Washington state megathread

[RI]

New matchbacks are starting to drop. ~45% of the vote or more to be counted still. Much more R than earlier votes.

[RI]

WA-08 R Primary:

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Larkin blue, Dunn red, Jensen green, Stephenson yellow.

More coming.

[RI]

WA-03 Primary:

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Red is Perez, Blue is JHB, Orange is Kent, Green is St. John.

[RI]

Not a lot to hang my hat on in my race, but my hometown paper, which leans pretty strongly left and endorsed my opponent, had some nice words to say about me:

Rohla is an intriguing candidate. Bucking a Republican trend — at least at the national level — Rohla said he is not afraid to call out extreme views within his own party, and rebukes the election lies of former president Donald Trump. He presents himself as a skilled moderate problem-solver and would have much to offer fellow lawmakers, particularly on economic issues.

[RI]

I feel like she's still too conservative for WA in a similar way that Smiley was, but better than Culp for sure.

Her last votes in congress (same sex marriage, birth control, abortion, etc.) will certainly come back to haunt her.

Probably, but they're also vastly less well-known compared to her impeachment vote and getting primaried by a far right Putin supporter. I'm sure the Dems will push those votes hard and probably succeed as it's Washington, but who knows; being pro-life didn't hurt prominent anti-Trump Republicans like DeWine and Kemp.

Personally, I really like JHB and would gladly support her, possibly even volunteer.

[RI]

The capital gains ruling is horrific judicial reasoning, but that's par for the course for the Washington Supreme Court, and the tax as it stands barely impacts anyone so it won't have much political effect. Given their (specious) reasoning in the case, I don't see how a wealth tax stands, but I bet they'd uphold an income tax. Dems should be careful for what they wish for there, though; an income tax is the one thing I could see blowing up in their faces enough to lose power.

I don't see the Governor's race being very interesting on the Dem side. It's Inslee's if he wants it, Ferguson's otherwise. The R side will either be JHB or some Culp acolyte such as Semi Bird (lol). Dammeier could've made it interesting against Ferguson, but likely would've lost; JHB might make it somewhat closer than usual, but she'd lose as well.

[RI]

Inslee is not running for re-election.

Congrats to Governor Ferguson.

[RI]

Unsurprisingly, Ferguson announced an exploratory committee to run for governor today.

[RI]

Is there anyone else seriously challenging Ferguson, or is this basically gonna be a coronation?

Could Hilary Franz win?

There's an outside chance of her winning if it's a Ferguson vs. Franz general election. Would require her pulling in significant Republican support while winning most non-progressive Democrats.

[RI]

Manka Dhingra is running for AG. Lord have mercy.

Raul Garcia has filed for Governor on the Republican side. At least he's a halfway decent option.

[RI]

Manka Dhingra is running for AG. Lord have mercy.

Raul Garcia has filed for Governor on the Republican side. At least he's a halfway decent option.

What specifically about Dhingra makes her unqualified?

She's not "unqualified" in any narrow sense. I just view her as everything we don't need in an AG. She was the senator pushing the garbage report alleging the police pursuit ban was necessary to save bystander lives, and she's been the key obstacle blocking efforts to fix that policy for multiple sessions. The Seattle Times even endorsed her Republican opponent (very rare!) last year and labeled her as "out of touch" and "intransigent." She'd put Washington's soft-on-crime nonsense into overdrive.

[RI]

What happened in the state of Washington in the midterms is also a clue, Republicans gained in Minority areas of the state and Democrats with Whites, the result was Democrats picking up an extra Seat because Minority Seats were Safe Seats.

So the "brown vote" doesn't matter that much until the GOP wins 60% with them, instead of the current 40%, but it's getting there slowly. I say around 2032.

Can someone who's familiar with 2022 results in the various King County Seattle suburbs and Tacoma give a detailed breakdown of what happened here? Or how much of the Yakima Valley House, Senate, and State Legislature swings were from turnout changes vs persuasion?

Would be nice if someone has access to precinct data (and knowledge of spatial distribution/turnout patterns of POC voters) for congressional and state-level races.

In Snohomish County, about 75% as many white voters turned out in 2022 as compared to 2020, whereas it was about 55% as many Hispanics and blacks and 60% as many Asians. Among Asians, South Asians retained higher turnout levels while Southeast Asians dropped off more heavily.

