Brad Klippert’s write-in candidacy could give Steve Hobbs the edge over Julie Anderson for Secretary of State, NPI poll suggests

An ultra MAGA Repub­li­can’s write-in can­di­da­cy could play a piv­otal role in keep­ing the office of Wash­ing­ton’s Sec­re­tary of State in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands this year, a poll con­duct­ed this week for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute indicates.

Recent polling has shown appoint­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent Steve Hobbs tied with inde­pen­dent chal­lenger Julie Ander­son, and our Octo­ber 2022 sur­vey of the Wash­ing­ton State elec­torate con­firms that dynam­ic still exists.

Hobbs, a for­mer state sen­a­tor, was appoint­ed to the post almost a year ago by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Repub­li­can Kim Wyman, who took a job with CISA in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. Hobbs is the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State in over fifty years and the first Asian Amer­i­can to hold the office. He is being chal­lenged by Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son. Six oth­er can­di­dates were elim­i­nat­ed in the Top Two elec­tion, includ­ing sev­er­al Republicans.

Giv­en a choice between just Hobbs and Ander­son, 34% of our respon­dents said they’d vote for Ander­son, 33% said Hobbs, and 32% were not sure.

How­ev­er, once we added Repub­li­can Brad Klip­pert’s name to the mix, we saw a big shift. 34% of our respon­dents picked Hobbs in our fol­low-up ques­tion, 23% chose Klip­pert, and just 18% backed Ander­son. 25% were not sure.

These num­bers sug­gest that Klip­pert’s can­di­da­cy could be the decid­ing fac­tor in this unusu­al race. Though Klip­pert isn’t list­ed on the bal­lot, he is a declared can­di­date who is active­ly cam­paign­ing, as this excel­lent Cross­cut arti­cle writ­ten by Joseph O’Sul­li­van pub­lished yes­ter­day explains, and Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have the free­dom to write in his name if they wish when they vote for this office.

Once respon­dents have the option of pick­ing Klip­pert, a proud and declared Repub­li­can, Ander­son­’s sup­port col­laps­es. Mean­while, Hobbs holds steady, with an ever so slight increase in sup­port of one per­cent­age point (33% > 34%).

Hobbs’ base of sup­port looks rather sol­id, while Ander­son­’s coali­tion looks awful­ly shaky. To win this con­test, Ander­son needs Repub­li­can and inde­pen­dent vot­ers behind her, since Wash­ing­ton is a Demo­c­ra­t­ic lean­ing state and most Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers are back­ing Hobbs along with many independents.

“Every poll that we’ve seen demon­strates that I have a path to vic­to­ry,” Ander­son told The Cen­ter Square in an inter­view pub­lished yes­ter­day. Head-to-head polls, sure, but our sur­vey is the first that takes the Klip­pert fac­tor into account.

If even a small per­cent­age of Repub­li­can vot­ers choose Klip­pert over Ander­son, her path to vic­to­ry could van­ish, putting the kibosh on Ander­son­’s chances.

Here is the text of both ques­tions that we asked and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: The can­di­dates for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State are Demo­c­rat Steve Hobbs and inde­pen­dent Julie Ander­son. Who do you plan to vote for in the election?

ANSWERS:

• Steve Hobbs (D): 33%
• Julie Ander­son (I): 34%
• Not sure: 32%

QUESTION: In addi­tion to Demo­c­rat Steve Hobbs and inde­pen­dent Julie Ander­son, the can­di­dates for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State also include a write-in can­di­date who will not be list­ed on the bal­lot: Repub­li­can Brad Klip­pert. Who do you plan to vote for in the election?

• Steve Hobbs (D): 34%
• Brad Klip­pert (R, write-in): 23%
• Julie Ander­son (I): 18%
• Not sure: 25%

Our sur­vey of 782 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State midterm vot­ers was in the field from Wednes­day, Octo­ber 19th through Thurs­day, Octo­ber 20th. The sur­vey was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.5% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

Any­one who thinks that a write-in can­di­date secur­ing a dou­ble dig­it per­cent­age of the vote is implau­si­ble should con­sid­er that in 2020, a whop­ping 759,076 Wash­ing­ton vot­ers (20% of the total vot­ing for the office) vot­ed for a write-in can­di­date for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor, which like Sec­re­tary of State is a down­bal­lot exec­u­tive office. Most of those vot­ers were Repub­li­cans dis­sat­is­fied with the notion of hav­ing to choose between two Democ­rats (Den­ny Heck, Marko Liias).

