An extreme­ly weak field of Repub­li­can can­di­dates for Sec­re­tary of State is prov­ing to be no match for Wash­ing­ton State’s unfor­giv­ing two-part gen­er­al elec­tion sys­tem this year. With three counts now com­plet­ed, it looks like Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent Steve Hobbs will be fac­ing unaf­fil­i­at­ed can­di­date (and Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor) Julie Ander­son this fall, leav­ing Repub­li­cans shut out of the final round for an office they con­tin­u­ous­ly con­trolled from the 1950s until last year.

In most states, this dynam­ic would be unheard of, because across much of the Unit­ed States, vot­ers get to par­tic­i­pate in real pri­maries to choose the major par­ty’s nom­i­nees for dif­fer­ent offices. Those nom­i­nees then appear on the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, rep­re­sent­ing their respec­tive par­ties. But not in Washington!

Here, there is no pri­ma­ry at all. Instead, there is a two-part gen­er­al elec­tion in which the top two vote get­ters advance out of the first round, regard­less of par­ty. (It is called a pri­ma­ry by state and coun­ty offi­cials, but that does­n’t make it one.)

Since Wash­ing­ton does­n’t guar­an­tee the major par­ties spots on the Novem­ber bal­lot for a giv­en office — with the notable excep­tion of Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States — the par­ties have to be uni­fied and dis­ci­plined to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being shut out of the gen­er­al elec­tion for a key office.

Democ­rats enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly ral­lied around Sec­re­tary Hobbs, Gov­er­nor Inslee’s choice to suc­ceed Sec­re­tary Kim Wyman, who resigned last Novem­ber to take a job with CISA. Hobbs has over 40% of the vote against a sev­en-can­di­date field and is way out ahead in first place. Mean­while, Repub­li­cans splintered.

A total of three can­di­dates iden­ti­fy­ing as Repub­li­cans filed against Hobbs in May — State Sen­a­tor Kei­th Wag­oner, for­mer State Sen­a­tor Mark Milos­cia, and Bob Hag­glu­nd — along with a fourth (semi) Repub­li­can can­di­date with a split iden­ti­ty: con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist Tam­borine Bor­rel­li, who dubbed her­self on the bal­lot as aligned with the Amer­i­ca First (R) Par­ty. (In real­i­ty, there is no such enti­ty: Bor­rel­li invent­ed the label, which state law unfor­tu­nate­ly allows her to do.)

None of the Repub­li­cans became a prop­er fron­trun­ner for their par­ty, result­ing in a night­mare for Repub­li­cans: a three-way vote split among right wing vot­ers that’s allow­ing Ander­son to skate right on by the entire Repub­li­can field.

2022 special election for Washington Secretary of State

Results as of 08/04/2022 6:00 PM

	Steve Hobbs Demo­c­ra­t­ic | 600,934 votes	40.52%
	Julie Ander­son Oth­er | 193,954 votes	13.08%
	Kei­th L Wagoner Repub­li­can | 178,738 votes	12.05%
	Bob Hag­glu­nd Repub­li­can | 177,709 votes	11.98%
	Mark Milos­cia Repub­li­can | 146,978 votes	9.91%
	Mar­quez Tiggs Demo­c­ra­t­ic | 115,062 votes	7.76%
	Tam­borine Borrelli Oth­er | 63,365 votes	4.27%
	Kur­tis Engle Oth­er | 5,288 votes	0.36%

Some­thing sim­i­lar has hap­pened in each of the past two cycles in which a statewide exec­u­tive office was on the bal­lot. In 2016, three Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for Trea­sur­er split the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote so well that two Repub­li­cans were able to get past them and make it to the gen­er­al election.

And in 2020, three Repub­li­can can­di­dates for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor can­celled each oth­er out, result­ing in a gen­er­al elec­tion con­test between two Democrats.

2016 taught Democ­rats a les­son, and they demon­strat­ed that they had learned from it in 2020, when they put up a sin­gle, strong, cred­i­ble can­di­date for Trea­sur­er: Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti, a ris­ing star in the par­ty who served two terms in the State House. Pel­lic­ciot­ti pre­vailed, becom­ing the only Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger to a statewide Repub­li­can incum­bent to win pret­ty much any­where in 2020.

Repub­li­cans don’t seem to have learned a sim­i­lar les­son. They can curse the bad, vot­er-approved Top Two sys­tem, but they can’t change their fate now.

In the past, Repub­li­cans ben­e­fit­ed from what you could call the Thurston Coun­ty to state capi­tol pipeline: A vet­er­an Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State would retire (like Ralph Munro) and pass the baton to the Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor (like Sam Reed or Kim Wyman) who would then run statewide to keep the office in Repub­li­can hands. The par­ty would unite behind that can­di­date and reap the ben­e­fits of hav­ing a rea­son­able Repub­li­can with elec­tions expe­ri­ence as the stan­dard bearer.

