With an increasing chorus of pundits and journalists assessing that the Republican Party’s hopes of recapturing the United States Senate this year are dimming, national and state Republicans are engaging in a big coordinated push to try to construct and sell the narrative that Washington State is in play for the Republican Party this year, despite a lack of evidence supporting that contention.
Republicans, as readers may know, have been defeated in every statewide contest for governor and U.S. Senate in Washington going back to the Clinton presidency.
The party’s last Senate victory came in 1994, when the late Slade Gorton defeated Ron Sims, who later was repeatedly elected to be King County Executive.
That was the cycle that has since been dubbed “the Republican Revolution,” and it saw huge Republican gains across Washington.
In United States House races, George Nethercutt defeated Speaker Tom Foley, Doc Hastings unseated Jay Inslee, Rick White edged Maria Cantwell, Randy Tate prevailed over Mike Kreidler, and Linda Smith replaced Jolene Unsoeld. Republican Jack Metcalf also picked up the seat held by Al Swift.
It has been almost thirty years since Republicans had that kind of success in the Evergreen State, today the nation’s thirteenth most populous state.
The party, now chaired by Caleb Heimlich, is desperately craving a big, statement-making win, especially in the wake of a disastrous Top Two election in which the party’s candidates for Secretary of State and State House, Position 1 in the 47th Legislative District canceled each other out, and in which longtime incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler was defeated by ultra MAGA challenger Joe Kent.
While Heimlich and his crew can credibly claim that they have a chance of recapturing the 8th Congressional District this year (it’s the only district in the state that either party can arguably win in any cycle), they have set their sights higher… much higher. Aided by national Republican operaives and Rick Scott’s NRSC, they are going all out in the wake of the Top Two to claim that Democratic U.S. Senator Patty Murray is vulnerable this year, hoping to reset, elevate, and polish challenger Tiffany Smiley’s public image as the midterms approach.
Smiley — who is far more extreme than Chris Vance, the previous challenger the party put up against Murray, wants to pull off a politically dizzying feat this autumn: win a six year Senate term in a Democratic state that voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and as an ultra MAGA candidate to boot.
There are many in the Republican Party eager to help her with that project.
Smiley is seen by many within Republican circles as a dark horse who needs a boost. She’s already proven that she can raise money — lots of money — and quite a few Republicans think she matches up well against Patty Murray as a charismatic younger alternative who hasn’t had a long career in politics.
To date, however, Republicans have had little success convincing people who don’t belong to the Party of Trump that Murray is vulnerable.
But with “candidate quality” (to borrow Mitch McConnell’s characterization) dragging them down and imperiling their prospects in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona, plus Wisconsin, they’re making one last big push for Smiley, trying to bolster her stature and pitch her as a top-tier challenger.
Rolling out a couple rosy polls
Smiley finished around eighteen points behind Murray in the first round of Washington’s two-part general election system — not a great look for a top tier candidate. To address that, Republicans have produced a pair of polls, one right after the other, that purport to show Smiley within a few points of Murray (though of course not ahead, because such figures would really be laughed at).
The first one was done by the McLaughlin Group for John Jordan, a Republican financier, and depicts Smiley about six points behind Murray.
The second was done by the Trafalgar Group, a prolific Republican pollster, and depicts Smiley only three points behind — a massively different result from what pollsters not aligned with either party found back in July.
Neither poll is corroborated by any credible public opinion research, but since there are two of them, Republicans are claiming that they corroborate each other.
NPI/PPP, Crosscut/Elway, and SurveyUSA/KING 5/UW/WSU/Seattle Times all polled the race in the weeks before the Top Two election and found a double digit lead for Murray, which was borne out in the Top Two results. To hear Republicans tell it, that might as well be ancient history and what matters now is these new polls, which are conveniently not yet contradicted by any fresh polling from a sponsor not a cog in the political machine supporting Donald Trump.
Our assessment is that both Republican polls have sampling problems and lack credibility. But that’s obviously not going to stop Republicans from citing them.
