NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, January 20th, 2018

Washington State Republicans elect Caleb Heimlich as successor to Susan Hutchison

At a meet­ing in Moses Lake, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty’s Cen­tral Com­mit­tee tapped Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Caleb Heim­lich to take over from Susan Hutchi­son as its next Chair, the WSRP announced in a tweet ear­li­er today.

Hutchi­son revealed short­ly after the new year that she would be step­ping down as Chair­man (the title she has insist­ed on using despite iden­ti­fy­ing as a woman).

Heim­lich, who has been Hutchison’s deputy for many years, beat out sev­er­al oth­er con­tenders for the job on a sin­gle bal­lot, accord­ing to news reports, and will assume his new duties next month after a short tran­si­tion period.

“Thanks to the State Com­mit­tee for their vote of con­fi­dence. Excit­ed to get to work sup­port­ing our great can­di­dates,” Heim­lich tweet­ed.

Heim­lich beat out sev­er­al rival can­di­dates for the job.

Although the WSRP did not update its web­site with details on the elec­tion, the Skag­it Coun­ty Repub­li­cans broke out the vote count in a dis­patch on their site.

“There were a total of four can­di­dates com­pet­ing for the posi­tion and out of a pos­si­ble one hun­dred and sev­en votes, Caleb Heim­lich received sev­en­ty-five votes, Monique Valen­zuela (Chair­man of the Taco­ma Pub­lic Util­i­ty Board) received fif­teen votes, Mar­ty McClen­don (state lieu­tenant gov­er­nor can­di­date) received thir­teen votes and Lance Hen­der­son (for­mer WSRP Exec­u­tive direc­tor) received four votes.”

From what we’ve heard, Heim­lich is pret­ty well-regard­ed in Repub­li­can cir­cles, with a rep­u­ta­tion for being thought­ful and lev­el-head­ed, which would explain his com­mand­ing vic­to­ry at the cen­tral com­mit­tee’s meet­ing in Moses Lake.

Heim­lich will be tak­ing over the par­ty at a chal­leng­ing time.

Repub­li­cans are out of pow­er in Olympia, hav­ing just lost their state Sen­ate major­i­ty to the Democ­rats, and have so far failed to recruit a chal­lenger for U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell. Democ­rats, mean­while, are hop­ing to make the state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion a deep­er shade of blue by elect­ing Democ­rats to the U.S. House in the 5th and 8th Dis­tricts, and per­haps even the 3rd as well.

Written by Andrew Villeneuve :: 8:34 PM

Categories: Party Politics

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