Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Left Wing]

Washington should adopt the Louisiana primary model. It doesn't make much sense to hold another election if one candidate gets more than half the vote. Inslee will get a majority in the primary but because of the top-two system we have to hold another election in which Eyeman will get smoked.

[Left Wing]

Steve Hobbs dropped out of the race for LG. He was just endorsed by Gary Locke and Brad Owen. It is a good choice. He will only split the moderate vote between him and Denny Heck. Latest polls showed Heck in first with Brumbles and Hobbs tied for second.

[Left Wing]

I can't wait for the August primary!
I can't imagine Eyman losing given his name recognition. Maybe Fortunato could've given him a bit of a challenge if it wasn't for COVID and BLM protests.

I think Freed is more likely to come ahead of Eyeman than Fortunato.

[Left Wing]

https://www.thestranger.com/news/2020/07/17/44101127/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-4-2020-primary-election
The stranger released their endorsements

[Left Wing]

Unfortunately, The Stranger continues to have an absurd amount of sway in Seattle.  They probably have the most power-relative-to-quality ratio of any publication in the United States.

They have a firm grip on 95% of the 18-35 population here as well as all the aging socialists, potheads and creative types.  Your only alternative is the Seattle Times, which requires you to take life seriously, or a ragtag collection of right-leaning outlets that nobody really takes seriously except for the small Republican pockets in Magnolia and Madison.

And what they do with that grip is simply endorse the most extreme candidate in every race and let a bunch of stoners who never went to J-school write Buzzfeed-style endorsement blurbs.  It's incredibly immature but that's how politics is done in this city.

It is pretty hard to read because of how smug it it constantly. I’m at least glad they endorsed Franz and Inslee and not their far-left challengers

[Left Wing]

Reading the info for Cameron Whitney in my voter pamphlet made me laugh so hard.

[Left Wing]

Will Heck or Liias win the Culp vote?

[Left Wing]

Joseph Brumbles underperformed by a lot

[Left Wing]

For the Washington posters, who are you hoping to win, Liias or Heck?

Heck. He is more experienced and I agree with him on the issues more. Liias doesn’t seem ready to be governor.

[Left Wing]

You also have to wonder whether the recent developments in Seattle have pushed the electorate to the right.  The left has truly created an abysmal political environment for themselves here.

There's nothing but bad news here, the city has truly gone off the deep end.  We've had CHAZ, defunding, rioting and looting, and the junkie/hoarder encampments crisis, all boosted and defended by the city.  We recently passed a major tax that is explicitly designed to destroy our tax base by forcing Amazon out of the city.  And there are other major economic mismanagement issues that don't get much attention, like two critical failing bridges (W Seattle and Magnolia) that the city refuses to take seriously.  The city is completely held hostage by activists, who generate unflattering news reports every day with their hostile tactics.

I am a hardcore Democrat and I would happily vote for any Republican at the municipal level right now.  I'm certainly not the only person feeling that way.  That doesn't mean I would vote for a Republican for governor or congress, but others may not make that distinction.

You voting for Kim Wyman this year?

I don’t see how who the secretary is really affects anything other than voting. Wyman has disenfranchised voters.

[Left Wing]

There's absolutely no way this will end well, and I see pretty much nobody on either side of the Democrat-leftist divide really caring about it except for the very local politicians with no power to actually enact anything.

It's all part of this grand scheme to try to get people to commute by bike, I'm sure. Of course, nobody realizes that Magnolia is surrounded by incredibly steep hills on every side and nobody is going to want their commute home to end with a strenuous workout.

FWIW, I live in Capitol Hill and I care about you guys.  I love walking around Magnolia and looking at all the beautiful houses and old trees and big flowery gardens.  Are y'all still dealing with a rat infestation or did you get that worked out?

As far as I know, it's been fixed. We never really had that many rats in our area and I was kind of surprised to see those headlines at the time. The main pest on my block has always been ants. Also, I had no idea you lived in core Sawantist territory. Kind of explains some of your political views, I suppose.