Democ­rats, how­ev­er, extin­guished that pipeline a few years ago by get­ting Mary Hall elect­ed as Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor. Hall was one of sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als con­sid­ered to be Wyman’s suc­ces­sor by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, along with Hobbs, Ander­son, and King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise. Hall has endorsed Hobbs to serve out the remain­der of Wyman’s unex­pired term.

Wash­ing­ton State has oth­er coun­ties with Repub­li­can audi­tors, but none of them want­ed to take on Hobbs. That left a vac­u­um, which var­i­ous Repub­li­cans tried to fill. One of them was Wag­oner, a state sen­a­tor from a rur­al dis­trict that spans parts of Sno­homish, Skag­it, and King coun­ties. Wag­oner declared ear­ly and secured the sup­port of Reed and Munro, who were cru­cial sur­ro­gates of Wyman’s, but then squan­dered his advan­tage by rais­ing very lit­tle money.

For a while, Wag­oner’s main com­pe­ti­tion was just fel­low Repub­li­can Bob Hag­glu­nd. But dur­ing Fil­ing Week, fun­da­men­tal­ist Mark Mil­so­cia, who has run unsuc­cess­ful­ly twice for Audi­tor, jumped into the race, see­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Milos­ci­a’s entry had the effect of frac­tur­ing the Repub­li­can field even fur­ther, increas­ing the like­li­hood of dis­as­ter in the August Top Two election.

NPI’s June 2022 polling con­firmed the per­il fac­ing Repub­li­cans. In that sur­vey, we found 17% sup­port for Hobbs and 56% unde­cid­ed, with every­one else mired in the sin­gle dig­its. Wag­oner reg­is­tered at an ane­mic 6%, Hag­glu­nd, Bor­rel­li, and Ander­son clocked in at 5% each, and Milos­cia received a pathet­ic 2%.

Hav­ing raised so lit­tle mon­ey, Wag­oner could not go up on tele­vi­sion and intro­duce him­self to vot­ers. But Ander­son, who was ful­ly pre­pared to take advan­tage of the odd dynam­ics of a Top Two elec­tion, could… and did.

Ander­son­’s pre­pared­ness, work eth­ic, and strate­gic invest­ment in vot­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion paid off. She’s get­ting enough sup­port in the vote-rich coun­ties that bor­der Puget Sound to claim that sec­ond place spot.

Ander­son is Hobbs’ clos­est rival in King, Pierce, Thurston, What­com, and Kit­sap coun­ties. In Pierce Coun­ty, she has of the vote. In King, she has 13.01%. In Thurston, 14.18%. In What­com, 13.97%. In Kit­sap, 13.51%.

Until today, Wag­oner (who has the sec­ond place spot in Sno­homish and Skag­it coun­ties) was­n’t even in third place. He final­ly over­took Bob Hag­glu­nd today.

Hag­glu­nd’s posi­tion as the ini­tial top vote get­ter among the Repub­li­can can­di­dates left many observers sur­prised. Hag­glu­nd has lit­tle name famil­iar­i­ty and has­n’t run a high pro­file cam­paign. But ear­ly Repub­li­can vot­ers who were not impressed with either Wag­oner or Milos­cia grav­i­tat­ed to him. He’s actu­al­ly win­ning sev­er­al small coun­ties out­right: Lewis, Grant, Lin­coln, Fer­ry, Colum­bia, Garfield, and Asotin. He’s also in sec­ond place in Grays Har­bor, Pacif­ic, and Wahkiakum.

In Feb­ru­ary, months before Milos­ci­a’s entry in the race, we test­ed a hypo­thet­i­cal three-way matchup between Hobbs, Wag­oner, and Ander­son. Hobbs had a plu­ral­i­ty lead, with Wag­oner in sec­ond and Ander­son a dis­tant third.

Three way matchups are not allowed in the gen­er­al elec­tion by state law, but we includ­ed Ander­son in our ques­tion because she was a cred­i­ble can­di­date with the poten­tial to go fur­ther than an inde­pen­dent can­di­date usu­al­ly would.

Fac­ing Hobbs plus a well-fund­ed Repub­li­can with the stature of Wyman, Ander­son would prob­a­bly have been elim­i­nat­ed in this round. But this is Wash­ing­ton State in the year 2022. Kim Wyman is gone, hav­ing tak­en her tal­ents and expe­ri­ence to the Biden admin­is­tra­tion, and she left no Repub­li­can heir appar­ent behind her.

That means there will con­tin­ue to be no Repub­li­can in Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment dur­ing the remain­der of this pres­i­den­tial cycle. It’s the lat­est embar­rass­ing elec­tion fias­co for the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty in a cycle that has been a dis­ap­point­ment so far on pret­ty much every level.