Washington state megathread

[publicunofficial]

Maybe not THE dullest midterm


I-594 will create background checks on ALL gun sales. I-591 would limit background checks except for those required by federal law. I know which one I'm voting for, but I could see either one passing.

Dueling initiatives are always fun.

Vote yes on both for the lulz

Washington voters might just do that

A new poll shows support for I-594 (Pro background checks) is at 72%, but I-591 (Anti background checks) has 55% support.


Funnily enough, I-594 has majority support among gun owners (71%) and Republicans (68%).

[publicunofficial]

State Rep. Cyrus Habib will run for Tom's Senate seat, while McBride will drop down to Habib's house seat

[publicunofficial]

Roll Call has an article out about the bench both sides have in Washington, and how the state's relatively young delegation will likely prevent a lot of people moving up for a while.


The only dumb mistake I notice is they mention Cyrus Habib and State Sen. Marko Liias as potential successors to Jim McDermott should he retire, but Habib lives in DelBene's district and Liias lives in Larsen's.

[publicunofficial]

Heck and DelBene have decent opponents, but no one that will win.


Kilmer's only filed opponent is an Independent W. "Graybeard" McPherson, a Green Party type from Port Angeles running on environmental issues. There's supposedly a Republican Some Dude from Bremerton who is supposed to file soon, but I haven't heard anything more about that.

[publicunofficial]

One of the socialist organizers behind Sawant's campaign is running against Frank Chopp. Sawant herself got 29% against Chopp in 2012. She won the 43rd with 57% in 2013.

Don't think it goes anywhere. Unlike Conlin, progressives don't really have any gripes with Chopp from what I know.

[publicunofficial]

I am sooo glad I don't live in Washington state, because I don't know how I could stand living in what is probably the most liberal state in the country (in terms of policies.)

I'm glad you don't live here either.

The voters' guide is here! http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/

Huh, looks like the GOP finally got a candidate for WA-06. Kilmer will face Marty McClendon, a real estate broker from Gig Harbor.

[publicunofficial]

The new cycle begins

Dave Reichert is believed to be gearing up for a campaign against Inslee

[publicunofficial]

County Maps of I-594 and I-591

I-594 (Pro background checks)
]
Yes - 59.27%
No - 40.73%

I-591 (Anti background checks)

Yes - 44.73%
No - 55.27%

Asotin County continues to be an electoral enigma.

[publicunofficial]

The Stranger has gotten it's hands on an email from Ex-SoS Sam Reed apparently meant for fellow "mainstream Republicans" in which Reed states that he believes State Sen. Andy Hill will run against Jay Inslee in 2016.


For those unaware, Hill is a moderate Republican who currently holds a Redmond/Bellevue-based seat that went 58% for Obama in 2012. I'd essentially describe him as "Rob McKenna with a voting record"

[publicunofficial]

Why not Steve Litzow? He seems to me at least as good as Hill.

Might just be a matter of Litzow not wanting it, or at least not as much as Hill.

[publicunofficial]

State Auditor Troy Kelley has been indicted for tax evasion.

Inslee is calling on Kelley to resign.

[publicunofficial]

Bill Byrant won't seek re-election to the Seattle Port Commission.

Bryant has statewide aspirations, and might run against Inslee in 2016. He's likely retiring from the commission to avoid losing re-election, which might hurt his statewide credentials.

[publicunofficial]

Seattle's City Council elections this year will be interesting. In previous elections, the council's 9 members were elected citywide with 4 year terms. In 2013 however, voters approved a measure to change this system into 7 individual districts, plus 2 seats that remain citywide. The current make-up of the City Council is 8 Democrats, 1 Socialist. As with most Seattle elections, most of the council elections will be between candidates representing different factions of progressives.



The main issues at play in Seattle generally revolve around keeping the city affordable for the average working man, something that's become difficult as tech companies attract rich software workers to the city, driving up rent costs even as more and more housing buildings crop up.

I have prepared a brief break-down of all 9 races, districts and candidates:


District 1
Southwest/West Seattle (Delridge, South Park, Highland Park)

Shannon Braddock - Chief of Staff to county councilor Joe McDermott, running on transportation issues.
Pavel Goberman - Crazy person, ran against Jeff Merkely in 2014, has a great website
Amanda Kay Helmick - Community activist
Lisa Herbold - Licata staffer, focusing on housing issues
Chas Redmond - Some dude
Arturo Robles - Some dude
Jody Rushmer - Some dudette
Phillip Tavel - Attorney, primarily for children
Brianna Thomas - Activist, heavily involved in SeaTac minimum wage fight.
Karl Wirsing - Some dude

Longtime councilmember Nick Licata is not running for re-election, causing a wide array of candidates to run for this seat some of whom have already dropped out. Despite the long list of names, the only two that really are worth watching are Braddock and Herbold.