Scrubbing the campaign website
Washington State voted overwhelmingly for Biden-Harris in 2020, a fact not lost on Republican operatives and strategists. With the Top Two now over and all other candidates eliminated, Smiley’s team has been making changes to the campaign website in an effort to make the candidate more presentable to an electorate that is expected to be larger, more diverse, and more Democratic. Via HuffPost:
With the primaries over and a new focus on the general election, the Republican Senate candidate in Washington State has removed references to “serious questions about the integrity of our elections” from her campaign website.
The episode is the latest in a string of incidents where some Republican candidates in recent weeks appeared to be scrubbing their online presences of positions that could allow them to be painted as extreme, often related to the issue of abortion or former President Donald Trump.
Smiley’s campaign told HuffPost that she hasn’t changed her position on election security. Regardless, the removal of the language from the website suggests that Smiley’s team concluded that that language could be a turnoff for independent and Democratic-leaning voters that Smiley needs to forge a bond with to even have a prayer of winning this race. So away it went.
But not before it had been archived.
Engaging on the airwaves
Patty Murray’s campaign decided back in the spring to define Smiley before she could define herself, and rolled out ads criticizing Smiley (especially with regards to her position on reproductive rights) that have been airing for weeks.
With the general election approaching and time running out to connect with voters, Smiley’s campaign has now responded with its own ads. Two are defensively themed. One is offensively themed and attempts to change the subject.
In the defensively themed ads, Smiley (who called herself “100% pro-life” on a podcast) acknowledges she isn’t a supporter of reproductive rights, but wouldn’t support a nationwide ban on abortion, which Mike Pence and others have called for. That sounds about as believable to me as Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett claiming that Roe was settled law during their confirmation hearings.
Here’s “She Said”:
Here’s “Disease”:
The other ad is inflation-themed, and cites how the cost of food for a game day party has gone up, specifically mentioning the prices of hot dogs and eggs:
Smiley asserts that Murray is to blame for higher food prices. That is false. Murray has both championed and voted for policies to lower Americans’ cost of living. But Smiley has to have something to campaign on, and as a prized recruit, she’s basically obliged to follow the playbook that D.C. Republicans wrote.
Making national media appearances
As part of the effort to raise her profile, Smiley said yes to an interview with Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union, which, unlike an FNC show, is an environment where a Republican candidate can expect to be asked some tough questions as opposed to only getting softballs. Bash grilled Smiley on a number of fronts, including reproductive rights and the state of American democracy.
Like back in July when she talked to Matt Markovich, Smiley acknowledged when asked that Joe Biden is the President of the United States, but when asked repeatedly whether he was legitimately elected, she demurred, repeatedly, refusing to simply say, Yes. He was legitimately elected.
A reasonable Republican, as opposed to an ultra MAGA candidate with an allegiance to Trump, should not have a problem making that kind of statement.
Smiley and her promoters have been trying to pass her off as a reasonable Republican despite her extreme views. This exchange with Bash showed pretty clearly that Smiley is a Trump Republican — not, say, a Slade Gorton Republican, undercutting the work Republicans have undertaken to develop Smiley’s image.
Pleading for money (and lots of it)
Inspired perhaps by the fundraising appeals that Donald Trump and Tim Eyman so often send, Tiffany Smiley’s campaign team has gone all-in on doom will be our fate unless you open your wallet and give right now as the theme of their pitches for money. Lest you think I am exaggerating, here is an end of the month email — in its entirety — that Smiley’s campaign sent out a week ago:
Friend, you know I hate to be negative.
There’s truly no one who believes in this campaign more than me, which is why it kills me to say I may have to call it quits.
My finance team just sat me down and delivered some devastating news… we’re about to come up $4,750 short of our August goal.
[Help meet Tiffany’s goal button]
Why is this such devastating news, you ask? Well, my opponent, Patty Murray, hit her goal days ago and is already launching huge ad campaigns.
I’m genuinely overwhelmed by all of this. I don’t see how we can catch up to an ever-growing and seemingly unbeatable war chest.
And to make matters worse, other Republican candidates are suffering the same fate and are closing up shop.
This couldn’t be more severe and is why I’m asking – no begging – you to read every word of this email.
I’m a first-time candidate, veteran advocate, and political outsider. I’ve spent so much of my life raising my 3 incredible boys and caring for my husband when he was permanently blinded while serving in Iraq.
