A close race for Secretary of State: Steve Hobbs (D) narrowly leads Keith Wagoner (R)

This year, in addi­tion to con­tests for the Unit­ed States Sen­ate and Wash­ing­ton’s Supreme Court, vot­ers in the Ever­green State will see some­thing they don’t nor­mal­ly see on midterm bal­lots: a spe­cial elec­tion for Sec­re­tary of State.

The posi­tion of Sec­re­tary of State is one of nine inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed statewide posts in the exec­u­tive depart­ment. The Sec­re­tary of State’s port­fo­lio of respon­si­bil­i­ties includes the admin­is­tra­tion of elec­tions, the state library and archives, cor­po­rate and char­i­ta­ble reg­is­tra­tions, and the apos­tilles program.

All hold­ers of exec­u­tive depart­ment posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton serve four year terms, and their reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled elec­tions are in pres­i­den­tial years. Res­ig­na­tions from statewide exec­u­tive posi­tions are rare, which is why it has been a long, long time since an exec­u­tive depart­ment posi­tion was con­test­ed in a midterm elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton State. But it will hap­pen this year, owing to Kim Wyman’s depar­ture to take a job in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion last autumn.

Wyman’s suc­ces­sor Steve Hobbs, a for­mer state sen­a­tor, is the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State in over fifty years. Hobbs was appoint­ed by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee short­ly after Wyman announced that she was tak­ing a job with the Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agency (CISA). He took office on Novem­ber xth, 2021.

Hobbs is run­ning to keep the seat in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands this autumn, and he’s drawn two cred­i­ble chal­lengers so far: for­mer Sen­ate col­league Kei­th Wag­oner (R‑39th Dis­trict: Sno­homish Coun­ty, Skag­it Coun­ty, rur­al King Coun­ty) and Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son, who is run­ning as an independent.

With the field hav­ing tak­en shape, we asked vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in our most recent statewide research poll (con­duct­ed Feb­ru­ary 17th-18th) who they would vote for if the elec­tion for Sec­re­tary of State were being held now.

A nar­row plu­ral­i­ty of respon­dents (33%) said they would vote for Hobbs, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent, while almost as many said Wag­oner (30%), his Repub­li­can chal­lenger. Ander­son, the inde­pen­dent, gar­nered 11%, and 25% were not sure.

The can­di­dates’ col­lec­tive lack of name famil­iar­i­ty and Ander­son­’s pres­ence in the race could explain why a quar­ter of respon­dents were unde­cid­ed. It’s not uncom­mon for “non­par­ti­san” races to have high num­bers of unde­cid­ed vot­ers in advance of an elec­tion, but par­ti­san races usu­al­ly have few­er unde­cid­ed voters.

None of the con­tenders have appeared on a statewide gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot before. Hobbs has pre­vi­ous­ly run statewide (for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor in 2016), but was elim­i­nat­ed in the Top Two elec­tion. Ander­son has run coun­ty­wide in Pierce Coun­ty, but not statewide. Wag­oner has appeared on bal­lots only at the local lev­el (in the Skag­it Val­ley city of Sedro-Wool­ley) and leg­isla­tive dis­trict level.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates usu­al­ly have an advan­tage in statewide races in Wash­ing­ton, but many vot­ers here (par­tic­u­lar­ly those in Thurston, Sno­homish and Pierce coun­ties) are used to vot­ing Repub­li­can for Sec­re­tary of State, and 2022 is a midterm cycle, rather than a pres­i­den­tial one.

Those dynam­ics could yield a com­pet­i­tive race this sum­mer and autumn.

Hobbs and Wag­oner each have about three times the lev­el of sup­port that Ander­son has. Unless Ander­son can improve her posi­tion before the end of July, she faces elim­i­na­tion in the August Top Two elec­tion. The most like­ly sce­nario for the final round at this junc­ture is a Hobbs ver­sus Wag­oner matchup, but it is pos­si­ble that the field of can­di­dates could grow larg­er because the dead­line to enter the race has not yet passed. (It’s the third Fri­day in May.)

Here’s the full text of the ques­tion we asked, and the answers again:

QUESTION: If the spe­cial elec­tion for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State were being held today and the can­di­dates were Demo­c­rat Steve Hobbs, Repub­li­can Kei­th Wag­oner, and inde­pen­dent Julie Ander­son, who would you vote for?

ANSWERS:

• Steve Hobbs (D): 33%
• Kei­th Wag­oner (R): 30%
• Julie Ander­son (I): 11%
• Not sure: 25%

Our sur­vey of 700 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 17th through Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th, 2022.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.7% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

Hobbs has stat­ed in speech­es and inter­views that cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and com­bat­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion are among his top ini­tial pri­or­i­ties as Sec­re­tary of State.

Hobbs is cur­rent­ly cham­pi­oning a bill in the Leg­is­la­ture sup­port­ed by NPI that would restrict the use of syn­thet­ic media in cam­paigns for elec­tive office. As sum­ma­rized by non­par­ti­san staff in the Sen­ate, the bill does three things:

• Requires a dis­clo­sure when any manip­u­lat­ed audio or visu­al media of a can­di­date is used in an elec­tion­eer­ing communication.
• Cre­ates a cause of action for can­di­dates whose voic­es or like­ness­es appear in syn­thet­ic media dis­trib­uted with­out disclosure.
• Pro­vides excep­tions for par­o­dy and news reporting.

The bill was vot­ed out of the Sen­ate hours before the cham­ber of ori­gin cut­off arrived on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 15th (SB 5817). Wag­oner was among sev­er­al Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who crossed over to sup­port the bill. It’s now in the House.

While Wag­oner and Hobbs may agree on this leg­is­la­tion, Wag­oner has pre­vi­ous­ly echoed Repub­li­can attacks on elec­tion integri­ty by claim­ing that there is “mis­trust in the vot­ing sys­tem for the state and the nation.”

And, unlike Kim Wyman, who declined to pub­licly sup­port Don­ald Trump, Wag­oner is a Trump backer. Wag­oner told The Her­ald’s Jer­ry Corn­field back in Novem­ber of 2020: ”I want every legit­i­mate vote count­ed and will accept the results when they are… I would be thrilled if it would be Don­ald Trump.”

As we know, every legit­i­mate vote was count­ed and the result was a Biden/Harris vic­to­ry, both in Wash­ing­ton State and in the Elec­toral College.

Wag­oner’s enthu­si­as­tic sup­port for Trump could be a big prob­lem for his Sec­re­tary of State can­di­da­cy this sum­mer and autumn. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans may have been will­ing to entrust Kim Wyman with anoth­er four year term, but will they want a Trump backer over­see­ing the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton State?