Each year I talk to political experts, chat with regular people, and read the polls, then I venture forth with my best guess of who will win which offices.
As always, voter turnout is critical in individual candidate races. But with control of the state Legislatures and U.S. Congress in question, it becomes even more important. In our state, an 80 percent turnout is being forecast.
For president, we have two less-than-perfect candidates. Hillary Clinton is unpopular because her opponents don’t like her. Donald Trump is unpopular because he keeps insulting everyone. Trump went too far in his unyielding attacks on Latinos, Muslims, people with disabilities and women many months ago, and he should have been dismissed as a serious candidate then. But he managed to hang on. Voter tolerance, however, finally ran out after the most recent revelation of his shocking treatment of women and his failure to acknowledge our democratic traditions, should he lose the election. These finally tipped the scales for enough people. Clinton will win, even with new questions about her emails.
A bigger problem for Republicans is that Trump’s slipping popularity may cost them in down-ballot races, and it appears the Democrats could take control of the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives is likely to stay Republican.
All of our state’s incumbent members of Congress will win re-election regardless of political party. The race to replace Jim McDermott in Congress produced a great race that Pramila Jayapal looks likely to win. Chris Vance isn’t Patty Murray’s worst nightmare after all – she’ll also win re-election to the U.S. Senate. It’s worth noting, given the political risk in it, that Vance’s repudiation of Trump should be admired.
Gov. Jay Inslee has never trailed in the polls and will be re-elected, although two fellow Democrats, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, are counting the days until the 2020 gubernatorial primary. If the turnout gets close to projections, Democrats will sweep most of the statewide offices. However, a surprisingly close race for Lt. Governor between Democrat Cyrus Habib and Republican Marty McClendon continues. Habib’s background and source of campaign money has become an issue, but he probably still wins.
Other winners should be Ferguson for Attorney General, Hillary Franz for Public Lands Commissioner, Pat McCarthy as Auditor and Mike Kriedler as Insurance Commissioner. In a close race, Erin Jones should win as Superintendent of Public Instruction. However, since Democrats believe all people are welcome to run for anything, they had three candidates in the primary for State Treasurer while the Republicans had two. Since the job of the Treasurer is to keep track of numbers, one would have thought the Democrats would have figured out they would split the vote in a manner unfavorable for them. They didn’t, it did, and two Republicans advanced to the general election. Benton County Treasurer Duane Davidson is the likely winner over Michael Waite, although both have low election numbers because no one has ever heard of either of them.
Incumbent Secretary of State Kim Wyman is the only elected Republican to hold statewide office on the West Coast, and she’s well-respected for her efforts to register more voters despite that not always helping her or her party. This will be the highest total of voter registrations in state history, topping 4.2 million. It will be close, but she should hold off a spirited challenge from Democrat Tina Podlodowski.
The state Supreme Court races have attracted more political interest than usual. Incumbent Judges Mary Yu, Barbara Madsen and Charlie Wiggins supported the McCleary decision and ruled against charter schools, both of which angered several people with very big wallets like Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer and Kemper Freeman. The reaction from primarily conservatives was to support efforts to defeat the three incumbents with a slate of candidates. All three incumbents are still likely to win. But Wiggins, who is opposed by Federal Way’s Municipal Judge David Larson, may have the most trouble: the money poured in by the rich, dwarfs Wiggins’ contributions. Larson has said he’s not part of the slate, but since he agrees with most of the big-spending conservatives’ positions he gained their support and now benefits from a huge push in their advertising. That advertising attacks Wiggins for one court opinion while actually trying to defeat him on education issues that most voters support. The apparent attempt to buy a seat on the State Supreme Court may change how future court races are run.
With control of the Legislature at stake, every race is important. If there’s a big turnout statewide and independents lean toward Democrats then that party could take the state Senate. Republicans are defending three key legislative districts: District 41 on Mercer Island, District 17 in Vancouver and District 10 up north. It looks like the Republicans will lose Mercer Island but retain the other two for a 25-24 margin.
In the House of Representatives, expect the Democrats to increase their current 50-48 margin by at least two. Locally, the 30th District is considered a swing district depending on the year. However, the two incumbent Republicans were thought to be safe. Their Democratic challengers have mounted a better-than-expected battle. With approximately 30 percent of the district thought to be independent voters, some pundits think the two Republicans’ unwillingness to distance themselves from Donald Trump may play a role in the outcome.
The battle between incumbent Republican Linda Kochmar and Democratic challenger Mike Pellicciotti has gotten rough ever since Pellicciotti bested Kochmar in the primary. It doesn’t appear that result will change – look for a Pellicciotti win. The other local race, between Republican incumbent Teri Hickel and Democratic challenger Kristine Reeves, was a toss-up in the primary and remains so now. Mailers by special interest groups have been hard-hitting but, unfortunately, they’ve also been inaccurate. A Democratic year favors Reeves in a close one.
The County Charter amendments to change to gender neutral language and make the County Prosecutor a non-partisan office should both pass, and the change in language for the prosecutor may add more candidates for the job in the future.
Sound Transit 3 (ST3) isn’t looking good outside of Seattle. Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell and the City Council spent months working to ensure that the route to Federal Way would follow I-5 because it was cheaper and would go near the new Performing Arts and Events Center rather than down Pacific Highway, where most of the potential riders actually live. Even though Sound Transit says rail won’t come to Federal Way unless ST3 passes, our leaders have suddenly grown timid. Ferrell and council members Jeanne Burbidge and Lydia Assefa-Dawson support it, but Susan Honda, Martin Moore and Dini Duclos will vote no. Kelly Maloney and Mark Koppang wouldn’t give an answer. Since Maloney could have interest in higher office in the future and Koppang is already eyeing the mayor’s chair it seems an odd time to leave leadership to others.
The most recent Elway poll shows I-1501 (consumer fraud), I-1491 (extreme risk protection), I-1433 (minimum wage) and I-735 (campaign spending) are all likely to pass. I-732 (adding a carbon tax) is hovering at 40 percent support; the opposition is at 32 percent. It’s confusing since it both raises and lowers taxes, but if it passes it will be a net financial loss for the state at a time when financial resources are needed to help fund education. With 28 percent undecided, this one’s too close call. I-1464 (campaign finance), lastly, doesn’t seem to be catching on.
South King Fire and Rescue’s proposal is likely to pass.
The public will make major choices this year. Let’s hope they are the right ones.
Federal Way resident Bob Roegner is the former mayor of Auburn. He can be reached at bjroegner@comcast.net.
