Reagan Dunn concedes defeat: Matt Larkin slated to face Kim Schrier in WA-08 this fall

King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Rea­gan Dunn threw in the tow­el on his bid for Con­gress this after­noon, acknowl­edg­ing that fel­low failed attor­ney gen­er­al can­di­date Matt Larkin has edged him out in the com­pe­ti­tion to take on Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er, D‑WA-8th Dis­trict this autumn.

“I just got off the phone with Matt Larkin and con­grat­u­lat­ed him on win­ning the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry for Con­gress,” Dunn told The Seat­tle Times’ Jim Brun­ner, a vet­er­an polit­i­cal reporter who deliv­ers excel­lent cov­er­age of state pol­i­tics. “He ran a real­ly clean issues ori­ent­ed cam­paign. It was an hon­or­able way to run his cam­paign and I am excit­ed to sup­port him as he runs in the gen­er­al election.”

Con­trary to what Dunn said in his inter­view with Brun­ner, Wash­ing­ton State law does­n’t pro­vide for a Repub­li­can (or Demo­c­ra­t­ic) pri­maries. Instead, Wash­ing­ton uti­lizes a two-part gen­er­al elec­tion sys­tem. In round one — the round we’re in now — the vot­ers win­now the field of can­di­dates down to just two using first past the post vot­ing. The can­di­date with a plu­ral­i­ty gets one spot and their clos­est rival gets the oth­er, regard­less of par­ty. It is there­fore pos­si­ble for the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot to have two Democ­rats or two Repub­li­cans — or oth­er weird combinations.

Despite Wash­ing­ton’s lack of a par­ty pri­ma­ry — which the­o­ret­i­cal­ly ought to have been help­ful to a con­ven­tion­al Repub­li­can can­di­date like Dunn at risk of being scorned by the ultra MAGA right wing — the coun­cilmem­ber was­n’t able to secure enough sup­port to get past Matt Larkin, con­sid­ered by many observers we’ve spo­ken with to be the “Trump­i­est” can­di­date of the Repub­li­can field, which also includes com­bat vet­er­an Jesse Jensen, Schri­er’s 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion opponent.

As of press time, Schri­er had 47.67% of the vote, Larkin had 17.07%, Dunn had 14.62%, and Jensen had 13.02%. One the Repub­li­can, Scott Stephen­son, had 3.17%. The oth­er can­di­dates set to be elim­i­nat­ed were all under 1%.

Dunn present­ly trails Larkin for the sec­ond spot by 4,048 votes.

Schri­er cur­rent­ly has more votes than Larkin, Dunn, and Jensen togeth­er, which Democ­rats find encour­ag­ing. The three top Repub­li­cans com­bined have 73,882 votes, which is sev­er­al thou­sand less than Schri­er’s 78,788 votes.

And, alto­geth­er, the votes going to the declared Democ­rats (Schri­er, Emmet Ward, Kei­th Arnold) are ever so slight­ly more than those going to the declared Repub­li­cans (Larkin, Dunn, Jensen, and Scott Stephenson):

As of 08/04/2022 5:20 PM

• 81,659 votes in WA-08 for Democrats
• 81,530 votes in WA-08 for Republicans

“I am proud of the cam­paign we ran, and I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to serve this area on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil,” Dunn said in a state­ment pub­lished on his cam­paign web­site, which was swift­ly updat­ed after he decid­ed to concede.

“I will keep fight­ing for the val­ues I ran on, sup­port­ing our law enforce­ment heroes and ensur­ing fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty. I will con­tin­ue in my com­mit­ment to be a voice of rea­son on the Coun­ty Coun­cil, and push back against extreme and irre­spon­si­ble poli­cies. Now more than ever, we need local lead­ers in King Coun­ty who will stand up for what’s right, not what’s polit­i­cal­ly expedient.”

Dunn may be exit­ing stage right with a pos­i­tive atti­tude in pub­lic, but this cer­tain­ly isn’t the out­come that he was hop­ing for, or had expected.

Bor­row­ing a Bushism (he ini­tial­ly won his coun­ty coun­cil seat in the Bush years), Dunn adver­tised him­self as “com­pas­sion­ate con­ser­v­a­tive who leads the Repub­li­can oppo­si­tion against failed poli­cies spread­ing from Seat­tle to our sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods.” He was endorsed by Schri­er’s pre­de­ces­sor Dave Reichert, who accept­ed a posi­tion chair­ing Dun­n’s campaign.

Dunn began his cam­paign with gus­to, pro­nounc­ing him­self the frontrunner.

