Washington voters have some high-profile races on their primary ballots this week. Gov. Jay Inslee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Derek Kilmer are not seeking reelection. Meanwhile, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will try to hold on to her seat in the state’s 3rd District. In addition, attorney general, public lands commissioner and insurance commissioner are all open seats. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us to preview Washington’s top-two primary election.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Washington voters have some high-profile races on their primary ballots this week. With Jay Inslee not seeking a fourth term, an open governor’s seat is at the top of the list, but there are plenty of other statewide offices on the ballot in addition to open seats for Congress. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us now for a preview of Washington’s top-two primary election. Jeanie, welcome back.
Jeanie Lindsay: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Miller: So let’s start with this race for governor – this open seat – because three-term Democrat Jay Inslee chose not to run for reelection. Is there a leading Republican in the race?
Lindsay: Yes. There are two Republicans making some impact in the race, but former congressman and former King County sheriff, Dave Reichert, is clearly ahead on the Republican side – just in terms of polling numbers and money. What’s interesting about Reichert as the sort of front runner on the Republican side is that he doesn’t actually have the endorsement of the Washington State Republican Party. That went to the other Republican candidate that’s making any sort of polling or fundraising numbers, named Semi Bird. He’s a former Richland school board member who voted to repeal COVID mask mandates in 2021 before he was recalled, which has been a really interesting set-up for this race. But, Dave Reichert is sort of the one that is clearly ahead right now.
Miller: It seems that the most prominent Democrat is Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Are there other serious challengers among Democrats?
Lindsay: Well, there is State Senator Mark Mullett, who … I’m sort of calling them the “Core Four.” So, Semi Bird and Dave Reichert are on the Republican side. Then, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and State Senator Mark Mullett are on the Democrat side. But again, yeah, Bob Ferguson is much further ahead in terms of polling and fundraising. And Mark Mullett, he’s got some great branding, but he’s not doing as well as far as polling numbers go. So he’s trying to stay in the mix. But right now, it really feels like a face-off between Ferguson and Reichert because, even in the campaign, they’ve really been primarily focused on each other instead of these other two.
Miller: Can you remind us about the shenanigans involving other people named Bob Ferguson?
Lindsay: [Laughs] Yes. This was an interesting sort of blip in the governor’s race right around the filing deadline – when candidates were submitting their paperwork in order to get on the primary ballot; this was happening back in May. And it turned out that there was a conservative activist named Glen Morgan who had recruited several folks named Robert Ferguson or Bob Ferguson to file the money and the paperwork in order to get on the ballot.
That did not sit particularly well with Attorney General Bob Ferguson. So, after it became clear that there were multiple Bob Fergusons that had filed to run for governor, Attorney General Bob Ferguson held a press conference sort of condemning this move, suggesting that it was illegal because it read as an attempt to confuse voters and maybe dilute support from the Attorney General. So the Attorney General basically urged these other Bob Ferguson’s to drop out or potentially face legal action.
Those other Bob Fergusons ultimately did decide to withdraw their candidacies. They both released statements condemning the Attorney General for his threats of legal action and just the way he talked about it. It was a very interesting moment where we could have had multiple Bob Fergusons on the ballot; but ultimately, only one Bob Ferguson prevailed and is appearing on the primary this election.
Miller: All right. So that’s a little bit of a ballot weirdness question. But what issues have come to the fore in this primary?
Lindsay: As Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Dave Reichert have been campaigning, they’ve, like I said, really been focused on one another, as opposed to the other candidates that are sort of in the mix here. So, the Attorney General has been trying to connect Dave Reichert to former President Donald Trump. Ferguson has been criticizing Reichert’s take on abortion and trying to tie him to that issue. Reichert has been defending his stance on abortion as a personal take and saying that he does not want to change any of Washington’s abortion laws, things like that.
