Filing Week 2020 postmortem: Who dropped out by the candidate withdrawal deadline?

Some­times, in the annu­al Wash­ing­ton State elec­tion cycle, it’s the Mon­day after fil­ing week that’s more inter­est­ing than the week itself.

Why? Because that’s the dead­line for can­di­dates to with­draw from consideration

Not many did so for 2020. But two can­di­dates who did drop out stand out.

Steve Hobbs, state Sen­a­tor for the 44th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, decid­ed to exit of the race for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor this year. Two cred­i­ble Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates remain: State Sen­a­tor Marko Liias and Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck.

Sen­a­tor Hobbs is a lieu­tenant colonel with the Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Guard and is present­ly on assign­ment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He is in charge of mul­ti­ple tasks, among which are over­see­ing the sup­port of food banks, in West­ern Wash­ing­ton state. Con­sid­er­ing his respon­si­bil­i­ties, it would have been hard for him to pro­vide prop­er atten­tion to a statewide cam­paign for office.

It appears he had sec­ond thoughts about actu­al­ly going through with his cam­paign after he made his can­di­da­cy official.

Hobbs also ran for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor in 2016, and did not make it through the Top Two elec­tion. In 2012, he ran for Con­gress in the 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, and failed to advance through to the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion runoff.

The sec­ond and more sur­pris­ing can­di­date with­draw­al is in the 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, where Repub­li­can can­di­date Todd Smelcer has dropped out.

This leaves only two Democ­rats, Mark Mul­let and Ingrid Ander­son, for a leg­isla­tive race in a dis­trict that until recent­ly was con­sid­ered an impreg­nable Repub­li­can fortress. Giv­en that the Repub­li­cans would absolute­ly have to take the 5th as a pre­cur­sor of win­ning a Sen­ate major­i­ty this year, their fail­ure to field a can­di­date — any can­di­date — is tru­ly head-scratching.

Mark Mul­let has tak­en heat from fel­low Democ­rats for his inex­plic­a­ble stances against the adop­tion of I‑1000 and tak­ing advan­tage of a bill to avert mil­lions of dol­lars in cuts to librar­i­ans, coun­selors and assis­tant prin­ci­pals to increase fund­ing for char­ter schools. Mul­let has also flat­ly opposed pro­gres­sive tax reform ideas like a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy, which Wash­ing­ton des­per­ate­ly needs.

Mul­let’s chal­lenger Ingrid Ander­son is a Reg­is­tered Nurse spe­cial­iz­ing in emer­gency and psy­chi­atric care at Over­lake Hos­pi­tal in Belle­vue and a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State Nurs­es Asso­ci­a­tion. She enjoys the enthu­si­as­tic sup­port of the state’s labor com­mu­ni­ty and grass­roots pro­gres­sive organizations.

Smelcer’s with­draw­al means that the dynam­ic in the 5th this year will be more com­pa­ra­ble to a Seat­tle leg­isla­tive dis­trict, where the Novem­ber runoff typ­i­cal­ly fea­tures two Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for a state House or state Sen­ate race.

With no Repub­li­can on the bal­lot, Repub­li­can vot­ers will be forced to choose from between two Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates, write in a name, or skip the race.

No mat­ter the out­come, the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus wins.

Here’s the full list of can­di­dates who with­drew for state-lev­el offices:

• Lisa Thomas (was run­ning for Gov­er­nor with no par­ty preference)
• Steve Hobbs (was run­ning for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor as a Democrat)
• Bruce Over­street (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Posi­tion #1, in the 38th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in Sno­homish Coun­ty, as a Democrat)
• Glen­da Breil­er (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Posi­tion #1, in the 22nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in Thurston Coun­ty, as a Democrat)
• Grant Romaine (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Posi­tion #1, in the 23rd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in Kit­sap Coun­ty, as a Republican)
• Leonard Chris­t­ian (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Posi­tion #1, in the Spokane area 4th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as a Republican)
• Mark Rou­ton (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Posi­tion #1, in Seat­tle’s 43rd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as a “Work­er’s Jus­tice” candidate)
• Jeff Jared (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Posi­tion #1, in the East­side of King Coun­ty’s 48th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as a Libertarian)
• Mine Con­rad (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Posi­tion #2, in the Spokane area 4th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as a Republican)
• Will DeWitt (was run­ning for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Posi­tion #2, in the Spokane area 4th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as a Democrat)
• Todd Smelcer (was run­ning for State Sen­a­tor in the East­side of King Coun­ty’s 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict as a Republican)

If you have a ques­tion about can­di­date with­drawals at the local lev­el, let us know in the com­ments and we’ll be glad to field it.