Dave Reichert for Governor? Republicans can dream, but they can’t escape Trump in 2020

With 2019 two-thirds of the way over, and with the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions fast approach­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty is run­ning out of time to fig­ure out who to put up for most of the nine statewide exec­u­tive depart­ment posi­tions that are always con­test­ed in pres­i­den­tial years along with the presidency.

Out of pow­er in Olympia and ham­pered by a thin bench, the par­ty has yet to recruit cred­i­ble chal­lengers against most of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents who will be seek­ing reelec­tion. (Democ­rats hold six of the nine posi­tions in the exec­u­tive depart­ment, while Repub­li­cans have two. A ninth is offi­cial­ly nonpartisan.)

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s like­ly tick­et for exec­u­tive races appears pret­ty much set.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee has declared for a third term, and will be run­ning along­side Cyrus Habib for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor, Bob Fer­gu­son for Attor­ney Gen­er­al, Hilary Franz for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands, Pat McCarthy for Audi­tor, and pos­si­bly Mike Krei­dler for Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er (unless he retires).

The par­ty may also throw its bless­ing behind Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal’s reelec­tion. Reyk­dal was once a Demo­c­ra­t­ic legislator.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Democ­rats already have a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenger for incum­bent Trea­sur­er Duane Davd­son, one of the two Repub­li­cans expect­ed to seek reelec­tion: the wide­ly respect­ed and well regard­ed State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti of the 30th, who has already out­raised David­son three times over.

That just leaves Sec­re­tary of State, an office Democ­rats have not held in more than half a cen­tu­ry. Incum­bent Kim Wyman plans to run again and will be dif­fi­cult to beat. State Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki was Wyman’s last oppo­nent and could not take Wyman out despite get­ting over 58% of the vote in King Coun­ty.

As par­ty chair, find­ing an oppo­nent for Wyman is now one of Pod­lodowski’s many respon­si­bil­i­ties. As chal­leng­ing as that task might be, it utter­ly pales in com­par­i­son to the prob­lems that State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Caleb Heim­lich is deal­ing with. That afore­men­tioned thin bench makes the recruit­ment of appeal­ing, cred­i­ble can­di­dates on the Repub­li­can side a very tall order.

Notice I said appeal­ing, cred­i­ble can­di­dates. There’s no short­age of Repub­li­can activists and down­bal­lot office­hold­ers who think they have what it takes to go up against Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents. The mil­i­tant, far right state sen­a­tor Phil For­tu­na­to thinks he’s guber­na­to­r­i­al mate­r­i­al. So does Loren Culp, the police chief of Republic.

Top Repub­li­cans would pre­fer some­one else at the top of the tick­et… some­one who could actu­al­ly com­pete for votes in the state’s vote-rich suburbs.

The ide­al can­di­date is some­one who has run and won before and been elect­ed in an area larg­er than a small rur­al coun­ty or a leg­isla­tive dis­trict. Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Bruce Dammeier would qual­i­fy, but he does­n’t seem inter­est­ed in vacat­ing his cur­rent job for what could eas­i­ly be a los­ing cam­paign for high­er office.

And so Heim­lich and oth­er Repub­li­cans are turn­ing to Dave Reichert.

The for­mer King Coun­ty Sher­iff won elec­tion to the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2004 and was able to secure reelec­tion in six suc­ces­sive cycles: 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. In 2018, Reichert opt­ed to retire rather than seek anoth­er term, and Democ­rats cap­tured the seat, now held by Kim Schrier.

Reichert is now a lob­by­ist at Gor­don Thomas Hon­ey­well, and by all accounts, seems pret­ty hap­py there. Still, it’s always nice to be want­ed, and Reichert has on sev­er­al occa­sions expressed an inter­est in serv­ing as governor.

Prob­lem is, to become gov­er­nor, Reichert would have to work very hard, putting in long days and doing a lot of trav­el. He would need to artic­u­late at least a sem­blance of a plat­form or cam­paign for gov­ern­ing that would inter­est those vot­ers who aren’t already plan­ning to vote a straight or most­ly straight Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et in 2020. But even if he did all that, his cam­paign might still be a point­less effort. There sim­ply may not be enough vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton who are will­ing to sup­port some­body run­ning along­side Don­ald Trump for high office next year.

If Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State were an appoint­ed posi­tion, I have no doubt Reichert would glad­ly jump at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve.

But it’s not an appoint­ed posi­tion; it’s an elect­ed one. Reichert would have to cam­paign, and vig­or­ous­ly. He’d need to invest seri­ous time famil­iar­iz­ing him­self with a bevy of state lev­el issues in order to tru­ly be a cred­i­ble candidate.

And he’d need to fig­ure out how to respond to Demo­c­ra­t­ic crit­i­cisms of his record as a mem­ber of the Unit­ed States of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, espe­cial­ly his final two years in office, in which he was an enabler of the agen­da of Don­ald Trump.

Reichert has con­sid­ered under­tak­ing such a jour­ney before, in 2015. He ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to take a pass and Seat­tle Port Com­mis­sion­er Bill Bryant went on to become Inslee’s chal­lenger. Inslee dis­patched Bryant with ease in 2016.

The polit­i­cal cli­mate for Repub­li­cans has not improved since then.

In fact, it’s got­ten worse. Much worse. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty cleaned up very nice­ly in the 2018 midterms, adding sev­en State House seats and three State Sen­ate seats to its leg­isla­tive major­i­ty in addi­tion to cap­tur­ing WA-08 for the first time ever, mak­ing Reichert’s suc­ces­sor a Demo­c­rat. Democ­rats remain offen­sive­ly-focused in 2020. They’re plan­ning on cap­tur­ing even more leg­isla­tive seats, defeat­ing Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler in WA-03, and unseat­ing Duane Davidson.

If Reichert says yes to run­ning, it will make the 2020 guber­na­to­r­i­al race less bor­ing for reporters and polit­i­cal observers, but it will not help the Repub­li­cans’ prospects con­sid­er­ing that Trump is the head of their par­ty. There are few­er and few­er vot­ers oper­at­ing on the basis of “I vote for the per­son, not the par­ty” these days.

This “Trump card” may be the decid­ing fac­tor for Reichert.

As I allud­ed to above, there is no escap­ing the vor­tex that is Don­ald Trump. He has remade the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment in his image with the wild enthu­si­asm of the peo­ple that same estab­lish­ment have long con­sid­ered their base.

Any­one who files for office as a Repub­li­can in 2020 is sign­ing up to be part of Trump’s tick­et and Trump’s par­ty. “Prefers Don­ald Trump’s Par­ty” would actu­al­ly be an accu­rate and fit­ting descrip­tor for Repub­li­cans on next year’s ballot.

Under­stand­ably, Caleb Heim­lich does­n’t want to sim­ply con­cede next year’s state lev­el elec­tions to the Democ­rats, which is why he’s labor­ing to recruit some­body who has Reichert’s lev­el of name recog­ni­tion to run for governor.

But for Heim­lich’s recruit­ing for gov­er­nor and oth­er state lev­el offices to not be an exer­cise in futil­i­ty, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty and its can­di­dates would have to pull off what would seem to be an impos­si­ble feat: woo vot­ers who don’t like what their par­ty has become with­out alien­at­ing their Trump-lov­ing base.

They could­n’t man­age it in 2016. What’s going to make 2020 any different?