Tim Eyman finally dispenses with the pretense of running for governor as an independent

Con artist Tim Eyman declared yes­ter­day that hence­forth, he will be run­ning for Wash­ing­ton State’s top posi­tion as a Repub­li­can, rather than as an inde­pen­dent, to the sur­prise and aston­ish­ment of pret­ty much nobody.

In a long, ram­bling, Trump-like speech deliv­ered in Yaki­ma to an ador­ing group of fans, Eyman exco­ri­at­ed his polit­i­cal adver­saries, pro­ject­ed his own faults onto Democ­rats, and argued that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are sick of one par­ty rule in the state­house – even though Wash­ing­to­ni­ans enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly vot­ed for one par­ty rule as recent­ly as fif­teen months ago, in the 2018 midterms.

Democ­rats have now won nine straight guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tions, and as Jay Inslee goes for a third term, Eyman fig­ures he’s got what it takes to break that streak.

But the data sug­gests otherwise.

A recent Sur­veyUSA poll found that Eyman was bet­ter known than Inslee’s oth­er insignif­i­cant Repub­li­can chal­lengers, but not by much.

Eyman only received 11% sup­port in that sur­vey — which was slight­ly bet­ter than the 7% he received in a pri­or statewide poll con­duct­ed by Elway Research for Crosscut/KCTS9, but still woe­ful­ly ane­mic for a statewide candidate.

By con­trast, Repub­li­can Bill Bryant — Inslee’s last oppo­nent, in 2016 — gar­nered 34% and 30% in statewide sur­veys tak­en in 2015. That’s over three times as much sup­port as vot­ers have expressed for Eyman in polls this cycle.

And Bryant went on to lose the 2016 guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion to Inslee.

Bryan­t’s high water mark in pub­lic opin­ion research came in Octo­ber of 2016, when a KCTS/YouGov sur­vey put his sup­port at 45%, to Inslee’s 51%.

If the Repub­li­can Par­ty were to field Bryant again, they would at least have a cred­i­ble can­di­date with both cre­den­tials and name recog­ni­tion to put up against Inslee. Instead, what they have right now is a field of right wing extrem­ists who are bound to alien­ate vot­ers, includ­ing Repub­lic Police Chief Loren Culp, white suprema­cist State Sen­a­tor Phil For­tu­na­to, and of course, Eyman.

Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Caleb Heim­lich is no doubt pleased with this devel­op­ment. Eyman is now back in the Repub­li­can fold where he belongs, and a Trump/Eyman tick­et is a real pos­si­bil­i­ty for the par­ty this Novem­ber.

The par­ty of Dan Evans appears to now be final­ly, tru­ly, and total­ly dead, with the notable and dis­tin­guished excep­tion of the Main­stream Repub­li­cans of Wash­ing­ton, who are coura­geous­ly ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing that lega­cy alive.

Aside from the Main­stream Repub­li­cans, who are sep­a­rate­ly orga­nized and gov­erned, the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty has become just anoth­er branch of the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion, with total obe­di­ence and loy­al­ty to Trump expected.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for Heim­lich, this ain’t Mis­sis­sip­pi and most vot­ers are not enam­ored with Don­ald Trump like he and his oper­a­tives are.

NPI’s own research indi­cates Trump’s base in Wash­ing­ton State is about thir­ty-six per­cent, which is a big prob­lem for Repub­li­cans aspir­ing to statewide office.

We’ve repeat­ed­ly seen that fig­ure across respons­es to our ques­tions about Trump’s job approval, impeach­ment, and the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. While Trump’s base is larg­er in oth­er places — includ­ing deep red Repub­li­can states like Alaba­ma and swing states like Wis­con­sin — it’s only a frac­tion of the elec­torate here. A statewide can­di­date in Wash­ing­ton can­not be elect­ed by Don­ald Trump’s fan club.

Eyman’s fan club seems to be oper­at­ing under the assump­tion that what worked for Trump in 2016 will work for him. They tru­ly appear to believe that Inslee is vul­ner­a­ble to a chal­lenge from Eyman. But this is not a nation­al elec­tion. The gov­er­nor­ship of Wash­ing­ton — a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic state — is not decid­ed by a vote of the Elec­toral Col­lege, it’s decid­ed by a statewide pop­u­lar vote.

And run­ning for office is not at all like putting mea­sures on the bal­lot for peo­ple to vote on, which is what Eyman has expe­ri­ence with. Eyman’s schemes do not car­ry his name, at least not on the bal­lot. (They do in the mass media, of course.)

What vot­ers typ­i­cal­ly see when an Eyman ini­tia­tive is pre­sent­ed to them is mis­lead­ing lan­guage, often devoid of con­text, in the form of a trick question.

As a can­di­date, Eyman does not have the abil­i­ty to manip­u­late what ques­tion vot­ers see when the time comes to decide who should be the state’s next gov­er­nor. The bal­lot will list his name and par­ty affil­i­a­tion and Inslee’s name and par­ty affil­i­a­tion, along with those of oth­er can­di­dates. There will not be a loaded ques­tion on the bal­lot to stack the deck in Eyman’s favor like there was in 2019.

None of this prob­a­bly mat­ters to Eyman, who is tak­ing a break from pitch­ing ini­tia­tives. Eyman can prof­it just by run­ning, because a guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­da­cy keeps him in the lime­light and keeps the dol­lars flow­ing into his per­son­al coffers.