Her contrast could hardly be greater with Rossi, 58. Rossi was first elected to the Washington state senate, from a seat that overlaps with the Eighth Congressional District, in 1996; he was twice the GOP’s nominee for governor. He lost to Democrat Christine Gregoire in 2004 (in a race ultimately decided by 133 votes) and to Democrat Patty Murray in a 2010 U.S. Senate race.

In his campaign, Rossi leans heavily on that long local history. He presents himself in this closely divided district as a bipartisan bridge builder while portraying Schrier as a rigid partisan. “I talk about things I’ve done,” Rossi said in an interview at a small campaign office in Auburn. “Because it’s not theory. I have an opponent who has never run for dog catcher before, who’s marched in more protests in Seattle than parades in the district … We have enough people yelling at each other in politics already without adding another one.”

Schrier takes consistently liberal positions. But with her pediatrician’s manner, she may not strike many voters as a firebrand. “Right now there’s an awful lot of people with a ton of legislative experience who are not working well for the people of this district,” she said in an interview when asked about Rossi’s portrayal. “So I do think it’s really important to have a fresh voice and new voices and good listeners and people who can work collaboratively.”

Rossi and Schrier disagree on many issues. But the most striking contrast may be how they approach the national debate at all. It may be a measure of how each side views the district’s shifting ideological current that Schrier expresses full-throated opposition to Trump on almost every front while Rossi resolutely avoids clear positions on a wide array of pertinent national issues.

The biggest exception is the GOP tax cut, which Rossi unreservedly embraces. He hits Schrier for saying she would repeal portions of it that benefit the affluent and for supporting a state ballot measure that would impose a tax on carbon emissions. “People are taxed out,” he says.

But Rossi has repeatedly refused to answer how he might vote on a wide variety of issues beyond that. Although he ran in his 2010 Senate race as an implacable opponent of the ACA, he has refused to say in this campaign whether he would have voted for the House Republican bill to repeal it. In an interview, he expressed support for more competition in health-care markets, including allowing the interstate sale of insurance, but wouldn’t say whether he supported the House GOP’s vote to repeal the ACA’s funding for expanding Medicaid, which Washington has used to widen coverage. “I’m not going to comment on bills I didn’t read, or bills that I had nothing to do with, or an expansion I had nothing to do with either,” he says firmly.