Democrats appear well-poised to once again win a majority in Washington’s state Senate

This morn­ing, when I clicked over to Cross­cut from NPI’s Pacif­ic NW Por­tal (where I usu­al­ly begin my dai­ly rounds), I noticed, with some amuse­ment, that for­mer Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty chair­man Chris Vance had post­ed yet anoth­er one of his Repub­li­cans are doing great and well-posi­tioned for the next elec­tion columns, which he has been churn­ing out in one form or anoth­er for years.

The piece serves as Vance’s com­men­tary on the Top Two elec­tion more broad­ly, but the head­line and teas­er plain­ly reflect the nar­ra­tive that Vance is no doubt anx­ious to see edi­to­r­i­al writ­ers, prog­nos­ti­ca­tors, and reporters adopt:

Repub­li­cans appear well-poised to hold state Senate
Inside Pol­i­tics: Incom­ing pri­ma­ry results are sway­ing right, a like­ly pre­dic­tor of what the Novem­ber results will be.

Vance’s piece buries the lede and begins with com­men­tary on the con­gres­sion­al races, but he even­tu­al­ly does offer his opin­ion of the Sen­ate contests.

Hav­ing sur­veyed the elec­toral land­scape and looked at the num­bers in the swing dis­tricts, Vance declares that Democ­rats “appear to face long odds in their quest to gain two seats and retake con­trol of the state Sen­ate floor”. He then goes on to pre­dict (unsur­pris­ing­ly) a Repub­li­can vic­to­ry in every sin­gle com­pet­i­tive race, with the excep­tion of the 35th LD, in the event that Tim Shel­don fails to advance.

Vance’s assess­ment rep­re­sents wish­ful think­ing on the part of Repub­li­cans. They’d like us all to believe that that the win­now­ing elec­tion is an all-impor­tant barom­e­ter. Con­sid­er this excerpt from a piece Vance wrote for Cross­cut in 2010:

Make no mis­take, the [Top Two] results do func­tion as a rough poll.  Past elec­tions have demon­strat­ed that the results in Novem­ber rarely devi­ate more than a few per­cent­age points from the [Top Two elec­tion] results. We now know with a high degree of cer­tain­ty which races will be close, and which races are already over.

Actu­al­ly, what the elec­toral his­to­ry shows is that there is plen­ty of devi­a­tion. The Top Two and Novem­ber gen­er­al (runoff would be a more accu­rate term) are sep­a­rate elec­tions. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing differences:

• The Top Two takes place in August when few­er peo­ple are pay­ing atten­tion to pol­i­tics; the gen­er­al takes place in mid-autumn after a mul­ti-week cam­paign sea­son that draws far more news cov­er­age and interest.
• The Top Two typ­i­cal­ly has low turnout; the gen­er­al elec­tion (par­tic­u­lar­ly in even-num­bered years) typ­i­cal­ly has much high­er turnout.
• The Top Two fea­tures con­tests with many can­di­dates, in the gen­er­al, there are only two can­di­dates com­pet­ing for each position.

The results of the Top Two are cer­tain­ly inter­est­ing, but not indica­tive or pre­dic­tive of what will hap­pen in Novem­ber. A can­di­date can “lose” in the Top Two (in oth­er words, come in sec­ond place) but win in the gen­er­al elec­tion, as Suzan Del­Bene did in 2012 against John Koster in the 1st Con­gres­sion­al District.

A can­di­date can also appear weak in the Top Two, but go on to win in the general.

For instance, Tami Green, who is chal­leng­ing Steve O’Ban in the 28th, found her­self well under fifty per­cent in the August 2010 win­now­ing elec­tion four years ago with just 47%. Her two Repub­li­can oppo­nents com­bined gar­nered 53% of the vote. She was one of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic House incum­bents that Vance and oth­er Repub­li­can oper­a­tives con­sid­ered to be vul­ner­a­ble. But she went on to win, ulti­mate­ly cap­tur­ing 51% of the vote in the gen­er­al in a tough year for Democrats.

If elec­toral per­for­mance mat­ters so much to Vance, why does­n’t he fac­tor the results of the 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 gen­er­al elec­tions fac­tor into his analy­sis? Maybe it’s because it would under­mine his narrative.

See, the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State have been con­sis­tent­ly elect­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic majori­ties to the House and Sen­ate for a decade now.

Even in 2010, a dif­fi­cult year for Democ­rats, the par­ty man­aged to retain con­trol of both the state House and the Sen­ate, after Vance sug­gest­ed they might not in numer­ous install­ments of his “Repub­li­can Par­ty Ris­ing” series.

Vance did­n’t con­fine him­self to prog­nos­ti­cat­ing on leg­isla­tive races in those install­ments, either. For instance, on August 18th, 2010, Vance wrote:

For months, many polit­i­cal observers have scoffed at the idea that Pat­ty Mur­ray was in dan­ger of los­ing. Now all doubt should be gone. Sen. Mur­ray is a for­mi­da­ble politi­cian, but she has had the good for­tune to be on the bal­lot in years when the tide was run­ning against Repub­li­cans in Wash­ing­ton state. Now the oppo­site is true. This race is a toss-up, with the slight­est of advan­tages going to Dino Rossi.

