GOP lawmaker backing claims of Trump voter fraud now faces opponent from own party

One of the defining characteristics of candidates looking to unseat incumbent Republicans in Washington is support for former President Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud. In a reversal of that trend, a moderate Republican will soon look to mount a primary challenge against an incumbent who’s been a vocal supporter of Trump’s fraud allegations.

That comes in the form of Sam Low’s run for state representative, in a bid to unseat incumbent Robert Sutherland. Low has served as a Snohomish County Councilmember since 2016, scoring reelection by a 59% to 40% margin in 2021.

He bills himself as a moderate Republican focused on transportation as his main priority.

“My platform has always been transportation, transportation, transportation — working on the trestle, working on 522, working on Highway 2,” he told KTTH’s Jason Rantz Show. “That’s something that my constituents deal with on a daily basis.”

He’ll be going up against Sutherland, who was first elected to the state House in 2018, when he took 56.5% of the vote to defeat Democrat Ivan Lewis. Sutherland is one of the more prominent voices in the state who is continuing to push the claim that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

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As for whether that factored into Low’s decision to run, he cited bigger picture goals.

“I’ve run at the city level, I’ve run at the county level, and now I’m going to start running at the state level,” he said. “I’ve always run on my record and who I am, and obviously, I’m a Republican, my opponent is a Republican.”

“I have my record, he has his record, and I think the voters should choose who they want to represent them based on their priorities and their experience,” he added. “And so that’s a great question for (Rep. Sutherland).”

More prominently for Low, the state’s redistricting process appeared to give him an early leg up.

“I sat down and looked at the map and I realized in the 39th District, 50% of the voters are new voters to the district,” he described. “And so I looked at it — it’s a new district — it includes Lake Stevens, which is the largest city in the district, the city where I live. After looking at it, I thought I’d be the best fit to run for the position.”

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