Washington’s once sleepy special election for Secretary of State is now on the media’s radar

This Tues­day, August 2nd, vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State will win­now an eight-can­di­date field for Sec­re­tary of State down to two final­ists. It’s the first time in eons that Ever­green State vot­ers have been tasked with fill­ing a vacan­cy in the state’s exec­u­tive depart­ment in a midterm elec­tion cycle. Ordi­nar­i­ly, statewide exec­u­tive posi­tions get vot­ed on in pres­i­den­tial years. But, owing to the res­ig­na­tion of Repub­li­can Kim Wyman last Novem­ber, 2022 is an exception.

Incum­bent Sec­re­tary of State Steve Hobbs, who is run­ning for the remain­der of the unex­pired term, is the first Demo­c­rat to hold the office since the 1950s.

In this Top Two round — the first part of Wash­ing­ton’s two-part gen­er­al elec­tion — Hobbs faces three Repub­li­cans — Kei­th Wag­oner, Mark Milos­cia, and Bob Hag­glu­nd, along with Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son, who is run­ning as an inde­pen­dent, plus a con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist, Tam­borine Bor­rel­li, an unaf­fil­i­at­ed can­di­date named Kur­tis Engle, and one oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date, Mar­quez Tig­gs, who is run­ning with­out mon­ey or par­ty support.

NPI’s pub­lic opin­ion research sug­gests that Hobbs will get through this round. 17% of 1,039 like­ly vot­ers sur­veyed for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling last month said they would vote for Hobbs if the elec­tion were being held then, while 56% said they were unde­cid­ed. All of Hobbs’ oppo­nents polled in the sin­gle digits.

At the time that sur­vey was con­duct­ed, the con­test was rather qui­et, with scant media cov­er­age and not much online dis­cus­sion. For­tu­nate­ly, that has now changed. In the last few weeks, many out­lets have pri­or­i­tized cov­er­ing this race, which has result­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of arti­cles and edi­to­ri­als being pub­lished about the can­di­dates. Addi­tion­al­ly, Hobbs and Ander­son have gone up on the air with their own ads intro­duc­ing them­selves to voters.

Here’s the ad Hobbs is running:

And here’s the ad Ander­son is running:

None of the Repub­li­can can­di­dates appear to have video ads, not even on cable or stream­ing ser­vices. That’s because they have lagged in fundrais­ing behind Hobbs and Ander­son. They sim­ply don’t have the resources to reach voters.

State Sen­a­tor Kei­th Wag­oner, in par­tic­u­lar, has done poorly.

Despite hav­ing been in the race since last Novem­ber and hav­ing the endorse­ment of Ralph Munro, a for­mer Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State, he has been leapfrogged in fundrais­ing by Mark Milos­cia, who only declared his can­di­da­cy dur­ing Fil­ing Week. Here’s the can­di­dates’ con­tri­bu­tions and expen­di­tures through July 26th:

With respect to earned media, last month, Sec­re­tary Hobbs was men­tioned in the news few­er than a hun­dred times (twen­ty-six of which were on-air, accord­ing to an analy­sis by NPI of tele­vi­sion, radio, and online clips. But this month, Sec­re­tary Hobbs has over three hun­dred men­tions, includ­ing eighty-five tele­vi­sion and radio men­tions. Many of those clips also dis­cuss his chal­lengers’ candidacies.

In addi­tion to ben­e­fit­ing from increased media cov­er­age, the can­di­dates have recent­ly been afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in sev­er­al forums, includ­ing one host­ed by the League of Women Vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton. A record­ing of that forum (from July 14th) is avail­able to watch on TVW’s web­site.

Most of the news­pa­pers in the state that still endorse can­di­dates have urged vot­ers to retain Hobbs. The Seat­tle Times, The Stranger, and The Her­ald of Everett all urged vot­ers to pick Hobbs, while The News Tri­bune (Ander­son­’s home­town paper) endorsed Ander­son along with Hobbs.

All the evi­dence sug­gests that Sec­re­tary Hobbs is in a good posi­tion to move on to the gen­er­al elec­tion. But who will his oppo­nent be? Will it be Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son? State Sen­a­tor Kei­th Wag­oner? For­mer Sen­a­tor Mark Milos­cia? Or some­one else? We won’t have an idea until the ini­tial results roll in.

Vot­ing in the August 2022 Top Two elec­tion ends at 8 PM on the 2nd. Be sure to get your bal­lot to a drop box or post office before the dead­line if you’re a voter.