Hello everyone and thank you for watching Northwest Public Broadcasting's Vote .. coverage of the 4th Congressional District primary in Washington State.

That 4th District has been long held by Dan Newhouse, but after announcing in December he would not seek reelection that left a seat open for one of 11 candidates on the primary ballot.

My name is Matt Loveless.

Today we at Northwest Public Broadcasting in collaboration with AARP of Washington State and the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties and the League of Women Voters of Yakima County are helping you get to know some of these candidates.

Some newcomers, some familiar challengers, and we have some questions for them.

This is not a debate nor a forum.

We have taken the opportunity to schedule time with the candidates one-on-one.

We'd like our viewers and listeners to consider this a bit of a video voters' guide where we've collaborated on a series of questions.

Each candidate will get all of these same questions and the same opportunity to answer.

We'll time the responses here in our NWPB studio on the WSU Tri-Cities campus.

We thank you for watching.

Our continuing coverage of Washington's 4th Congressional District intr.. to candidate Devin Poore.

Mr.

Poore from East Wenatchee, that's correct.

That's correct.

A software engineer by trade, one of 11 looking to replace Dan Newhouse.

In this seat, we thank you for your time and for coming to our studio here.

Thanks for having me.

We're going to ask you a series of questions.

These come from AARP of Washington State in collaborat.. with the leagues of Benton, Franklin and Yakima Counties.

And so we're excited to hear about a number of topics, but we're going to start with cost of living since that is a top of mind for a number of voters out there.

And everybody, including our older adults in this community, are worried about rising prices of things like groceries, utilities, gasoline, housing, healthcare.

What kind of federal actions do you think you would prioritize to help alleviate some of that?

Ooh, broad question.

So I think a, a one thing that's certainly on the minds of a lot of voters and, and pertinent to us here in central Washington is rising costs of electricity or the potential for the rising cost of electricity due to data centers moving in.

We have a lot of data centers in the district already in Quincy and East Wenatchee, more being built.

We're fortunate to have the kind of hydroelectric capacity that we have that, that keeps prices low and the public utility district infrastructure that, that also helps to keep prices low.

But you know, I would support, certainly support more federal investment into clean renewable energy capacities, things like agrivoltaics.

I, I have a lot of policies around that on, on my website that I think would be beneficial for the district in more ways than just ensuring energy prices stay low.

I also think, you know, obviously we're seeing housing affordability issues all across the district.

We need to work on more incentives to try to incentivize more building.

I think the state's done a decent job rezoning in recent years to allow for more dense housing, but we need I would like to see some experimentation potentially with land value tax incentives versus property taxes.

This gets a little wonky, but a good way to think of it is like a property tax c.. where if you're investing in your property, if you're adding, you know higher density housing, those things get rewarded and you're not punished for investing in property or land that, that you already own.

And I think those are some things that could help to bring costs down over time.

All right.

Well, let's move on to our second question.

And it's about mail-in voting as Washington State has had mail-in voting as an option for a long time, including offering multiple options, but voting has become a topic of conversation.

Indeed.

So how would you ensure access and balance that with election security and ultimately improve the public confidence in our elections?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, the reality is that most studies that have been done, even in some cases by I don't know if I want to say ad- adverse, adversarial you know, groups and think tanks who are more skeptical of things like mail-in voting tend to have a hard time finding real substantive and large volumes of, of voter fraud.

I think mail-in voting is, is a safe practice.

I think we should protect it here in Washington State and any state that wants to pass or, or use a mail-in voting system.

At the same time, I mean, I, you're right.

It's, it's become obviously a, a real political talking point and it's a powerful political talking point right now because a lot of people have become convinced that our elections are far less secure than they really are.

I think we do have to get serious about, you know, having a dialogue about, okay, what are some of the, the reasonable compromise positions we can make to, to try to re-instill a sense in, in the voters that these systems are secure?

I know a lot of voters that I've spoken with, you know, see no issue with something like voter ID.

I don't necessarily have an issue with voter ID requirements, but I also think that if you've proved your citizenship at the time of registration, for example, to, to become a cit - or to register to vote, I don't think, you know, demanding a, a photocopy of your, your driver's license when you mail in your ballot is going to be, you know, necessary.

I think, you know, one and done, the state should know you're a citizen, you're allowed to vote.

Well, another question and sort of a hard pivot here, but we are talking about topics of, on top of mind is Social Security.

We see a lot of older Americans talking about that right now.