Julie Ander­son is run­ning as a “non­par­ti­san,” unaf­fil­i­at­ed with any polit­i­cal par­ty, so the dynam­ics aren’t exact­ly the same as in that Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor’s race.

But if Repub­li­can vot­ers know that a Repub­li­can can­di­date is run­ning whose name they can affix to their bal­lot, our data demon­strates that they will grav­i­tate to the Repub­li­can, as we saw in 2020. Large num­bers of Repub­li­can vot­ers would clear­ly rather vote for a Repub­li­can can­di­date than a can­di­date who is not a Republican.

Inter­est­ing­ly, that’s also true of a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of inde­pen­dent voters.

Below, we can see what hap­pens to Ander­son­’s coali­tion once respon­dents are aware of Klip­pert’s can­di­da­cy and have the option of pick­ing him:

Crosstabs by par­ty for both questions

	Steve Hobbs	Julie Ander­son	Brad Klip­pert
Democ­rats	65% -> 66%	13% -> 14%	1%
Repub­li­cans	3% -> 2%	61% -> 22%	57%
Inde­pen­dents	25% -> 27%	35% -> 20%	17%

Hobbs keeps his sup­port among the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and inde­pen­dent vot­ers already in his camp once Klip­pert is in the pic­ture. But Ander­son los­es most of her Repub­li­can sup­port as well as a chunk of those self-iden­ti­fied independents.

The num­ber of not sure vot­ers also decreas­es once Klip­pert is in the pic­ture. Ini­tial­ly, 32% of all respon­dents are not sure: 21% Democ­rats, 36% Repub­li­cans, and 40% of inde­pen­dents. But after Klip­pert becomes an option, 25% say they are not sure: 19% Democ­rats, 18% Repub­li­cans, and 36% of independents.

This find­ing mir­rors, to some extent, the three-way split we saw in Feb­ru­ary when our win­ter­time statewide poll field­ed. In that poll, we had a ques­tion about the Sec­re­tary of State con­test with three choic­es: Hobbs, Ander­son, and Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Kei­th Wag­oner, who at that point had­n’t been elim­i­nat­ed. Hobbs led with 33%, Wag­oner was sec­ond with 30%, and Ander­son was third with 11%.

Wag­oner’s ane­mic fundrais­ing sub­se­quent­ly left his cam­paign in a vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion. Because he did­n’t have the resources to go up on TV back in July, he could­n’t unite Repub­li­can vot­ers behind his can­di­da­cy and claim a gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot slot. Wag­oner instead split the Repub­li­can vote with rivals Bob Hag­glu­nd and Mark Milos­cia, allow­ing Ander­son to go on. Had the Repub­li­can vote been uni­fied, Ander­son almost cer­tain­ly would have been elim­i­nat­ed in the Top Two.

Oth­er statewide polls that recent­ly looked at this con­test asked only about Hobbs ver­sus Ander­son. Like us, they found an almost dead even two-way race.

But this is real­ly a three-way race if Repub­li­can vot­ers know about Brad Klip­pert’s can­di­da­cy.  And our guess is that many will, giv­en that Klip­pert has the back­ing of the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty, a cam­paign appa­ra­tus, and access to right wing media out­lets. That’s why we asked a fol­low-ques­tion which includ­ed Klip­pert. His can­di­da­cy can­not be dis­missed just because his name won­t’t appear on the bal­lot. He is clear­ly an attrac­tive option in the eyes of the ultra MAGA fac­tion of the elec­torate, and they’ve shown they’re will­ing to write in a name.

At NPI, we spe­cial­ize in ask­ing ques­tions that no one else is. If you appre­ci­ate our insight­ful research and imag­i­na­tive advo­ca­cy, we invite you to join us as a mem­ber. You can also make a one time dona­tion to sus­tain our polling.