All doubt should be gone, eh? The slight­est of advan­tages to Dino Rossi?

Just a few weeks lat­er, of course, Pat­ty Mur­ray proved she could win regard­less of whether polit­i­cal head­winds were with her or against her. Ini­tial results showed Mur­ray ahead on Elec­tion Night; Rossi con­ced­ed the race with­in twen­ty-four hours, hav­ing lost his third straight statewide elec­tion. Mur­ray ulti­mate­ly pre­vailed with 52.36% of the vote — not her best-ever show­ing, but cer­tain­ly respectable giv­en the polit­i­cal cli­mate and the mon­ey spent against her by Rossi’s Repub­li­can backers.

Nowhere in his lat­est piece for Cross­cut does Vance admit that the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State have elect­ed a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty to gov­ern the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate for five cycles in a row. Repub­li­cans did not win con­trol of the Sen­ate in the 2012 elec­tions; they came to pow­er thanks to a post-elec­tion coup that they engi­neered with Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don. It’s more accu­rate to say that Repub­li­cans are try­ing to win a major­i­ty, as opposed to hold­ing one.

Rod­ney Tom has since decid­ed to retire, a devel­op­ment Vance described as “ter­ri­ble news for the Repub­li­cans” in an inter­view with Austin Jenkins.

Tom’s suc­ces­sor will almost cer­tain­ly be Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cyrus Habib, who is win­ning more than 60% of the vote in the 48th LD.

Tom’s sud­den retire­ment in April reset the map back to where it was fol­low­ing Nathan Schlicher’s defeat last autumn to Jan Angel, leav­ing Democ­rats in a posi­tion of need­ing to win in two of the sev­er­al swing dis­tricts that have a tra­di­tion of elect­ing both Democ­rats and Republicans.

Among those are the 30th (in south King Coun­ty), the 45th (in east­ern King Coun­ty), and 28th (in west­ern Pierce Coun­ty). Repub­li­cans Andy Hill and Steve O’Ban rep­re­sent the lat­ter two. In the for­mer, Democ­rats are try­ing to hold on to the Sen­ate seat that is being vacat­ed by Tracey Eide.

The Repub­li­cans recruit­ed for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mark Milos­cia, who holds a siz­able lead in ear­ly returns. The Democ­rats are send­ing up Shari Song, who has roots in the dis­trict but is not well known there. Song unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran against Rea­gan Dunn last year for King Coun­ty Council.

The real­i­ty is that there are mul­ti­ple paths to a Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ry in Novem­ber, which is the basis for the title of this post, a riff on Vance’s head­line for Cross­cut. In Matt Isen­how­er and Tami Green, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has two strong chal­lengers to Hill and O’Ban, who are prob­a­bly the Repub­li­cans’ most vul­ner­a­ble incumbents.

If the Repub­li­cans did­n’t think Green and Isen­how­er could beat their can­di­dates, they would­n’t have spent big sums on ear­ly inde­pen­dent expen­di­tures against them. Isen­how­er was the tar­get of duplic­i­tous con­cern trolling, while Green had every­thing but the kitchen sink thrown at her in attack mail­ers and tele­vi­sion ads.

A com­bined Isenhower/Green vic­to­ry is one path­way to vic­to­ry. There are others.

As Vance not­ed, Tim Shel­don is seek­ing reelec­tion in the 35th to anoth­er four-year term, but is being chal­lenged by a real Demo­c­rat, Irene Bowl­ing, who cur­rent­ly leads both him and Repub­li­can Travis Couture.

Bowl­ing’s can­di­da­cy has not attract­ed the same inter­est that Green’s and Isen­how­er’s have to date, but that’s prob­a­bly going to change now, giv­en her unex­pect­ed­ly strong show­ing in the 35th’s three-way race.

Bowl­ing and the oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers (Rich Cow­an in the 6th, Seth Fleet­wood in the 42nd, Judy Arbo­gast in the 26th) offer the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty flex­i­bil­i­ty and options. If just one of them hap­pens to catch fire and break through, then the par­ty won’t need to win in two of the three most talked-about dis­tricts (the 28th, 45th, and 30th) — it would only need to win in one of them.

In oth­er words, if the par­ty intel­li­gent­ly sup­ports its chal­lengers and works hard to shape its own des­tiny, it could have a pro­found effect on the elec­toral landscape.

Sen­ate Democ­rats’ goal is to once again have a true blue major­i­ty for the 2015 and 2016 leg­isla­tive ses­sions. So long as they win two of the afore­men­tioned swing dis­tricts, they’ll be in charge. But even if they don’t, it won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that vot­ers will have elect­ed a de jure Repub­li­can major­i­ty. Nor will it mean that the Repub­li­cans will be ready for the next ses­sion and able to move legislation.

Here’s why.

