Rob McKenna concedes gubernatorial race; congratulates Governor-elect Jay Inslee

Repub­li­can Rob McKen­na is final­ly throw­ing in the towel.

After hav­ing spent sev­er­al days main­tain­ing that there was still a viable path to vic­to­ry over Jay Inslee, McKen­na and his cam­paign team have come to the same con­clu­sion that we reached when we assessed the race dur­ing the last few min­utes of Novem­ber 6th: Jay Inslee is going to be Wash­ing­ton’s next governor.

Rob McKen­na’s cam­paign announced in a con­fer­ence call with reporters that McKen­na called Demo­c­rat Jay Inslee a short while ago to con­cede the 2012 guber­na­to­r­i­al race and con­grat­u­late Inslee on his victory.

McKen­na’s staff have updat­ed the cam­paign web­site to promi­nent­ly fea­ture a thank-you video from the can­di­date. The tran­script of this video is as follows:

Friends, today we come to the end of a long journey.

Despite the extra­or­di­nary efforts of our vol­un­teers, donors, staff, and every­one who’s been part of Team McKen­na, it appears we will fall short of vic­to­ry when the last bal­lots are count­ed. After sev­en­teen months of hard work, that is a very dis­ap­point­ing result.

I’ve just placed a call to Con­gress­man Inslee to offer my con­grat­u­la­tions, and to wish him the best as Wash­ing­ton’s next governor.

The new admin­is­tra­tion will face many vex­ing issues — not least, how to ade­quate­ly fund and reform our schools. And I’m hope­ful that all of Wash­ing­ton’s elect­ed lead­ers can work togeth­er to move us forward.

I’m proud of the cam­paign we’ve run, of our top-notch cam­paign team, and of the thou­sands of vol­un­teers who got involved because they saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make our state bet­ter than it is and as good as it can be.

Run­ning for gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton has been a pro­found priv­i­lege, and has taught me much about the peo­ple of this great state. It has been a thor­ough­ly enrich­ing and grat­i­fy­ing expe­ri­ence, even though it ulti­mate­ly has not result­ed in the oppor­tu­ni­ty I sought to serve you as your next governor.

The most grat­i­fy­ing aspect of run­ning has been meet­ing thou­sands of peo­ple in every cor­ner of our state. They don’t all share the same expe­ri­ences, or exact­ly the same views about gov­ern­ment and soci­ety, or about how we can best meet the chal­lenges our state faces, but they are all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans through and through, and they love this state.

My sup­port­ers among them have been the bedrock of my cam­paign through­out this con­test. Togeth­er, we con­tact­ed more vot­ers, raised more mon­ey, received more endorse­ments, and had the broad­est out­reach of any guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign in at least a gen­er­a­tion. That’s some­thing of which we can all be proud.

To those of you who knocked on doors, made hours of phone calls, put up yard signs, held fundrais­ers, and reached out to your friends and fam­i­ly to explain why you sup­port­ed me, thank you, from my the bot­tom of my heart. It has meant so much to me, to Mar­i­lyn, and to our entire fam­i­ly, and it is very hum­bling to all of us that you have invest­ed so much of your own blood, sweat, and tears into this effort. I will nev­er for­get you.

I’d also like to thank all of the coali­tions that came togeth­er to work with me to sup­port my cam­paign and to cre­ate out­reach into our state’s many var­ied com­mu­ni­ties. Groups like Asian-Amer­i­cans for McKen­na, Lati­nos for McKen­na, our vet­er­ans’ coali­tion, Women for McKen­na, and Democ­rats for Rob includ­ed some of my most ener­getic sup­port­ers. Oth­er key sup­port came from hun­dreds of small busi­ness own­ers who expressed their frus­tra­tions about state gov­ern­ment to me and who worked with me for a day when the state will actu­al­ly make it eas­i­er for them to suc­ceed and to grow.

Those of you in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty have been among my staunchest back­ers, always, and my dear­est friends, and it has been my priv­i­lege as Attor­ney Gen­er­al to assist you in mak­ing our state safer.