District 2
Southeast Seattle (Beacon Hill, Georgetown, Rainier Valley, Rainier Beach)

Josh Farris - Activist, involved with Occupy Seattle and anti-foreclosure movements.
Bruce Harrell - Incumbent
Tammy Morales - Community activist, decently influential.

District 2 consists of the blue-collar Southwest Seattle, and is the only district that is not majority white. This is mainly a battle between Morales and Harrell. Morales has criticized Harrell for flip-flopping on issues (often voting the opposite of what he publicly said he would) and has also gone hard after Harrell for being to cushy with the Seattle Police Department. Harrell, who also chairs the city's Public Safety Committee, has taken fire as many excessive force cases being dismissed outright, with one officer who was investigated 18 times in a three-year period being allowed to retain his job. It's an issue that will likely have a lot of pull in this part of town, and Harrell has stepped up his criticisms of SPD as of late. Farris is a long-shot candidate, but has pushed the race to the left in certain areas like rent-control.

District 3
Capitol Hill + Central District

Pamela Banks - Urban League president, backed by Mayor Murray, Bruce Harrell, & Tim Burgess.
Morgan Beach - Women's rights activist
Lee Carter - Community activist
Rod Hearne - LGBT rights activist
Kshama Sawant - Incumbent. You know her already.

Capitol Hill is considered the "gay" part of Seattle, and it's politics are about as liberal as you find in America. This election is essentially a referendum on Sawant, the lone Socialist on the council who everyone either adores or despises. Sawant's supporters are vocal, and turn up at every council meeting to make themselves heard. Her opponents are forced to define themselves against Sawant, with their main attacks being that she is divisive, and too focused on socialist revolution to actually do her job. With Mayor Ed Murray making his dislike of Sawant known, this has also turned the election into a establishment vs. activist battle. Sawant recently picked up the endorsement of Mike McGinn, who Murray defeated in 2013.

District 4
Northeast Seattle (University District, Ravenna, Eastlake, most of Wallingford)

Jean Godden - Incumbent
Rob Johnson - Urban planner, transportation activist
Michael Maddux - Paralegal, park activist
Abel Pacheco - Some dude
Tony Provine - Neighborhood activist

An odd district; District 4 is both urban and suburban, the highest level of education, but the 2nd poorest district overall. Voters here tend to be liberal, but risk averse. Much of the population are renters and University of Washington students, both of whom are have very low turnout in local elections. Jean Godden is the incumbent here, and is probably the most vulnerable of all the council members. Although a strong liberal by most measures, Godden has gained a reputation as one of the more conservative members of the council as the council has been pushed left recently by members like Sawant and Mike O'Brien. Godden is a close ally of Mayor Murray as well, to the point that some have criticized her for being a rubber stamp who has come to parrot Murray's plans and ideas. Godden has a strong feminist streak, something she's used to make liberal activists happy in the past. It might not save her this time though as a recent straw poll  had Godden in dead last; losing to Maddux and the well-funded Rob Johnson. Godden has a strong money advantage, and the heavy support of the Mayor, but we'll see if that's enough.

District 5
North Seattle (Northgate + Lake City)

Sandy Brown - Former pastor, activist for the homeless
Debadutta Dash - Some dude
Mercedes Elizalde - Low-Income Housing Institute member
Debora Juarez - Blackfeet Tribe member, activist
Kris Lethin - Realtor
Hugh Russell - Some dude
David Toledo - Businessman, activist
Halei Watkins - Planned Parenthood organizer

None of the current Council members are running here, leaving it wide open. No major issues here, and as such this is probably going to be a boring race. Sandy Brown is probably the frontrunner, with Elizalde, Watkins, and Juarez also in the mix.

District 6
Green Lake to Golden Gardens, includes Ballard, Fremont.

Jon Lisbin - Some dude
Mike O’Brien - Incumbent
Stan Shaufler - Some dude
Catherine Weatbrook - Neighborhood activist

O'Brien is a solid progressive, who gives his district little reason to complain. He's fought hard for environmental issues and public campaign financing, and is currently pushing a proposal to charge developers linkage fees in order to help pay for affordable housing. Weatbrook is his only competition, but O'Brien should cruise to re-election fairly easily.

District 7
Downtown through Discovery Park (Queen Anne, Magnolia, South Lake Union)

Sally Bagshaw - Incumbent
Gus Hartmann - Google engineer
Deborah Zech-Artis - Some dudette

The urban core of Seattle. Bagshaw has massively outraised her only opponent in Hartmann, and will likely win re-election easily.

