Washington state megathread

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Whoever was Governor was going to have to make some serious budget cuts and suffer a significant loss in popularity for it... Relying on the sales tax so much is just asking for trouble come recession time.

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Justice Gregoire... I like it!

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I knew that would be a link to Graham before clicking it.

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The WSU precincts didn't have many voters (3 and 6). Still, the Fairhaven College (WWU) managed to get 31/31, which I think is impressive.

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Wow, no wonder it feels so pro gay-rights here, Issaquah is even stronger than Bellevue. Probably thanks to new development.

The 8th is definitely more supportive of it than the 6th or 9th. The Eastside is wary of taxes, but is very socially liberal. Drugs, sex, gay marriage, civil liberties, you name it; this is probably the most non-religious and least socially conservative suburban area in the country. Plus the 8th includes a large chunk of rural King and Pierce County, so the Eastside must have supported r71 by nearly 60%.

Eastern Washington really sucked.

My precinct in Sammamish >70% approve on R-71 and >70% no on I-1033. I was pleasantly surprised.

[bgwah]

The surprise announcement by Rep Brian Baird in WA-3 not to seek reelection...

Unless you're Alcon!!

...promises to bring on one of the most watched and bitterly fought Congressional races for 2010.  The WA-3 has a PVI of even and was carried by Obama in 2008 and Bush in 2000 and 2004.  The district is anchored by booming Clark County, includes all of Skamania, Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum Counties before terminating at the Olympia suburbs of Thurston County.  Realistically, I could envision this district being represented by a Republican before WA-8 would.  Potential candidates for the open seat are:

Democrats:

Rep Deb Wallace (LD-17)
Sen Craig Pridemore (SD-49)

Republicans:

David Castillo
Jon Russell (Washougal Councilmember)
Dave Hedrick
Jaime Herrera (LD-18)

Question: Why is Clark County and SW Washington in general is so conservative-leaning?  Is it an outgrowth of the booming growth from suburbanites fleeing the socially liberal Portland suburbs?

Clark County is a tax haven for people seeking to avoid Oregon's state income tax and Washington's state sales tax. These kind of people aren't exactly Democratic.

Lewis County lynched a Wobbly back in the day and has been crazy-Republican ever since.

Cowlitz County does lean Democrat, though it loved Dino Rossi. Wahkiakum is small and weird. Pacific leans Democrat. Skamania is also just small and weird.


Oh, and interesting scenario... If we have 2 Democrats and 3+ Republicans in a swing district with a top two primary...

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Democrats need to be smart here--Run two major candidates and no more and hope the Republicans split the vote enough to doom themselves.

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^ His motto can be "Vote Danny! Why the Heck not?"

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wtf is going on

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I tried re-districting Washington with a 10th seat while being as realistic as possible. This is what I came up with:

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Looks reasonable for a 7D-3R delegation under this map.  WA-3 turns slightly Republican and WA-8 strongly Democrat - it should be enough to flip parties for these two seats under this map.  WA-8 becomes at least 60% Obama.  Maybe something like this will finally convince Reichert to pack it in.

I agree that it makes WA-8 more Dem, but the Democrats clearly refuse to run a real candidate in WA-8 for some unknown reason and Reichert is getting established, so he could still hold on for a while.

If the Democrats could pull off a miracle and win WA-3 in 2010, then they could probably hold onto the seat. If Baird stuck around he could easily win that version of WA-3. But it definitely shifts WA-3 from swing to Lean R.

WA-10 would definitely be Lean D. Not hopeless for the Republicans, but who would they run? They don't have a lot of elected officials in that part of the state.

WA-2 loses Everett and would get a bit more Republican. Maybe shifting the district from Lean D to swing. Larsen would have no trouble winning there but the Democrats would need to be careful if the seat was open. Still, as 2008 Governor and R-71 show, Island and Skagit counties have taken some serious turns to the left in the last few years, and the Republicans would still have to overcome Bellingham.

[bgwah]

NFL player declared. Says he has a "Game Plan for Washington". Shoot me now.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100104/BLOG13/100109956/-1/RSS24

http://www.clintdidier.org/

LOL! It would be pretty funny, at least. And nice to know Murray would start off with a floor about 57% or so, too.

So, any word on the 8th  congressional district? Are the Democrats really going to let this seat go again? Rodney Tom wanted to run in 2008, why doesn't he go for it?

The Democrats in my legislative district (5th) seem not-as-crappy-as-usual*. One of them seems to hate taxes a lot and the other is T-Mobile VP and Mallahan supporter. Still, they don't stand a chance given the climate, I suspect.

*In terms of electability, not me liking them necessarily.

[bgwah]

A write-in Democrat could be pretty competitive in a R vs. R general, don't ya think? Write-ins usually can't get to 50%, but they can up to 40%, which would be all you need in a 3-way.

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Heck got in; should be a fun race to watch. I'm almost hoping the top-two causes an R vs. R general so it'll spur the Democrats in the Legislature to abolish the damn thing.

Speaking of fun races, this tool is looking like Murray's most likely challenger: http://www.chriswidener.org

I highly doubt an R V R election will happen, only about 3 of the democrats are serious candidates and I am sure that at least one of them will drop out before the primary. Meanwhile there are still a good number of republicans in the race... It could be very interesting and the sort of thing where the primary is won by someone in the low 20s.

Oh I don't think there's a serious chance of it happening. There's a chance a D vs. D contest could result as well I suppose. I'd just find it amusing either way.

