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.