And public safety has also emerged as a key topic. Republicans have really been talking about public safety for quite some time, especially as Washington state has been changing some of the laws around policing, and drug criminalization or treatment, and that sort of stuff. And obviously, with Reichert’s history as a former King County sheriff, his history in law enforcement, he’s made that a central part of his identity as a candidate of his campaign and criticizing Ferguson for his role in public safety conversations during his time as Attorney General. So those have sort of been some of the key topics at this point. And I imagine we’ll see maybe an expansion of that or a continuation of that once we get past the primary.
Miller: Well, but sticking just for a second with a primary – for Oregonians, say, or even people in most states across the country who have just heard what you said, with a Republican and a Democrat in this primary more or less going after each other, this gets to the mechanism of Washington’s top-two primary. Can you just remind us the basics of how it works and who is sent to the general election in November?
Lindsay: Washington does not have a party primary system; so, anybody can vote for anybody in the primary, and anyone with the filing fee and the right paperwork can get on the primary ballot. So, for example, in the race for governor, we have 28 candidates that are going to be on the ballot. But the top two vote-getters from each race are the ones that appear on the ballot in November. Obviously, among those 28 candidates, there are only four that really have fundraising and polling numbers. And so the two that will face off in the fall – it doesn’t matter which political party they’re a part of; it’s whoever gets the majority of the votes in the primary goes to the general.
Miller: So, let’s turn to some other statewide offices. With Bob Ferguson running for governor, there is now an open seat for Attorney General. What does that race look like?
Lindsay: It’s interesting. This race for Attorney General has been, I want to say, a little more low-key than others. There are only two Democrats who are running and one Republican. The Republican is Pete Serrano and because there’s only one Republican in that race, he doesn’t really have to compete for the Republican vote. So, he is just sort of standing alone on the Republican side there.
And then the two Democrats: there’s a state senator, Manka Dhingra, who is a former King County prosecutor and then Nick Brown, who did work for current Governor Jay Inslee’s administration at one point. He’s also the former U.S. Attorney for Western Washington. So these two Democrats really have been sort of neck-and-neck. Right now, it’s looking like Nick Brown has a little bit of an edge, but it really could go either way. So this primary in the Attorney General’s race – if there are enough Republicans that come out to vote, Pete Serrano I could definitely see facing off with the Democrat in November. Right now, it’s really gonna be a decision for Democrats in this primary, in this particular race of whether they’ll send Manka Dhingra to the general election or Nick Brown.
Miller: What other statewide offices are you paying the most attention to?
Lindsay: The race for public lands commissioner in Washington is one that I’ve been watching and is gonna be really interesting to see unfold in the coming days. There are a handful of Democrats in this race and a couple of Republicans in the field. It seems pretty split. There was recent polling that just came out where a lot of voters in that race are undecided. It’s one of the most high-profile races in the state where voters seem to know fairly little about the office itself. So it’s very possible that two Republicans could go to the general in November.
Jaime Herrera Beutler, a former congresswoman from the 3rd Congressional District, she’s running for public lands commissioner in Washington. For folks who might remember her name but not the details: she was the one who lost her spot in Congress after she voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the January 6th attack at the U.S. Capitol. So she is trying to get back into the mix and this time is trying to vie for public lands commissioner.
But there are, like I said, a handful of Democrats where they very well could split the vote. So there’s a chance we could see sort of a, a rerun of the state treasurer’s race in 2016 where Democrats split the vote too much and Republicans faced off in November with not a Democrat on the ticket.
Miller: Well, speaking of that, I’m curious about the opposite possibility. So there are two other long-time Washington politicians, both members of Congress, who are not seeking reelection. Rep. Derek Kilmer is from a district that includes the Olympic Peninsula in Tacoma; it’s been held by a Democrat for almost 60 years. With the top-two primary system, what’s the chance that voters send two Democrats to the general election?
Lindsay: Well, I learned fairly early on in this job not to try and predict the future because when I do, I’m wrong. But if there are enough Democrats who get out the vote, Washington’s primary system certainly could allow for both of them to face off in November. I won’t say that that’s impossible because we’ve seen it happen before, But it’s unclear if they’ll do that.
