Denny Heck has twice as much support as Marko Liias for LG, but most voters undecided

This year’s con­test for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor in Wash­ing­ton State pits two Democ­rats against each oth­er in the final round: U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck and State Sen­a­tor Marko Liias. Heck is a four term mem­ber of Con­gress who is retir­ing from fed­er­al pol­i­tics while Liias is a vet­er­an state leg­is­la­tor who serves as Major­i­ty Floor Leader and would like to make the jump to high­er office.

It’s unusu­al for a statewide race to have two can­di­dates in it from the same par­ty in the final round. But Repub­li­can vot­ers were pret­ty split as to who they want­ed for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor in the August Top Two elec­tion, which result­ed in both of the top two spots going to Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates. (Some­thing sim­i­lar hap­pened in 2016 in the Trea­sur­er’s race, which was a runoff between two Republicans.)

Our research finds that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck has a big advan­tage in the con­test for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor. 32% of like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sur­veyed by our poll­ster a week ago said they are vot­ing for Heck, while only 16% said they were vot­ing for State Sen­a­tor Mark Liias. A whop­ping 52% said they were not sure.

(The high num­ber of not sure respon­dents is undoubt­ed­ly in part due to the fact that there was no Repub­li­can can­di­date avail­able for respon­dents to choose, though Joshua Freed is run­ning a write-in campaign.)

Each can­di­date has sup­port from key con­stituen­cies and dis­tin­guished lead­ers with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. For­mer Gov­er­nors Gary Locke and Chris Gre­goire back Heck, while cur­rent Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Cyrus Habib sup­ports Liias.

Most of Liias’ col­leagues in the State Sen­ate have endorsed him, as well, while Heck is endorsed by the major­i­ty of his in-state con­gres­sion­al colleagues.

The Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State has three main duties:

• Pre­sid­ing over the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate (the Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor also chairs the very impor­tant Sen­ate Rules Committee);
• Step­ping in for the Gov­er­nor and assum­ing that posi­tion when the state’s chief exec­u­tive is not avail­able or able to per­form their duties;
• Serv­ing as liai­son between Wash­ing­ton State’s gov­ern­ment and diplo­mat­ic mis­sions from oth­er countries.

The posi­tion is not as high pro­file as Gov­er­nor or Attor­ney Gen­er­al, but is nev­er­the­less impor­tant. Democ­rats have held the office of Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor for decades, and it is all but guar­an­teed to remain in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands for anoth­er four years as a result of the August Top Two election.

Heck and Liias will appear tonight in a tele­vised statewide orga­nized by the Wash­ing­ton State Debate Coali­tion, which NPI is a sup­port­er of.

Jes­si­ca Jan­ner Cas­tro of KING 5 News, Michelle Este­ban of KOMO News, Scott Lead­ing­ham (NWPB News Man­ag­er) and TVW’s Mike McCla­hanan will moderate.

The debate can be seen here begin­ning at 8 PM Pacif­ic.

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.