And then there are my friends work­ing for edu­ca­tion reform and for a state that will ful­ly fund our schools. You’ll also always have my grat­i­tude. Groups like Stand for Chil­dren and the Pub­lic School Employ­ees of Wash­ing­ton are work­ing hard every day to make our schools, our edu­ca­tion sys­tem bet­ter. I applaud you for your work, and I thank you for your sup­port as well.

I also owe a deep debt of grat­i­tude to my fam­i­ly for their incred­i­ble love and sup­port over the years. Being a pub­lic offi­cial and run­ning for office — espe­cial­ly statewide — are not nine-to-five jobs. They require a lot of long days and week­ends on the road — but my fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly my wife Mar­i­lyn and our four amaz­ing chil­dren, nev­er wavered and are always there for me and for each oth­er. I love you all very, very much.

As the year draws to a close, my ser­vice as Attor­ney Gen­er­al is also wind­ing down. What an incred­i­ble eight years it has been, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly. I will always cher­ish the friend­ships I have made in my office, and through­out the attor­ney gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty nation­wide, as well as our achieve­ments togeth­er on behalf of the best clients a lawyer could hope for: the Amer­i­can peo­ple themsleves.

My vision eight years ago was to lead the Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office to become the best pub­lic law office in Amer­i­ca, and we have achieved that goal. To my col­leagues there, please, con­tin­ue work­ing hard for Wash­ing­ton’s peo­ple, and please con­tin­ue being the best at what you do. Our office’s lead­er­ship may be chang­ing, but being the best will always begin with each of you.

Many of you may be curi­ous about what I’ll do next, and right now, that’s up in the air. But pub­lic ser­vice is a part of my DNA, as you know from the sto­ries I’ve told about my par­ents. So you can be sure that I will con­tin­ue to stay involved in my com­mu­ni­ty, for exam­ple, by work­ing for edu­ca­tion reform, in Rotary, through the Boy Scouts, and work­ing in every way I can to cre­ate a bet­ter future for our young people.

Thanks again to all of you watch­ing this for all you have done for my fam­i­ly, my cam­paign, and me, and for the lead­er­ship you’ve shown through­out this amaz­ing jour­ney. May God con­tin­ue to bless Amer­i­ca, the State of Wash­ing­ton, and each of you.

Thank you very much.

Though the Wash­ing­ton State press corps have expressed an inter­est in doing a post­morterm with McKen­na, the can­di­date has no plans to speak with reporters, accord­ing to his cam­paign man­ag­er Randy Pepple.

McKen­na’s con­ces­sion has no legal sig­nif­i­cance, but it does rep­re­sent the con­tin­u­a­tion of an impor­tant tra­di­tion in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics: acknowl­edg­ing the win­ner of a pop­u­lar elec­tion and accept­ing defeat with grace.

In about two months, Jay Inslee will be sworn in as Wash­ing­ton’s twen­ty-third gov­er­nor. He is the fourth Demo­c­rat to be con­sec­u­tive­ly elect­ed to the state’s high­est office (his pre­de­ces­sors were Booth Gard­ner, Mike Lowry, Gary Locke, and Chris Gre­goire). Democ­rats have con­trolled the gov­er­nor’s man­sion for twen­ty-eight years, and will now hold it for at least anoth­er four.

Inslee held a news con­fer­ence Fri­day evening at his cam­paign head­quar­ters on Rainier Avenue in Seat­tle to cel­e­brate with his team and pledge to serve one hun­dred per­cent of the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State.

Dwight Pelz, the enig­mat­ic chair­man of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, was quick to react to McKen­na’s concession.

“I could­n’t be more excit­ed that, after run­ning a fan­tas­tic cam­paign and pro­vid­ing such a strong vision for our state, Jay Inslee is going to be our next gov­er­nor. Wash­ing­ton now has a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to be a leader in the 21st Cen­tu­ry econ­o­my, improve our edu­ca­tion sys­tem, and build on the state’s incred­i­ble resources to move for­ward,” Pelz said in a statement.

“There is much work to do, but Jay Inslee is the right leader for Wash­ing­ton. Rob McKen­na ran a great cam­paign, and proved to be a very strong can­di­date in yet anoth­er tough con­test. But we’ve always thought Jay had the best vision for our state, and the vot­ers agreed.”

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to Jay and the great team that helped in this effort.”