Curious your stance on protecting or strengthening it and not just for this generation, but for their children, their grandchildren, you and I perhaps.

Yeah.

Yeah so Social Security, I believe the, the current estimates are that the, the payouts are going to start to be reduced by some percentage in the early 2030s.

So immediate course of action obviously is to raise the, the payroll tax for the Social Security, the payroll tax.

That way it's immediately funded, those benefits are not cut for, for any current recipients.

I think going forward, one of the problems as I understand it with the way that Social Security funds have been handled is that since between 1983 and 2021, I believe we had surpluses in the Social Security system.

But when those surpluses occurred, they'd be moved, you know, through some kind of congressional accounting to basically the general fund.

It's not that simple, but that's an easy way to think o.. I don't think that if there's a case where there's a surplus for social security, it should be allowed to be used to justify other policy decisions like tax breaks or increased spending elsewhere.

Social Security surpluses once the treasury is recorded, you know, that's a surplus.

We owe you that in a, in the future.

It should go to paying down the debt.

And I would also support a very conservative you know, percentage of any social security surplus in a given year going towards an equity fund that would have to be very carefully ma- managed rather than just a treasury fund.

I think over time that helps to keep the, the entire trust more stable, growing at a more predictable rate and hopefully there are no, you know, we're not in danger of ever having to make cuts in the future.

All Right.

And next question moving on to caregiving as we talk about older adults in our community as well.

If elected, how would you help families of caregivers save time, perhaps save some money as they continue to care for their loved ones?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I, I admit I don't have an immediate answer to, to this question.

It's, it's quite specific.

I, I would say that it relates, you know, more broadly to a conversation around healthcare and the kinds of, of healthcare benefits we provide in this country.

I think we've seen obviously cuts to some of our major federal healthcare programs over the last year and a half cuts to the ACA subsidies, cuts to Medicaid.

Those are things that, you know, we certainly rely on disproportionately in fact across district four.

I find the American healthcare system in general, whether you're talking about elder care and caregiving systems, low income systems like Medicaid, I find that we have an incredibly disjointed kind of and fragmented healthcare system in the United States of America.

I think that leads to tons of inefficiencies.

And I would much rather we start to unify these programs and move as a nation towards a universal healthcare model.

We see other countries are able to accomplish it.

You know, we claim we're the greatest country on earth and yet, you know, 30 other developed nations, industrialized developed nations have figured out how to do this.

We, we can't seem how to figure it, you know, to, to figure it out.

And so I think those kinds of programs, caregiving progr.. reimbursements for those would, in my view and in my ideal world, would fall under a kind of more comprehensive universal healthcare program.

Well, last question kind of a unique one because we talk about a lot about working with your constituents, but you're also working with other governments as a congressperson in this position, particularly tribal governments here in the fourth district.

What do you think your role is in government to government relations as it pertains to those tribes?

Yeah, first and foremost, to just recognize that these are, these really are sovereign nations.

It's, you know, when we tend to think about international diplomacy that, you know, we're thinking about other countries elsewhere in the case of our, our tribal entities here and across the country, like these really are sovereign nations that happen to kind of exist embedded within our broader nation.

So I've you know, I've actually spoke, I haven't had a chance to speak with the leadership council of the Yakama Nation yet, but I did meet with the Colville Tribal Council and had a great dialogue with them and discussion.

And I think first and foremost, what they really wanted to emphasize was, you know, please remember that we are a sovereign nation first and foremost when we're having those dialogues.

They have to be entered with that kind of mutual respect and understanding right from the jump.

And so I grew up just north of the Colville Reservation in Ferry County, and so I've always that, that's broadly always been my sense of, of, of how I think about these tribal entities.

So yeah, I think as long as that respect is given upfront, then there's a lot of cooperation that can be, you know, worked out down the road as long as they feel like you really are approaching them with a degree of, of mutual respect.

Well, like I said, it would go quick.

Devin Poore, thank you very much for your time here today, candidate for the 4th Congressional District.

Yeah, thank you.

We want to thank everybody for watching these conversations with candidates in the 4th Congressional District of Washington.

And a reminder, ballots go out beginning the 17th of July.

That begins an 18-day period to vote.

We encourage you to vote early as the top two candidates in this primary will move on to the general.

The official primary election day is August 4th.

On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin County, the League of Yakima County, and AARP of Washington State, we thank you for watching Northwest Public Broadcasting and our Vote 2026 coverage.