Should Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee decide against seek­ing an unprece­dent­ed fourth term lat­er this year, Repub­li­can Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Bruce Dammeier and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son would be the two lead­ing can­di­dates to suc­ceed him in a hypo­thet­i­cal field that also includ­ed King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine (D) and Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz (D), a poll recent­ly con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

35% of 874 like­ly 2024 gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers inter­viewed from March 7th-8th for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling said they’d back Dammeier if the elec­tion were being held today, while 21% said they’d pick Fer­gu­son. 7% said Con­stan­tine and anoth­er 7% said Franz. A total of 30% were not sure, a fig­ure that exceeds the sup­port of each of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates, though not all of them combined.

Visu­al­iza­tion of NPI’s March 2023 guber­na­to­r­i­al poll find­ing, with a hypo­thet­i­cal field of four can­di­dates (North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute)

The results sug­gest that Fer­gu­son would have the advan­tage at the out­set of a 2024 guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign among the three top Demo­c­ra­t­ic office­hold­ers in the state known to be inter­est­ed in the job, but also indi­cates that there could be an open­ing for either Franz or Con­stan­tine to wage a com­pet­i­tive cam­paign, par­tic­u­lar­ly if one of them decid­ed to for­go run­ning, result­ing in just two cred­i­ble Democ­rats com­pet­ing for time, tal­ent, trea­sure, and votes in the elim­i­na­tion round.

Dammeier’s 35% per­cent­age is pret­ty much what we thought we’d most like­ly see. In head-to-head ques­tions in our statewide polling, we usu­al­ly see declared or hypo­thet­i­cal Repub­li­can can­di­dates in the mid to upper thirties.

This range has been fair­ly steady since the tumul­tuous 2016 elec­tion. Three exam­ples: Susan Hutchi­son polled at 36% in May of 2018, Don­ald Trump polled at 37% in Octo­ber of 2019, and Tiffany Smi­ley polled at 37% in May of 2021.

Repub­li­cans have not won a guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton since 1980, and, aside from a long string of vic­to­ries for Sec­re­tary of State that end­ed last year, have won only a hand­ful of down­bal­lot exec­u­tive con­tests since 2000. They’ve also been reduced to just two seats in the state’s twelve-mem­ber con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, leav­ing them with a thin bench, in stark con­trast to the Democrats.

Giv­en Wash­ing­ton’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic ori­en­ta­tion, most of the action for gov­er­nor will be on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side, again assum­ing Inslee retires. But the Repub­li­cans can be count­ed upon to field some­body, which is why we put togeth­er a ques­tion that includ­ed a hypo­thet­i­cal Repub­li­can can­di­date as well as the three Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates. Here’s the text of our ques­tion and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION (VERSION A): If the 2024 Top Two elec­tion for Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State were being held today and the can­di­dates were Demo­c­rat Hilary Franz, Repub­li­can Bruce Dammeier, Demo­c­rat Dow Con­stan­tine, and Demo­c­rat Bob Fer­gu­son, who would you vote for?

Half the poll sam­ple saw the ques­tion with the order of can­di­dates as shown above and half the sam­ple saw the ques­tion with the order of can­di­dates shown below. The word­ing was the same, but the order was invert­ed to make the ques­tion as neu­tral as possible. 

QUESTION (VERSION B): If the 2024 Top Two elec­tion for Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State were being held today and the can­di­dates were Demo­c­rat Bob Fer­gu­son, Demo­c­rat Dow Con­stan­tine, Repub­li­can Bruce Dammeier, and Demo­c­rat Hilary Franz, who would you vote for?

ANSWERS:

• Repub­li­can Bruce Dammeier: 35%
• Demo­c­rat Bob Fer­gu­son: 21%
• Demo­c­rat Hilary Franz: 7%
• Demo­c­rat Dow Con­stan­tine: 7%
• Not sure: 30%

Our sur­vey of 874 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, March 7th through Wednes­day, March 8th, 2023.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and online answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

It was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling (PPP) for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

NPI and PPP have worked togeth­er for a decade and have a track record of excel­lence, as detailed in this 2022 elec­toral polling recap and this 2020 one.

Most vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton iden­ti­fy either as Demo­c­ra­t­ic or inde­pen­dent, and as you might expect, giv­en a choice of three Democ­rats for an impor­tant office, large num­bers were unde­cid­ed. One in three Democ­rats (33%) said they were not sure, with 39% back­ing Fer­gu­son and Franz and Con­stan­tine get­ting 12% each. 42% of inde­pen­dent vot­ers were also not sure. 33% of inde­pen­dents said they’d back Dammeier, while 12% picked Fer­gu­son, 8% Con­stan­tine, and 5% Franz.

Repub­li­cans eas­i­ly lined up behind Dammeier — as men­tioned, the only Repub­li­can option. 84% of them backed Dammeier and 11% were not sure. 3% said they’d sup­port Fer­gu­son; 1% said Franz, and anoth­er 1% said Con­stan­tine, for a total of 5% of Repub­li­can vot­ers will­ing to back a Demo­c­rat. That match­es the num­ber of Democ­rats who said they were for Dammeier — 5%.

