NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, November 9th, 2022

Republican Tiffany Smiley concedes defeat to Democratic U.S. Senator Patty Murray

Bow­ing to real­i­ty, Repub­li­can Tiffany Smi­ley acknowl­edged late this evening that her cam­paign to unseat Demo­c­ra­t­ic Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray has end­ed in fail­ure. In an announce­ment post­ed to her social net­work­ing chan­nels, Smi­ley said she called Mur­ray to con­cede — some­thing many Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists were skep­ti­cal that she would do — and wish her well in her next term.

“This evening I reached out to Sen­a­tor Mur­ray and her cam­paign to con­grat­u­late her on her vic­to­ry after a hard-fought race,” said Smiley.

“I can­not thank my fam­i­ly, my team and the won­der­ful peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton state enough for their sup­port over the past 18 months.”

“This race was nev­er about me — it was about the amaz­ing peo­ple of this state and I will nev­er stop fight­ing and advo­cat­ing for them.”

“Well said Tiffany! Con­grats on a hard fought cam­paign and an hon­or­able con­ces­sion. I will remem­ber that. You are a good human,” said Seat­tle Cof­fee Gear CEO Mike Atikin­son, con­ve­nient­ly fail­ing to men­tion the lies Smi­ley told dur­ing her cam­paign in an attempt to win the election.

“Tiffany I feel bad for you been pray­ing for you. I’m so sor­ry I wish it would have went your direc­tion we could’ve used some­one fresh. Thank you for your hum­ble­ness and all the best to you and hope you’ll try again,” said Valerie McKen­na.

“Thank you for run­ning a great cam­paign. I fol­lowed it with inter­est. We need real can­di­dates, like you and Pat­ti [sic] Mur­ray, on both sides of the aisle to hold each oth­er account­able push­ing to make every­one bet­ter. That will ulti­mate­ly serve the peo­ple,” said JB Smith.

“Thank you for not win­ning,” said Neal Schindler.

“This is sick­en­ing. I haven’t trust­ed the elec­tion process in WA State for a long time!” said some­one call­ing them­selves “MAGA Margie.”

Smi­ley’s oper­a­tives had only hours before sent mul­ti­ple emails declar­ing that the race was “far from over.” One was titled: “Going into overtime.”

Anoth­er was titled: “I need your help.”

“This fight isn’t over!” that mes­sage (sent at 1:57 PM Pacif­ic) declared.

“Bal­lots are still being count­ed in Wash­ing­ton, and it’s crit­i­cal that we keep work­ing to secure a vic­to­ry! Team Smi­ley is ready to send a shock wave from Wash­ing­ton state all the way to Wash­ing­ton D.C.”

“Although Elec­tion Day has offi­cial­ly passed, Team Smi­ley can NOT give up now. I know we can win. I know we can restore the Amer­i­can Dream. I know we can pro­vide a bet­ter future for our families.”

It took a mere eight hours for Smi­ley to give up.

At last Sun­day’s 253 Din­ner orga­nized by Bob Fer­gu­son’s cam­paign (which drew a huge Demo­c­ra­t­ic turnout), U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer got one of the biggest applause lines of the night when he joked that it would only be a cou­ple more days before Tiffany Smi­ley’s ads would be off the air.

The sold out crowd roared in agree­ment. Now, they’re get­ting their wish.

Smi­ley’s cam­paign is at an end. As of press time, Smi­ley had not sent an email to her entire mail­ing list announc­ing the con­ces­sion and the end of the campaign.

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