This sum­mer, Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers will see a spe­cial item on their bal­lots, one which isn’t nor­mal­ly con­test­ed in midterm elections.

That item is the spe­cial elec­tion to deter­mine who should serve out the remain­der of the term that Repub­li­can Kim Wyman was elect­ed to in 2020.

Wyman, who was first elect­ed to the post in 2012, announced last Novem­ber that she was step­ping down to take a job in the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion with CISA. Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee sub­se­quent­ly appoint­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Steve Hobbs (D‑44th Dis­trict) to take Wyman’s place, with her endorse­ment.

Hobbs is now run­ning to keep the posi­tion in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands.

He faces a total of sev­en chal­lengers in the loom­ing August Top Two elec­tion, most of whom iden­ti­fy as Repub­li­cans, includ­ing a cou­ple of late entrants.

As part of our sea­son­al statewide poll of the Wash­ing­ton State elec­torate this week, we asked respon­dents who they’d vote for among the eight can­di­dates if the spe­cial elec­tion for Sec­re­tary of State were being held today.

While a major­i­ty of vot­ers (56%) said they were unsure, which was unsur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of choic­es in the ques­tion, Hobbs was the clear leader among those who did offer an opin­ion, with 17% say­ing they would vote for him. No oth­er can­di­date received sup­port beyond 6%.

Visu­al­iza­tion of NPI’s poll find­ing for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State, June 2022

When we last polled this con­test in Feb­ru­ary, we gave respon­dents three choic­es to select from: Hobbs, Repub­li­can chal­lenger Kei­th Wag­oner (the first promi­nent Repub­li­can to declare his can­di­da­cy fol­low­ing Hobbs’ appoint­ment), and inde­pen­dent Julie Ander­son, the cur­rent Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor. We found Hobbs with a three point lead over Wag­oner and Ander­son fur­ther back in third place.

At the time, Wag­oner looked like he might be Hobbs’ gen­er­al elec­tion oppo­nent. But his ane­mic fundrais­ing and lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty left us won­der­ing how well posi­tioned he was to actu­al­ly get through the Top Two. So we opt­ed to ask respon­dents about the whole field of can­di­dates, which now includes a cou­ple of hope­fuls who entered the race only recent­ly, like Mark Milos­cia.

As men­tioned, Hobbs received 17%, while every­body else was in the sin­gle digits.

Here’s ques­tion we asked and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: If the Top Two elec­tion for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State was being held today, which can­di­date would you vote for: Demo­c­rat Mar­quez Tig­gs, Demo­c­rat Steve Hobbs, Repub­li­can Kei­th Wag­oner, Repub­li­can Mark Milos­cia, Repub­li­can Bob Hag­glu­nd, Repub­li­can Tam­borine Bor­rel­li, inde­pen­dent Kur­tis Engle, or inde­pen­dent Julie Anderson?

ANSWERS:

• Not sure: 56%
• Steve Hobbs (incum­bent): 17%
• Kei­th Wag­oner: 6%
• Bob Hag­glu­nd: 5%
• Tam­borine Bor­rel­li: 5%
• Julie Ander­son: 5%
• Mar­quez Tig­gs: 3%
• Mark Milos­cia: 2%
• Kur­tis Engle: 1%

It is note­wor­thy that Wag­oner does not have a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant lead over the rest of the field. He has been in the race for six months and is a state leg­is­la­tor, unlike, say, Hag­glu­nd or Bor­rel­li. Yet respon­dents to our sur­vey did­n’t grav­i­tate to him. Wag­oner sim­ply isn’t stand­ing out among the Repub­li­cans in this race, at least one of whom (Bor­rel­li) is a con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist whose extreme­ly dan­ger­ous and false claims about vot­er fraud have been repu­di­at­ed in the courts.

Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son is in a sim­i­lar­ly bad spot.

Although she has been repeat­ed­ly elect­ed coun­ty­wide in Wash­ing­ton’s sec­ond largest coun­ty and is an expe­ri­enced elec­tions offi­cial run­ning on a plat­form of non­par­ti­san­ship, her can­di­da­cy does­n’t seem to be res­onat­ing with voters.

Late fil­er Mark Milos­cia, mean­while, is in even worse shape. He received the least amount of sup­port of the Repub­li­cans, which isn’t a good sign for him. He last ran statewide ten years ago, when he was a can­di­date for Wash­ing­ton State Audi­tor, fin­ish­ing last among the can­di­dates. Our research indi­cates that he may suf­fer a sim­i­lar fate this sum­mer, unless he can fire up the Trump base, Loren Culp-style.

Con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist Bor­rel­li is already try­ing to do just that.

Sources tell our team at NPI that Bor­rel­li has been appear­ing at local Repub­li­can Par­ty meet­ings to pro­mote her can­di­da­cy at length to dis­grun­tled Trump backers.

Hobbs seems posi­tioned to get through the Top Two as the first place can­di­date. He has the back­ing of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, he has raised a siz­able amount of mon­ey, and the only oth­er can­di­date run­ning who iden­ti­fies as a Demo­c­rat, Mar­quez Tig­gs, is unlike­ly to siphon off many Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes.

But who will Hobbs’ gen­er­al elec­tion oppo­nent be?

At this junc­ture, we real­ly can’t say.

There sim­ply isn’t anoth­er fron­trun­ner right now.

Two years ago, we had a sim­i­lar dynam­ic for Gov­er­nor. Incum­bent Jay Inslee was the obvi­ous fron­trun­ner from the get-go, but for months, it was­n’t clear who would get through the Top Two as the oth­er final­ist. Even­tu­al­ly, for­mer Repub­lic police chief Loren Culp emerged as the Repub­li­can with the biggest bloc of vot­ers behind him. His 17.41% show­ing in the Top Two was enough for sec­ond place.

Vot­ing in the Top Two elec­tion is set to con­clude in just two months, leav­ing Hobbs’ chal­lengers with only a few weeks to get vot­ers’ atten­tion, make their case, and try to secure enough sup­port to out­flank their fel­low challengers.

We’ll see who sur­vives in August.