There’s only sort of one Republican in that race: Drew MacEwen. And if he cruises through the primary buoyed by Republican support, Democrats would have to surpass whatever numbers he’s getting from Republican voters in order to make it an all-Democrat general election. And unlike some of the other races in the state, Republican Drew MacEwen is the only Republican with the state Republican Party’s support there. So, much like Pete Serrano in the Attorney General’s race, he’s not competing super actively for a lot of Republicans’ support. So even though the area is reliably Democratic in the general election historically, if Democrats are too split between these candidates that are sort of at the head here, it’s likely that there’s going to be a more typical Democrat versus Republican face-off in the general, where Democrats win by a large margin. But again, anything can happen in politics.
Miller: On the other side of the state, there’s Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers who is not running for reelection after 10 terms in the – I actually forget the number of the district – but it’s a red chunk of Eastern Washington. She was described recently by The Inlander as “arguably the most powerful political figure in Eastern Washington.” What will her departure mean?
Lindsay: She was first elected to the seat before iPhones were invented, and the person before her held that seat for 30 years. So there hasn’t been a ton of change or turnover in this particular position in the past half-century. And now we’re in a political era that’s largely defined by the political dealings of Donald Trump. So voters are going to decide who’s next to not only take on this role that has historically come with a lot of power … I mean, Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Her predecessor I believe was Speaker of the House at one point. So there’s definitely a lot of influence that can come from this position in Congress in this particular district. And so voters have a pretty big decision, and it could affect the trajectory or the positioning of this district at the federal level for decades to come.
The pool of candidates that are running for this position are really interesting, too. Voters are going to decide between a candidate who formerly worked in the Trump administration, a doctor who’s a Democrat who was inspired to run after abortion rights were overturned, and then there are a couple of other more local politicians, including the Spokane County treasurer and a state representative. So it’s just a really interesting mix of candidates and honestly gives voters a lot of options to decide what type of person they want in this position. And like I said, potentially someone who’s gonna be there for a really long time. While this side of the state is reliably conservative – McMorris Rodgers won re-election fairly easily, at least the last time around – there is a pretty interesting mix of folks across the political spectrum. So I’m certainly gonna be curious to see what happens there.
Miller: I want to turn, just briefly, to the national picture. In the last two weeks and a day, since President Biden dropped out and Vice President Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket, the national story has been that truly demoralized Democrats are now surprisingly energized. This is not a presidential primary, the Washington one – that was held back in March. But do you have a sense for whether that shake-up at the top of the ticket in November is going to translate at all to this primary?
Lindsay: It certainly could. I’m really curious about voter turnout. I just did a story about voter turnout and people voting in the primary election. And like you’re saying, Democrats in particular were not feeling very energized while Biden was at the top of the ticket. And the timing of the decision for him to drop out came right as voting was starting in Washington’s primary. So voters who are maybe feeling that renewed energy, Washington’s primary that’s happening right now is sort of the first chance for them to engage in the democratic process after this news came down. Of course, as you were saying, this is not a presidential primary, but I’m gonna be really curious what the turnout picture looks like.
These primary votes also include people who are going to be in Congress and U.S. Senate, and those are key players who will be engaging with whoever ends up being our next president. And as we’ve just talked about, in the case of Cathy McMorris Rodgers, those folks can have a lot longer staying power on the national stage compared to a term-limited White House, no matter who it is. So I think that’s a really big deal, and I think voters right now are just more tuned into that.
Miller: Before we say goodbye can you just remind us briefly what the rules are in terms of ballot returns for Washington voters?
Lindsay: Sure. Ballots have to be in a dropbox by 8 p.m. on Tuesday or postmarked on Election Day. Anybody who wants to register for votes still can do that, even on Election Day; they just have to go to their voting center. But again, you’ve got to be in line and your ballot’s gotta be delivered, or in the hands of an auditor or an elections official by 8 p.m. in order to be counted.
Miller: Jeanie, thanks very much.
Lindsay: Yeah, you’re welcome.
Miller: That’s Jeanie Lindsay, an Olympia correspondent.
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