My political views have been consistent for years.  I have a special vitriol for Sawant because she and her acolytes directly affect my life in so many ways.  Local politics is always much more impactful.  Trump isn't setting up junkie encampments in Miller Park.

The idea that political movements I identify with and the votes they cast make your day-to-day life worse and have made you the red-in-the-face angry NIMBY WASP you are today, fills me with so much glee.

Sawant is a nimby

[Left Wing]

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-to-watch-gov-jay-inslee-and-challenger-loren-culps-first-debate-oct-7/
Inslee-Culp Debate tomorrow

[Left Wing]

https://mobile.twitter.com/cj_mcmahon/status/1314039391568896000
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jim_Brunner/status/1314039246148128770

[Left Wing]

Inslee won the debate. He didn’t excel but Culp dug himself into a hole by denying global warming. Inslee basically just tied Culp to Trump the entire debate and that’s all he really needs to do.

[Left Wing]

It’s likely not going to be that close but why did you use such an old picture of Culp?

[Left Wing]

It’s likely not going to be that close but why did you use such an old picture of Culp?

Eh, jungles are pretty good predictors on the statewide in Washington lately, and that is close to the jungle results overall. What are you talking about? That is Loren Culp now.

That’s a picture of him when he was like 25 or something
This is him now:

[Left Wing]

Asking our Washington posters: do we have any updates on how things look in WA-08, because that was very close in the primary, which is often predictive of generals in Washington?

My anecdotal evidence is that Kim Schrier ads are on TV constantly and I’ve only ever seen her opponent’s ad once.

[Left Wing]

Culp is now refusing to concede the results. He says it "smells fishy." His only evidence is that he thinks referendum 90 shouldn't have passed. He has started a new video blog called "Lunch with Loren." It seems like he is just taking cues from how Trump is handling this.

[Left Wing]

So if Inslee takes off for a role in the Biden administration how does the special election for Governor work?

Is there a primary or is there just one big free-for-all ballot?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is a special election. I think Denny Heck would just become governor serve out the rest of Inslee's term.

[Left Wing]

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/jessyn-farrell-former-state-representative-announces-bid-to-become-seattles-next-mayor/

Jessyn Farrell in

[Left Wing]

As someone who's recently moved to WA, I have to ask. What is wrong with the WA GOP that they're so irrelevant? Do they just have no somewhat competent candidates? Or is it more a branding issue? Gotta be some reason that they haven't won in literally decades.

I mean part of it is just that Washington state is a fundamentally Democratic state and demographics are only getting more and more favorable for the Dems here. One of the problems for the WA GOP seems to be trying to thread the needle of moderate and trumpist Republicans. They tried nice friendly moderates(although it’s debatable how accurate this is) with Dino Rossi, Rob McKenna and Bill Bryant and while they all were able to keep the loss in single digits, there just weren’t quite enough persuadable Washington Democrats. Now this year, they tried a much more fringe Trumpist Republican candidate in Loren Culp. He openly embraced conspiracy theories throughout the campaign and ruthlessly attacked Inslee. As we can see from the swing map this played well in NE and SW rural Washington, but King county and sorrounding areas swung sharply D, handing Inslee a double digit win  statewide:


So basically, the WA GOP can’t really figure out to get a wide base of support in the state and it’s only going to get more difficult unless Seattle stops growing and becomes more economically depressed.

[Left Wing]

It honestly depends on the candidate with that too, I mean Sawant was down by like 12 on election night in 2019 and won by four in the end, a similar outperformance could translate to like a one point Davison win. A lot of it really depends on how voting patterns since 2019 have changed

[Left Wing]

SAlt has literally no presence in Washington or even Seattle outside of Sawant

[Left Wing]

Currently conservatives lead on all seven Seattle City Council races, but the progressive shift with late ballots should flip at least four of them to the progressive column.