“The first poll to test the new­ly con­fig­ured 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict last week showed Dunn eas­i­ly lead­ing a field of Repub­li­can can­di­dates in the pri­ma­ry by more than a 2–1 mar­gin,” Dun­n’s cam­paign said in a Novem­ber 29th, 2021 press release, with­out elab­o­rat­ing or prop­er­ly cit­ing the ref­er­enced research.

“Rea­gan Dunn is eas­i­ly our best chance for Repub­li­cans to win the 8th Dis­trict, and I whole­heart­ed­ly endorse him in this race,” a state­ment from Reichert includ­ed in that same press release read. Reichert car­ried two incar­na­tions of the 8th in sev­en con­sec­u­tive elec­tions, from 2004 through 2016.

Reichert retired as of the 2018 cycle. Democ­rats unit­ed behind Schri­er after a spir­it­ed and live­ly intra­party com­pe­ti­tion of their own four years ago, which saw Schri­er pre­vail over Jason Rit­tereis­er and Shan­non Had­er. They imme­di­ate­ly threw their sup­port to Schri­er and she tri­umphed over Dino Rossi in the gen­er­al election.

Dunn pro­ject­ed con­fi­dence that he would avoid Rossi’s fate.

“There is no doubt – Rea­gan is the Repub­li­can fron­trun­ner, and he is ready to flip the 8th from blue to red,” a Dunn email blast dat­ed Tue, Apr 26, 2:15 PM said.

“Rea­gan is also the only Repub­li­can can­di­date who has a record of win­ning elec­tions and the only one who leads the Demo­c­rat incum­bent in a head-to-head match-up,” the email added. “The most recent poll of the new 8th Dis­trict found vot­ers pre­fer Rea­gan Dunn to Kim Schri­er by four points.”

“We can win in Novem­ber and help flip the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from blue to red – but we need your sup­port right now.”

“Rea­gan is the front-run­ner in this race to retire Kim Schri­er. He raised more from donors than all oth­er Repub­li­cans com­bined last quar­ter, has more cash on hand, and leads them by more than a 2–1 mar­gin in the lat­est poll,” anoth­er email from “Team Dunn” two days lat­er (Thu, Apr 28, 11:09 AM) said.

“But we can’t take our foot off the gas! Nan­cy Pelosi knows the incum­bent is in trou­ble and her deep-pock­et­ed allies are pour­ing mon­ey into her campaign.”

By July, Dun­n’s cam­paign was sound­ing more pan­icked than confident.

“The attacks on Rea­gan have begun,” said a Thu, Jul 7, 5:19 PM mes­sage from Car­son Coates with Dun­n’s cam­paign, which went on to say:

We knew they were com­ing but it’s worse than we thought.

They’re false, vicious, mean-spir­it­ed and per­son­al and have no place in pol­i­tics. There are sev­er­al trou­bling rea­sons why we’re so sur­prised by the attacks:

1. They’re from our Repub­li­can oppo­nent. The same Repub­li­can oppo­nent that polling shows doesn’t come close to defeat­ing Kim Schri­er in the Gen­er­al Election.
2. They’re disin­gen­u­ous – and use sev­er­al out of con­text quotes (though we shouldn’t be sur­prised about that) to attack Rea­gan over his per­son­al recov­ery journey.
3. They are per­son­al – Rea­gan has a life-long con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ing record and is the only Repub­li­can run­ning who has actu­al­ly held elect­ed office. The attacks don’t try to pre­tend he can’t win or won’t be a reli­able leader. Rather, the deceit­ful attacks are on his per­son­al life.

Ronald Rea­gan famous­ly ref­er­enced the “Eleventh Com­mand­ment” through­out his polit­i­cal career: “Thou shalt not speak ill of anoth­er Repub­li­can.” These attacks are a par­tic­u­lar­ly egre­gious vio­la­tion of that rule and do noth­ing but frac­ture our par­ty and help Kim Schri­er and Nan­cy Pelosi stay in power.

We must fight back and defend Rea­gan. His cam­paign is focused on actu­al­ly turn­ing around this Coun­try by restor­ing law and order, reign­ing in reck­less infla­tion-caus­ing spend­ing, and restor­ing America’s ener­gy independence.

The afore­men­tioned attack ads were unleashed by a super PAC back­ing Jesse Jensen, Dunn and Lark­in’s rival, who lost to Schri­er in 2020. The PAC, equipped with plen­ty of funds by wealthy right wingers, con­tend­ed that Dun­n’s “neg­a­tives” made him the worst pos­si­ble choice to go up against Schrier.

Jensen’s back­ers may not have suc­ceed­ed in get­ting Jensen through to the gen­er­al, but they def­i­nite­ly may have played a role in sink­ing Dun­n’s can­di­da­cy and cre­at­ing an open­ing for Matt Larkin to slip past his rivals.