Yakima County had very few D vs R legislative races in Hispanic areas. The three small, highly Hispanic cities of Grandview, Sunnyside, and Toppenish saw large swings to Smiley compared to Trump (29% on average vs 21% for the county as a whole); Smiley actually won Sunnyside outright despite being 85% Hispanic and voting 64% Biden. Turnout was down by 53% in these cities compared to 2020 whereas turnout was only down 35% countywide.

All of this suggests a strong turnout effect for Hispanics in 2022, although I wouldn't rule out a persuasion effect.

King and Pierce don't really have too many areas which are strongly of one ethnic group. I'd have to do a lot more digging there to get better information than I can do quickly.

[RI]

Hilary Franz is officially in.

does she have a chance to beat Ferguson in the primary? If I could vote in the election I'd cast my ballot for Franz over Ferguson.

Doubtful in the primary. Her best bet is a fractured GOP field producing a Ferguson v. Franz general.

[RI]

Lot of noise that Dave Reichert will run for Governor. Dammeier is already endorsing him.

[RI]

Dave Reichert has filed with the PDC to run for governor.

[RI]

Garcia has dropped out of the Governor's race and endorsed Reichert. He will run against Cantwell.

It seems the Governor's race will likely be Ferguson vs Reichert. Reichert is about the best the GOP can do here. My initial guess is Ferguson wins 53-47.

[RI]

Garcia has dropped out of the Governor's race and endorsed Reichert. He will run against Cantwell.

It seems the Governor's race will likely be Ferguson vs Reichert. Reichert is about the best the GOP can do here. My initial guess is Ferguson wins 53-47.

Only issue with this is if both JHB  and Reichart run, the field is divided enough for an eastern crazy type to have a clear shot towards losing the runoff in November.

I doubt JHB runs at this point. I've heard nothing about the possibility in some time. There's also a very strong emphasis within the state party about unifying early to prevent a Culp situation.

[RI]

General MacArthur sounds like his namesake when he talks about "socialism" lol

But how serious is Dave Reichert's candidacy? Surely the best anyone in the GOP could do here these days is what 55-45? Isn't he pro-life?

Well, someone in the mold of Kim Wyman or her republican predecessor (Sam Reed) could even win - narrowly. It's another matter how many such politicians remain in Republican party...

The issue is that, nowadays, there may be politicians like this in the Republican Party, but if enough of them exist to overcome a more Trumpy candidate in the blanket primary.

They actually can and do make the general, but they don't win regardless. I know of at least four anti-Trump, pro-choice R legislative candidates who made the general election last year, and all lost with maybe a four-point bump above Smiley.

[RI]

General MacArthur sounds like his namesake when he talks about "socialism" lol

But how serious is Dave Reichert's candidacy? Surely the best anyone in the GOP could do here these days is what 55-45? Isn't he pro-life?

Well, someone in the mold of Kim Wyman or her republican predecessor (Sam Reed) could even win - narrowly. It's another matter how many such politicians remain in Republican party...

The issue is that, nowadays, there may be politicians like this in the Republican Party, but if enough of them exist to overcome a more Trumpy candidate in the blanket primary.

They actually can and do make the general, but they don't win regardless. I know of at least four anti-Trump, pro-choice R legislative candidates who made the general election last year, and all lost with maybe a four-point bump above Smiley.

Wyman won in 2020 nevertheless.... And rather convincingly (7+% margin). Despite state going eavily for Biden and most other Democratic candidates. If Massachusetts could go for Baker, Maryland - for Hogan and with Vermont - still easily going for Scott, Washington state can as well....

It only worked for Wyman because she was an incumbent running for what many view as an anti-partisan or at least non-partisan office in practice. Her opponent left a lot of be desired, as well. Tarleton's voters guide statement isn't too far off from what MAGA-types would be claiming today.

[RI]

Presented without comment.

[RI]

I didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped, but I made it through the primary.

[RI]

I didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped, but I made it through the primary.

what are you running for?

An open school board seat for my city.

[RI]

Map of the three-way Snohomish County Auditor primary from Tuesday. Technically nonpartisan, but effectively D vs R vs I, where the Independent is the incumbent and the Republican is a hardcore election denier who was primaried by a moderate R last year. The D and I advanced:

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[RI]

Spokane mayor primary map:



Tim Archer ran to the right of Woodward, so you'd expect his vote to mostly flow to her.

[RI]

A certain aforementioned primary: