 2/3 of Americans agree and believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But Michael Baumgartner thinks he knows better, and doesn't believe that we should have the freedom to make our own decisions. We deserve better.
In America our vote represents our will. It gives us the power to make the change that we want to see in the world.
Unfortunately that's not a sentiment that Michael Baumgartner's billionaire and big business donors can stomach. Because when we have voting power, we use it to make our lives better, and they lose power. Read about all the ways they're trying to take away our voting power on our about page, then come back here.
Michael Baumgartner has opposed legislation to make voting easier while supporting the SAVE Act, which would force every single American citizen to prove their citizenship status in person when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. For the vast majority of Americans, this would mean presenting a passport or birth certificate at their local election office. This would disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizens: 146 million Americans do not have a passport, and 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name. Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill became law, as the vast majority of these groups do not possess a passport.
YOU HAVE POWER. Why else do you think Michael Baumgartner and His bosses are working so hard to take it away? Don't let them. We deserve better.
Whether white, black, or brown, we should all be able to live in America and exercise our constitutional rights without fear that law enforcement will turn on us.
But the current administration has created a secret police force that is abusing their power against anyone who stands in their way, U.S. citizen or not. They claim to be going after "the worst of the worst", but are taking daycare workers, day laborers, grandmas and kids who are valued members of our communities. And Michael Baumgartner, staunch defender of the Second Amendment to fight back against government tyranny, is doing absolutely nothing while the government tyrannizes us.
And Michael Baumgartner is actively supporting and expanding ICE's power to terrorize our communities.
ProPublica:They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world's most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force.
ProPublica:Accosting people outside of their immigration court hearings where they're showing up and trying to do the right thing and then hauling them off to an immigration jail in the middle of the country where they can't access loved ones or speak to counsel. Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country, to a prison where there's a documented record of serious torture and human rights abuse.
New York Times:Masked and heavily armed, ICE agents are sent to cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis to terrorize immigrant communities and brutalize people who challenge their efforts to stop and detain anyone deemed suspicious. To expand its reach, ICE greatly lowered its recruitment standards, effectively enlisting anyone who cares to sign up. To attract new officers, ICE advertises the chance to do violence to people deemed "enemies" of the United States, likening civil immigration enforcement to a war on a dangerous, alien force. The result is an agency whose agents' first recourse appears to be violence or the threat of violence.
They are executing American citizens. On January 7, 2026 an ICE agent in Minneapolis murdered an American citizen, a mother of 3, by shooting her in the face as she tried to drive away. Then the killer walked away, and our government lied and tried to gaslight us about what happened. Decent politicians condemned the murder. What did Michael Baumgartner have to say? Nothing.
They are executing American citizens: Part 2. On January 24, 2026 ICE agents in Minneapolis murdered an American citizen, a 37 year old ICU nurse, who was filming their activity and trying to help others. Then our government lied and tried to gaslight us about what happened.
Baumgartner has made gutting Washington's "sanctuary" law a personal mission. He joined House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Rep. Tom McClintock in a letter pressuring state Attorney General Nick Brown over the Keep Washington Working Act, charging that the state "prioritizes the needs of criminal illegal aliens over Washingtonians" and declaring "it's time for Washington to rethink these dangerous policies and put its communities first." He even brought the Adams County sheriff — whose office was sued for unlawfully jailing people based solely on immigration status — to testify before Congress.
At his March 2025 town hall, a constituent pressed him on an ICE raid in which agents broke a car window and dragged two Spokane Valley green-card applicants out of their vehicle, forcibly removing a seven-months-pregnant U.S. citizen in the process. Baumgartner's answer: it "would be far better for the security of the state of Washington and for immigrants in the state of Washington if Washington was not a sanctuary state" — and he vowed to "make that happen."
In January 2026, after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Baumgartner called it "a tragedy" but said the killing "appeared to be justified" — then pivoted to demanding a federal review of benefits "fraud" in Washington.
If ICE can murder innocent U.S. citizens without repercussions, what could they do to you? ICE is out of control and a danger to us all - no one is safe. What's Michael Baumgartner going to do about it? Absolutely nothing. We deserve better.
Voted for an Unnecessary and Unpopular War in Iran
War destroys human lives, families and innocent people, causes economic ruin, and triggers immense suffering. War should always be the option of last resort.
In order to distract from the Epstein Files, Donald Trump started an illegal war of choice with Iran, and now:
The American people don't want this war with Iran. But Michael Baumgartner supports this madness and voted against the War Powers Resolution that would have stopped it. Does Michael Baumgartner work for Israel or the people of Washington? We deserve better.
To be fair, Michael Baumgartner does hold in-person town halls — something many of his colleagues refuse to do.
At a March 2025 town hall in Spokane, hundreds of constituents showed up angry, booing and interrupting to demand answers on Social Security cuts, Medicaid, ICE raids, and Trump's threats to annex Canada. Baumgartner's response to the healthcare question? "We will have to agree to disagree." On annexing Greenland: "If we could get Greenland peacefully, I'm all for it."
After facing the crowd, he told reporters it "may be the last in-person town hall in the near future" and suggested switching to telephone town halls to cut down on what he called disruptive behavior.
When campaign season hit in 2026, he was back to in-person meetings — this time as part of a "12 counties in 12 days" re-election tour.
He'll show up when he needs your vote. The rest of the time, he'd rather not hear from you. We deserve better.
We're all going to pay the price for this with increased rates of asthma, cancer, and premature deaths. We deserve better.