On Mon­day of this week (Mon, Aug 1, 12:28 PM), Dun­n’s cam­paign made a final, urgent appeal for funds to Dun­n’s email list. Gone were any ref­er­ences to Dunn being a fron­trun­ner, or eas­i­ly lead­ing the field by a two-to-one margin.

We aren’t going to mince words – this race will be very close. A mere hand­ful of vot­ers may decide whether Rea­gan makes it to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Your vote mat­ters. The votes of your friends and fam­i­ly mat­ter. And we hope Rea­gan can count on them.

Respect­ed con­ser­v­a­tive talk radio host Lars Lar­son recent­ly rec­om­mend­ed Rea­gan as the Repub­li­can can­di­date to take on Kim Schri­er in the 8th. The endorse­ment reads:

“Rea­gan is a great GOP can­di­date, with reli­able, con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues. He’s done a lot as a mem­ber of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil and looks like he would bring that same reli­a­bil­i­ty to the capi­tol build­ing, which earned him Lars’ thumbs up.”

If you’ve yet to decide which can­di­date to sup­port in the 8th, we want to high­light that Rea­gan is the only Repub­li­can can­di­date with a proven con­ser­v­a­tive record. You don’t have to wor­ry about whether Rea­gan will do what he says once in Congress.

Reagan’s con­ser­v­a­tive record – from con­sis­tent­ly vot­ing against tax increas­es to stead­fast­ly sup­port­ing our police – while serv­ing on one of the most far-left coun­ty coun­cils in the nation proves his com­mit­ment to vot­ers. You can rely on Reagan.

But as the ini­tial results came in on Tues­day night, it was appar­ent that many Repub­li­can vot­ers had con­clud­ed they could­n’t or did­n’t want to rely on Rea­gan Dunn to go up against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er this autumn.

It’s not the first time Dunn has fall­en short for high­er office.

Ten years ago, as men­tioned, Dunn lost his cam­paign to suc­ceed fel­low Repub­li­can Rob McKen­na as Wash­ing­ton State’s Attor­ney Gen­er­al. The post went instead to Dun­n’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic King Coun­ty Coun­cil col­league Bob Fer­gu­son, who Repub­li­cans pro­ceed­ed to leave unchal­lenged in the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. (Fer­gu­son’s only oppo­nent was a Libertarian.)

In 2020, Larkin took on Fer­gu­son, but was eas­i­ly defeated.

Larkin will now get the ben­e­fit of a more uni­fied Repub­li­can Par­ty for phase two of his cam­paign for Con­gress. Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Chair Caleb Heim­lich, who has had very lit­tle to be hap­py about this week, has already bus­ied him­self adver­tis­ing a “Flip the 8th BBQ” in Cov­ing­ton next Tuesday.

“It has been a tough Pri­ma­ry,” a recent email from Heim­lich admit­ted, “but regard­less of who we sup­port­ed in the Pri­ma­ry, we must unite behind the win­ner to achieve our com­mon goals. This is why we are host­ing our upcom­ing ‘Flip the 8th’ BBQ in Cov­ing­ton, WA on Tues­day, August 9th. We will cel­e­brate the pri­ma­ry win­ner and unite behind their can­di­da­cy to win in November.”

Democ­rats are already plan­ning to make Lark­in’s staunch, fierce oppo­si­tion to repro­duc­tive rights a major issue this fall. Recent research shows that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, includ­ing vot­ers in the 8th Dis­trict are extreme­ly sup­port­ive of pro­tect­ing Amer­i­cans’ right to make their own repro­duc­tive deci­sions.

Schri­er’s cam­paign char­ac­ter­izes Larkin as an extrem­ist and says she is ready to wage a strong, vig­or­ous cam­paign to keep the dis­trict Democratic.

“I have dri­ven thou­sands of miles, host­ed near­ly 100 town halls, and have been deliv­er­ing on the needs of this dis­trict. This com­mu­ni­ty knows me, and knows that I am out there lis­ten­ing and advo­cat­ing for them every day,” said Schri­er in a state­ment sent to media out­lets after Dun­n’s concession.

“I have proven to be an inde­pen­dent and effec­tive voice for the peo­ple of the Eighth Dis­trict, and will always stand up for a wom­an’s right to make her own health care deci­sions. With the loom­ing threat of a nation­wide ban on abor­tion from Repub­li­cans in the oth­er Wash­ing­ton, we can­not leave the fate of this dis­trict, or this coun­try, in the hands of my anti-choice opponent.”

The August Top Two elec­tion is due to be cer­ti­fied on August 16th. Not long after that, elec­tions offi­cials will begin prepar­ing bal­lots to go out to over­seas and mil­i­tary vot­ers for the Novem­ber 8th gen­er­al election.