A write-in Democrat could be pretty competitive in a R vs. R general, don't ya think? Write-ins usually can't get to 50%, but they can up to 40%, which would be all you need in a 3-way.

Probably if the word was out that a write-in campaign was going on, but I'm pretty sure Washington State law forbids someone who lost in the primary from being a write-in during the general. We'd have to find some other candidate entirely, get a campaign up and get the word out before ballots start getting received in mid-October (a window of a little less than two months). It'd be challenging.

Really? That is an odd law... I feel like being a write-in candidate would not really have any restrictions. Though a democratic write-in candidate in this situation would probably be guaranteed at least 25-30% of the vote (though only with the assumption that there is a notable and public write-in campaign).

Yeah, most states* have sore loser laws. If you lose a primary you can't run in the general.

*Some don't, like Connecticut...

[bgwah]

Here is a quick update on the 3rd CD race:

Democrats Heck and Wallace have both announced their fundraising for the last quarter. Wallace raised $22,894 in the last quarter of 2009 and Heck raised $115,000 (plus $100,000 of his own money loaned to the campaign) in the last quarter, of which Heck's campaign only collected donations for the last eight days of, despite him not announcing until this January.

Meanwhile Republican Castillo had raised $53,874 raised as of Sept. 30 (I don't think he has reported his last quarter numbers yet).

http://www.theolympian.com/politicsblog/story/1103349.html


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Let the money flow and the race begin!

This race has been kind of hard to follow.

Are Heck and Wallace the only major Democrats running? I thought there was a third.

Does Castillo pose any real challenge to Herrera, or is Herrera basically a lock for the GOP side?

The primary could produce an interesting map. Both sides appear to be Thurston vs. Clark.

[bgwah]

State House committee kills pot legalization bill

Bummer.

Any chance the initiative will get enough signatures?

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Here is a quick update on the 3rd CD race:

Democrats Heck and Wallace have both announced their fundraising for the last quarter. Wallace raised $22,894 in the last quarter of 2009 and Heck raised $115,000 (plus $100,000 of his own money loaned to the campaign) in the last quarter, of which Heck's campaign only collected donations for the last eight days of, despite him not announcing until this January.

Meanwhile Republican Castillo had raised $53,874 raised as of Sept. 30 (I don't think he has reported his last quarter numbers yet).

http://www.theolympian.com/politicsblog/story/1103349.html


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Let the money flow and the race begin!

This race has been kind of hard to follow.

Are Heck and Wallace the only major Democrats running? I thought there was a third.

Does Castillo pose any real challenge to Herrera, or is Herrera basically a lock for the GOP side?

The primary could produce an interesting map. Both sides appear to be Thurston vs. Clark.

Craig Pridemore, a liberal State Senator from Vancouver, will also be a major player on the Democratic side.

DeBolt took the interesting step of endorsing Castillo over Herrera, which indicates to me that she's by no means a lock.

Castillo versus Wallace would be best geographically, I think.

[bgwah]

GOP caucus bans state Sen. Pam Roach, tells her to get anger counseling

LOL!!!

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Yeah, Roach will probably win. If the Democrats could find a decent candidate then I think it could be a possible bright spot in an otherwise dark year. It would be hard for Roach to overcome the recent news even with a favorable national climate in such a case, I think. But, since I don't think such an opponent will surface, she should win. Oh well!

My home district (5th LD) actually has two Democrats running for one seat now! Wow! They didn't even run one in 2006.

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Time to change the thread title.

Done.

Only if it's an income tax...

Agreed, though likelihood of that happening: 0%

A "fair tax" would probably be our best hope in Washington--a flat income tax that would replace the sales tax. I don't think a progressive income tax would ever pass, but a flat income tax that got rid of the sales tax may be an acceptable compromise that would certainly be preferable to our current system.

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And Murray finally gets a somewhat* serious opponent, State Sen. Benton (R-Vancouver): http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011011450_benton08m.html

*and by that I mean the only one who is actually an office holder. I don't think Murray will have any trouble taking down this tea bagger nut.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2011018519_dionne09.html?prmid=op_ed

lol I hope he isn't the Democratic candidate for Governor in 2012.

I actually like one of the silly right-wing comments for once: The funny thing about this story....which house was this Jay? The one in your old E. Washington district you got booted from or your new district?

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I'm pleasantly surprised to see that all the school levies are passing. I expected widespread defeat in the current political climate.

I don't expect to see any right-wing climate move across Washington this time, but I guess I could be wrong.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011039089_pendoreille11m.html

lol Republicans.

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So, I'm currently on the fence about getting involved in the Sensible Washington (I-1068) campaign for marijuana legalization.  All things considered, R-71 was organizationally boring.  Gays are a pretty establishment voting bloc by this point, and other than a few bar crawls, there wasn't much in the way of outreach to weird voters.  The grassroots people were also basically affluent society people, too.

On the other hand, I-1068 involvement so far has been exactly what I feared.  They can't take donations yet, because of concern over pro-pot funds being frozen (it's happened before.)  And one of the (self-appointed) local organizers is an anarchist who isn't registered to vote.  But fortunately I won't need to worry that he has some philosophical opposition to voter registration, because this is all explained by finding his 2006 conviction for felony vehicular assault.

Basically, I-1068 is shaping up for all my fears: The "grassroots" (snicker) are less composed, the base for GOTV/signature-collecting is less motivated and "with it," there's less money...basically signature-collecting will be a nightmare, and advertising won't be much better, if they even manage to collect enough signatures.  Which is doubtful.

I don't see I-1068 getting on the ballot, honestly...