All of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus’ incum­bents hap­pen to be in good shape, even Steve Hobbs in the 44th, who Chris Vance pre­vi­ous­ly tried to tag with the “vul­ner­a­ble” label. Fur­ther­more, as men­tioned, Cyrus Habib is a shoo-in in the 48th. That means the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus will have at least twen­ty-three members.

Their base ros­ter will most like­ly look like this:

1. Andy Bil­lig
2. Mar­a­lyn Chase
3. Annette Cleve­land
4. Steve Con­way
5. Jean­nie Darneille
6. Karen Fras­er
7. David Frockt
8. Cyrus Habib
9. Jim Har­grove
10. Bob Hasegawa
11. Bri­an Hatfield
12. Steve Hobbs
13. Karen Keis­er
14. Prami­la Jaya­pal or Louis Watanabe
15. Jeanne Kohl-Welles
16. Marko Liias
17. Rose­mary McAuliffe
18. John McCoy
19. Mark Mul­let
20. Sharon Nel­son
21. Jamie Ped­er­sen
22. Kevin Ranker
23. Chris­tine Rolfes

Since all the Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents appear safe, Repub­li­cans are left with just one pick­up oppor­tu­ni­ty this cycle, in the 30th LD. There, as I men­tioned, they recruit­ed for­mer State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mark Milos­cia, which prompt­ed incum­bent Tracey Eide to retire. (Eide lat­er claimed she had been plan­ning to leave for a long time, but her deci­sion to retire came as a sur­prise to her caucus).

Unlike Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don, how­ev­er, Mark Milos­cia has tra­di­tion­al­ly held more pro­gres­sive stances on eco­nom­ic issues. By his own admis­sion, it is his stances on social issues that prompt­ed his deci­sion to leave the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

It is not clear how Milos­cia, a his­tor­i­cal­ly pro-labor leg­is­la­tor and a self-pro­claimed cham­pi­on for the rights of work­ing men and women, will fit into the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus, which holds extreme right wing views on eco­nom­ic issues.

This mat­ters because the Repub­li­cans could end up need­ing Milos­ci­a’s vote on, well, every­thing. See, with­out Milos­cia and/or Shel­don, Repub­li­cans won’t be able to count to twen­ty-five in the Sen­ate — that’s the bare min­i­mum need­ed for a majority.

The take­away from this is that even if Repub­li­cans suc­cess­ful­ly defend all of their incum­bents and Sen­ate Democ­rats don’t win an out­right major­i­ty, they’ll still be in for a rough two years. They’ll most like­ly still be a dys­func­tion­al cau­cus, just as they’ve been since they absorbed Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don at the end of 2012, unable to agree with them­selves and unable to work with either the House or Gov­er­nor Inslee on major issues of impor­tance, like fund­ing education.

By the way, if Shel­don makes it to the gen­er­al and beats Irene Bowl­ing, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors who are up this year all win along with just one of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers some­where, it will result in the Sen­ate hav­ing twen­ty-five mem­bers who call them­selves Democ­rats. Mean­ing, the vot­ers will once again have elect­ed a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty… if in name only.

There’s no rea­son to believe Tim Shel­don would switch cau­cus­es again — or that even if he want­ed to, the Democ­rats would wel­come him back. But he and Mark Milos­cia, if they win, will cer­tain­ly enjoy influ­ence that the more con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can mem­bers would undoubt­ed­ly pre­fer they not have.

The dynam­ics of the cau­cus­es going for­ward aren’t some­thing that Chris Vance both­ered to address in his piece for Cross­cut, but they mat­ter. Pol­i­tics is not a game; the win­ners of elec­tions have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to govern.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have already demon­strat­ed that’s not a respon­si­bil­i­ty they can han­dle. Iron­i­cal­ly, their hopes of vic­to­ry this fall rest on Demo­c­ra­t­ic defec­tors. If they pull it off, it could well turn out to be a Pyrrhic vic­to­ry, result­ing in two more years of dys­func­tion in the Sen­ate in the buildup to a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year.

Democ­rats, on the oth­er hand, are hop­ing to win an out­right major­i­ty so that Gov­er­nor Inslee has a part­ner in both hous­es of the Leg­is­la­ture — a part­ner that will work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with him and the House on com­ply­ing with the McCleary deci­sion, putting togeth­er a trans­porta­tion pack­age, pass­ing the Repro­duc­tive Par­i­ty Act, and broad­en­ing pros­per­i­ty for all Washingtonians.

Democ­rats have recruit­ed many com­pelling can­di­dates, their base is far more ener­gized than it was in 2010, and their chal­lengers have a strong case they can make after two years of inac­tion in the Senate.

In my view, Democ­rats are well-poised to once again win a major­i­ty. Whether they can pull it off remains to be seen, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty is most def­i­nite­ly there.

Chris Vance is free to think that the win­now­ing elec­tion por­tends a Repub­li­can Sen­ate in 2015 and 2016, but he ought to be mind­ful that pun­dits and their prog­nos­ti­ca­tions turn out to be wrong — and more often than they’d like to admit.