Attorney General Bob Ferguson enjoys wide lead over Republican challenger Matt Larkin

A major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans want to keep incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son on the job for a third term, a sur­vey con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

53% of like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers sur­veyed last week for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling (PPP) said they’re vot­ing for Fer­gu­son, while 39% said they’re vot­ing for Repub­li­can chal­lenger Matt Larkin. 8% said they were not sure.

Back in the sum­mer, Larkin beat out two oth­er Repub­li­cans, includ­ing Mike Vas­ka and Brett Rogers, for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take on Fer­gu­son in the gen­er­al elec­tion. Fer­gu­son secured the sup­port of 55.79% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in the August Top Two elec­tion, while Larkin got 23.67% of the vote.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty inex­plic­a­bly did not field a can­di­date against Fer­gu­son at all in 2016, which result­ed in Fer­gu­son hav­ing a Lib­er­tar­i­an oppo­nent on the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot. Fer­gu­son won with 67.14% of the vote. 

Now that Fer­gu­son has a Repub­li­can oppo­nent again (his first oppo­nent for Attor­ney Gen­er­al was King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Rea­gan Dunn in 2012), he can expect a clos­er race. But he’s still posi­tioned to win reelec­tion in a landslide.

Fer­gu­son’s law­suits against the Trump regime and dis­hon­est ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman have made him a reviled fig­ure in Repub­li­can cir­cles. Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers, on the oth­er hand, love Fer­gu­son. Most inde­pen­dents like him, too.

Fer­gu­son is a stick­ler for the rule of law and for account­abil­i­ty, which Fer­gu­son’s sup­port­ers say are extreme­ly good attrib­ut­es to have in an Attor­ney General.

Though Fer­gu­son often makes the news for his legal chal­lenges against Don­ald Trump’s White House and agency chiefs, it’s not his only focus. Fer­gu­son has pri­or­i­tized envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and civ­il rights as Attor­ney Gen­er­al in addi­tion to pro­tect­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans from unscrupu­lous merchants.

Repub­li­cans say the Attor­ney Gen­er­al ought to be more focused on crime.

“While Bob Fer­gu­son is focused on the wrong Wash­ing­ton, crime in Wash­ing­ton State is grow­ing because local pros­e­cu­tors are stretched too thin,” Larkin says in a state­ment post­ed on his cam­paign web­site.

Lark­in’s state­ment cites data from the FBI for the Seat­tle metro area over a five peri­od, 2013–2018, to but­tress his claims. NPI has not ver­i­fied this data.

How­ev­er, Wash­ing­ton State is more than the Seat­tle metro, and it has been almost two years since 2018 end­ed. Sta­tis­tics can be cher­ryp­icked to sup­port pret­ty much any nar­ra­tive imaginable.

I opened the Crime In Wash­ing­ton 2019 Annu­al Report to see what the Wash­ing­ton Asso­ci­a­tion of Sher­iffs and Police Chiefs have to say about recent inci­dences of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in Washington.

I noticed the Statewide Crime Pro­file shows two key cat­e­gories of crime as hav­ing seen less inci­dents report­ed, while a third cat­e­go­ry saw only a slight increase:

• In 2019, Crimes Against Per­sons showed an decrease of 2.9% with 95,294 offens­es report­ed; com­pared to 2018 offens­es report­ed of 98,092.
• In 2019, Crimes Against Prop­er­ty showed an decrease of 7.9% with 295,906 offens­es report­ed; com­pared to 321,127 offens­es report­ed in 2018.
• In 2019, Crimes Against Soci­ety showed an increase of 0.9% with 35,156 offens­es report­ed; com­pared to 34,840 offens­es report­ed in 2018.

The above sta­tis­tics refer to “Group A” offens­es — those are as follows:

Ani­mal Cru­el­ty, Arson, Assault Offens­es, Bribery, Bur­glary, Counterfeiting/Forgery, Destruction/Damage/Vandalism of Prop­er­ty, Drug/Narcotic Offens­es, Embez­zle­ment, Extortion/Blackmail, Fraud Offens­es, Gam­bling Offens­es, Homi­cide Offens­es, Human Traf­fick­ing Offens­es, Kidnapping/Abduction, Larceny/Theft Offens­es, Motor Vehi­cle Theft, Pornography/Obscene Mate­r­i­al Offens­es, Pros­ti­tu­tion Offens­es, Rob­bery, Sex Offens­es, Non-Forcible Sex Offens­es, Stolen Prop­er­ty Offens­es, and Weapon Law Vio­la­tions; in Wash­ing­ton State, an addi­tion­al Group A offense is col­lect­ed: Vio­la­tion of No Con­tac­t/Pro­tec­tion/An­ti-Harass­ment Order. Group A offens­es include sta­tis­ti­cal data on the inci­dent, all offens­es com­mit­ted, prop­er­ty involved, weapons involved, vic­tim and offend­er demo­graph­ics, arrest infor­ma­tion, and clear­ance status.

In oth­er words, major crimes.

(For Group B offens­es, which include crimes like dri­ving under the influ­ence, bad checks, and dis­or­der­ly con­duct, only arrest data is collected.)

The above is only one slice of data, but it is for the state as a whole, it cov­ers all of the most seri­ous offens­es, it is recent data, and it con­tra­dicts Lark­in’s nar­ra­tive that “crime in Wash­ing­ton State is growing”.

Ridicu­lous­ly, Larkin is run­ning tele­vi­sion ads that empha­size his “law and order” theme while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sup­port­ing law­break­er Don­ald Trump’s reelection.

Asked by The Seat­tle Times’ Jim Brun­ner (who is a first rate polit­i­cal reporter) to weigh in on Trump’s response to COVID-19, Larkin demurred.

“I don’t have a strong feel­ing,” he said. “If I were him, I would have worn a mask more. I’m not inter­est­ed in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. My focus is here.”

Larkin may not be inter­est­ed in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, but the peo­ple he wants to rep­re­sent are. They dis­ap­prove of Don­ald Trump’s job per­for­mance by a large mar­gin, and three out of five are vot­ing for Joe Biden, accord­ing to our research.

There were twice as many vot­ers who report­ed being unde­cid­ed in the race for Attor­ney Gen­er­al as there were in the race for gov­er­nor. How­ev­er, there isn’t a “not sure” option on the bal­lot. Giv­en that Fer­gu­son secured over 55% of the vote in the August Top Two elec­tion, our team would not be sur­prised if he wins reelec­tion this autumn with clos­er to 60% to the vote.

Vot­ing in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is cur­rent­ly in progress and is set to con­clude on Novem­ber 3rd, 2020 at 8 PM Pacif­ic in Wash­ing­ton State.