Region­al­ly, here’s how the dynam­ics break down:

• King Coun­ty: This is the most Demo­c­ra­t­ic part of Wash­ing­ton State — it’s a blue bas­tion. Con­stan­tine did twice as well (14%) in the King Coun­ty sub­sam­ple of our poll as in the over­all sam­ple, but Fer­gu­son still was the top Demo­c­rat in Wash­ing­ton’s most pop­u­lous coun­ty with 20%. Franz, mean­while, got 10%. The per­cent­age of not sure vot­ers was 38%. Dammeier only got 18% among our King Coun­ty respondents.
• North Puget Sound: This area usu­al­ly votes Demo­c­ra­t­ic, espe­cial­ly in top of the tick­et con­tests. Dammeier fared rea­son­ably well in this region. He received 40% sup­port there, while Fer­gu­son received 20%. Con­stan­tine received 8% and Franz 7%, sim­i­lar to their statewide num­bers. 25% were not sure, a low­er fig­ure than the statewide percentage.
• South Sound: This is Dammeier’s home turf (it includes Pierce Coun­ty), but a lit­tle sur­pris­ing­ly, his num­ber there is mere­ly the same as his statewide per­cent­age — 35%. Fer­gu­son, mean­while, was very com­pet­i­tive, clock­ing in at 31%, his best show­ing in any region of the state. He seems to have seri­ous strength in the South Sound. Con­stan­tine and Franz received just 2% each. 30% said that they were not sure, match­ing the statewide percentage.
• Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Wash­ing­ton: This is swing turf for both par­ties. Democ­rats have held onto the 24th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in recent elec­tions while Repub­li­cans have tak­en the 19th. The Democ­rats man­aged to flip the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict last year in a major vic­to­ry. Fer­gu­son received 15% in this region, while Con­stan­tine and Franz each got 8%. Dammeier received 42%. 27% were not sure.
• East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton: This is the most Repub­li­can part of Wash­ing­ton State by far, and accord­ing­ly, a major­i­ty of like­ly vot­ers favor Dammeier. He received 50% sup­port, while Fer­gu­son received 18%. Con­stan­tine received 1% and Franz 4%. 27% were not sure.

Notes and caveats about our question and the finding

It’s impor­tant to remem­ber this ques­tion asked vot­ers about a hypo­thet­i­cal field, one that does­n’t exist now and may nev­er exist. Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee has­n’t made or announced a deci­sion about run­ning again and none of these four elect­ed offi­cials has launched a cam­paign. It is pos­si­ble that some of them won’t run — it’s even pos­si­ble that none of them will run. We don’t know the future and don’t pre­tend to, so I won’t offer any pre­dic­tions. There’s many plau­si­ble scenarios.

Our intent with this ques­tion was to have fun explor­ing some of the poten­tial dynam­ics of a land­scape in which Gov­er­nor Inslee does­n’t seek reelection.

We only includ­ed cred­i­ble poten­tial can­di­dates in our ques­tion because it isn’t fea­si­ble or worth­while to ask vot­ers about dozens of pos­si­bil­i­ties in a sur­vey. There were thir­ty-six can­di­dates (yes, three dozen!) for Gov­er­nor in the August 2020 Top Two elec­tion and most of them did not receive even 1% of the vote.

Fer­gu­son, Con­stan­tine, and Franz have all pre­vi­ous­ly expressed inter­est in run­ning for gov­er­nor, are unques­tion­ably qual­i­fied for the office, and have demon­strat­ed they can raise the resources need­ed to com­pete statewide. Fer­gu­son and Franz have also each won con­sec­u­tive statewide elec­tions for oth­er posi­tions in the exec­u­tive depart­ment — Attor­ney Gen­er­al and Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands.

Dammeier, mean­while, is the most cred­i­ble Repub­li­can can­di­date our team could think of (we want­ed a cred­i­ble Repub­li­can to go with the three cred­i­ble Democ­rats in the ques­tion). He’s in charge of the sec­ond largest coun­ty in the state and would run a much more seri­ous cam­paign than a grifter like Loren Culp or Tim Eyman if he chose to enter the race. Pierce Coun­ty has term lim­its, so Dammeier can­not run again for Exec­u­tive next year. He could run for gov­er­nor, though!

Future polling plans

In our spring sea­son­al sur­vey, we’ll take anoth­er look at the guber­na­to­r­i­al race and bring you a new find­ing. It is pos­si­ble by that point that Gov­er­nor Inslee will have announced his plans, but it’s also pos­si­ble he won’t have. His most recent two pre­de­ces­sors wait­ed until June and July to offi­cial­ly announce that they had decid­ed to retire. Chris Gre­goire’s retire­ment announce­ment was made pub­lic on June 13th, 2011; Gary Locke announced his retire­ment on July 21st, 2003.