Unlike my opponent, I haven’t spent the last 30 years building connections and raising money from political elites.
But that’s precisely why I have a real chance of defeating her this November. I’m bringing the fresh ideas and leadership America needs, and the Democrats know it.
So I’ll get right to it.
I need you on my team. I won’t put a number on it because I mean it when I say anything you give can and will be a game-changer in this election.
We’re creeping into the final hours of this month’s deadline, but I know that we’ll keep this campaign going with your support.
So what do you think? Will you be a part of my history-making campaign by chipping in what you can before tonight’s deadline?
I really hope you understand where I’m coming from.
I promise I wouldn’t reach out like this if it weren’t the end of the road.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Smiley
Emphasis is theirs.
The email’s attention-grabbing subject line was Calling it quits.
The part that I enjoyed most of all was the line we’re about to come up $4,750 short of our August goal, which is described as “devastating news.”
Devastating? A statewide campaign that has already raised millions of dollars is less than five grand short of a monthly goal? How is that devastating?
Ought a shipshape, fiscally responsible campaign that has raised millions be able to adjust to being a few thousand short of a monthly goal?
I’m being facetious, of course. There’s no logic to this email: it’s written deliberately to provoke an emotional reaction — especially from people who have already given money to the campaign — with alarming phrasing such as: I may have to call it quits… I’m begging you to read every word of this email… I promise I wouldn’t reach out like this if it weren’t the end of the road.
September 1st ended up not being the end of the road for the Smiley campaign; Republicans entered September still frenziedly trying to pitch her candidacy.
Concern trolls, now is the time!
Even if Republicans are not themselves convinced that Tiffany Smiley is an opponent Patty Murray should fear, they are nevertheless hoping to alarm Democrats into thinking that this is the case. They would love to get into their opponents’ heads and get them to believe that Washington is in play… or, failing that, at least prod them into doubting that Washington is Safe Democratic turf this year.
Perhaps the best case scenario for Republicans is that Democrats get spooked and spend a lot of money here rather than in those swing states I just mentioned.
Accordingly, the concern trolls are out.
One stopped by the Cascadia Advocate last week, and said, in part:
Be careful, Democrats, or you’re going to have another old, worn out versus young charismatic John James type situation on your hands.
I noted, in reply:
Has it occurred to you that Republicans are just bad at going up against Patty Murray? Every cycle, it seems, they underestimate her, and that works to her advantage.
Linda Smith was supposed to beat her in 1998. Didn’t happen. Then in 2004, it was gonna be George Nethercutt, who had knocked out Speaker Foley in 1994. But nope. Then in 2010, Republicans recruited Dino Rossi to challenge Murray. Again, she prevailed, and in a difficult environment for Democrats. In 2016, Chris Vance (now an independent) tried to defeat Murray, and got walloped.
Here we are in 2022 and Tiffany Smiley is running. You imply she’s charismatic. But she is running a terrible campaign. She couldn’t even tell The Seattle Times’ David Gutman what she would cut out of the federal budget despite claiming to be for reining in spending. The Smiley campaign consists mainly of boilerplate and Biden/Murray bashing. We shall see how far that gets Smiley.
Our assessment, based on the evidence: Not far. But anything can happen in politics. Unlike some, we don’t lack for imagination.
Labor Day has come and gone and we’re now in the homestretch of the cycle. Especially given the Dobbs decision and the Republican Party’s continued march towards becoming an entity that is totally incompatible with democracy, the NPI team does not see an opening for Tiffany Smiley to win Washington State in 2022.
Patty Murray was already a favorite even before the events of 2022. Importantly, though, anyone who knows her knows she doesn’t take an election for granted.
If Washington State Republicans were hoping to benefit from Democratic complacency this year, they’re going to be disappointed.
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[…] In Washington, U.S. Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley tried to straddle the issue. Till latestly, consultant-crafted prose on her website online learn: “The 2020 elections raised serious questions concerning the integrity of our elections. I imagine that courts have an obligation to present all evidence of voter fraud a good listening to.” […]
[…] A few days earlier, the candidate was fessing up her deepest feelings: “There’s truly no one who believes in this campaign more than me, which is why it kills me to say I may have to call it quits.” […]