District 8
Citywide Position

Tim Burgess - Incumbent, Council President
Jon Grant - Former Tenants Union executive director
John Persak - Longshoreman, some dude but has a decent amount of $$$.
John Roderick - Musician, played with Death Cab for Cutie!

A fun race. Burgess, the Council President, has led the fight for universal Pre-K but is otherwise the council's most conservative member by far. His main opponent is Jon Grant, a far-left firebrand who has heavily taken aim at Burgess. The list of complaints about Burgess include a controversial anti-panhandling measure, opposing tent encampments for homeless, the blocking of various campaign finance reform measures, and Burgess' support for the downtown tunnel project. Roderick is also a contender, and has raised vast sums of money to rival Burgess.

District 9
Citywide Position

Alon Bassok - Urban planner
Bill Bradburd - Community activist, opponent of micro-housing
Lorena González - Former civil rights attorney, legal counsel to the mayor
Omari Tahir-Garrett - Africatown activist, Sawant ally, focused on gentrification
Thomas Tobin - Some dude
Alex Tsimerman - Local nutcase

Another vacant race, this race will likely come down to a battle between Gonzalez and Bradburd. Gonzalez is backed by Mayor Ed Murray, and has also gained praise as a immigration activist and for her representation of a Latino man who was beaten and threatened by Seattle Police in 2010.

[publicunofficial]

Thanks for detailed break-down. The only qualm i have - in such left-wing city all fights are between generally similar (i stress the word "generally") candidates: left and far left. Of course - they may be different on some local issues, but except that - essentially we have Tweedledee vs. Tweedledum here. For election observers outside of Seattle there is little difference between them.

True, but there's very few areas in the US where such progressive on progressive races take place. Even in cities like New York and Chicago, there are still conservative areas and candidates. There are so many places where the elections are a race to the right, Seattle is one of the few cities where candidates can run as far to the left as they want.

[publicunofficial]

Whoops, silly me. I forgot that races aren't worth talking about unless there's a minimum of 3 moderates in the running.

[publicunofficial]

It's amazing how few people in Washington outside of the  most politically well-informed know who Tim Eyman is and how awful his proposals are. Every single one of them are tax initiatives that sound like common sense until you take a second to think about it. Which of course most voters don't.

Infuriates me to think of how many people think stuff like "2/3 majority to raise taxes" and "All tax increases have to be approved by the public" are legitimately smart ideas.

[publicunofficial]

Brad Owen is not seeking another term as Lieutenant Governor. He's been LG since 1996.


Only state official I've seen in person, as he came to my middle school to give an assembly on not doing drugs. It sucked.

[publicunofficial]

Jim Hargrove (My state senator) is retiring. State Rep. Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim (My hometown!) will run to replace him. Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman will run to replace Van De Wege. The Olympic Peninsula is fairly conservative, but it favors Democrats at a local level. I expect both Van De Wege and Chapman to win. Van De Wege is fairly conservative, but will be a big improvement over Hargrove.

Fun Fact: Chapman got his political start as a Republican, when he beat my grandmother for her seat on the county commission. The main issue my grandmother lost over? Wanting to ban billboards in the county.

[publicunofficial]

Former Seattle sportscaster Tony Ventrella has been recruited to run against Dave Reichert in WA-08.

Ventrella has been talked about as a possible candidate for several cycles, but his stated intention of refraining from PAC money or large donations is worrying. But he has name rec, and has good charisma. He works fairly good as wave insurance in a 50-48 Obama '12 seat.

[publicunofficial]

My wife and I voted for Kasich today.

That was the first ballot I ever threw in the trash.

[publicunofficial]

Chris Vance has no chance of unseating Murray this election, but to his credit, he is on the #NeverTrump train.

[publicunofficial]

Dems have a candidate for WA-03! State Rep. Jim Moeller has declared.

Moeller is a solid liberal who is definitely an underdog in an R+1 district, but it's nice to have a warm body here.

[publicunofficial]

Didier honestly should've just ran for Public Lands Commissioner again.

This honestly looks like the worst recruitment cycle for the WA GOP in a while. Their congressional recruits are total nobodies, they couldn't even find some random asshole to run against Bob Ferguson (After the right wing was outraged over that florist case), their top Lt. Gov recruit used to work as a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, and Patty Murry and Jay Inslee will cruise to re-election.

[publicunofficial]

Devil's advocate to you non-voters:

The more people who vote in the primary, the more humiliatingly high the turnout will be vs. the caucus system, and the more pressure on the parties to scrap the terrible caucus system.  Voting is going to send more of a signal than not voting.

Plus, fun election results!  Don't you care about fun election results?!

Good point. Too bad the ballot is in the trash already.

[publicunofficial]

Some other results:

Clallam County
Sequim: Clinton 55.65 - 44.35