With Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee hav­ing announced yes­ter­day that he won’t be seek­ing a fourth term in the state’s top posi­tion of pub­lic respon­si­bil­i­ty, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son has wast­ed no time in jump­ing into the race, mak­ing his can­di­da­cy offi­cial with a PDC fil­ing, cam­paign web­site, launch video, and press statement.

“I have nev­er been afraid to take on big chal­lenges, and I’ve nev­er for­got­ten who I’m fight­ing for,” Fer­gu­son said in a state­ment. “I look for­ward to lis­ten­ing and learn­ing from Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in every coun­ty and cor­ner of this great state.”

Fer­gu­son says he con­sid­ers his cam­paign to be in the “explorato­ry” phase right now, imply­ing that he intends to put togeth­er a launch event of some sort in the weeks to come. While “explorato­ry” has a legal mean­ing attached to it for fed­er­al can­di­dates, at the state lev­el, it does­n’t. You’re either a can­di­date or you’re not — and Fer­gu­son is a declared can­di­date for Gov­er­nor, the first cred­i­ble can­di­date on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side to offi­cial­ly toss his hat into the ring.

Dur­ing this explorato­ry phase, Fer­gu­son says he will:

Pur­sue these goals

• Vis­it every cor­ner of the state;
• Earn 5,000 grass­roots con­tri­bu­tions from Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in all 39 counties;
• Earn 200 endorse­ments from elect­ed officials.

Statewide Lis­ten­ing Tour

Fer­gu­son will begin his lis­ten­ing tour this month with a trip to East­ern Wash­ing­ton. The lis­ten­ing tour will include pub­lic appear­ances, house par­ties, meet­ings with trib­al gov­ern­ments, busi­ness lead­ers, and elect­ed officials.

Fer­gu­son vis­it­ed every Wash­ing­ton coun­ty as a can­di­date for Attor­ney Gen­er­al, and vis­it­ed every coun­ty again dur­ing his first term. As Attor­ney Gen­er­al Fer­gu­son also vis­it­ed every Rotary club in the state – approx­i­mate­ly 200 clubs across 103 dif­fer­ent Wash­ing­ton cities.

Fer­gu­son is already most of the way towards his third goal, at least if he’s count­ing what he’s start­ing with. He unveiled a long list of ear­ly endorsers, includ­ing five Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of the state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion: Suzan Del­Bene, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Derek Kilmer, Rick Larsen, and Adam Smith and Trea­sur­er Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti from the exec­u­tive depart­ment. A huge num­ber of state leg­is­la­tors are also behind Fer­gu­son, includ­ing Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Andy Billig.

Here’s Fer­gu­son’s launch video:

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz is expect­ed to join Fer­gu­son in the con­test soon, per­haps with­in days. King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine took him­self out of the run­ning sev­er­al weeks ago, announc­ing his focus will be on his cur­rent job run­ning the state’s largest locality.

On the Repub­li­can side, ultra MAGA Repub­li­can Semi Bird is run­ning, hav­ing already raised over $50,000. Yaki­ma doc­tor Raul Gar­cia, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim Walsh, and State Sen­a­tor John Braun have been men­tioned as pos­si­ble can­di­dates. Repub­li­can Bruce Dammeier, the term-lim­it­ed Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, has said he has no inter­est in run­ning for Governor.

Dammeier and Con­stan­tine were part of a hypo­thet­i­cal guber­na­to­r­i­al field we polled on about two months ago in our win­ter statewide sur­vey. Dammeier was the only Repub­li­can in the poll and received 35%, which is the same as what Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler got in a the­o­ret­i­cal matchup against Maria Cantwell and what we believe in any Repub­li­can could get in a head-to-head contest.

Con­stan­tine got 7%, tying with Hilary Franz and trail­ing Fer­gu­son, who got 21%.

We will be polling the guber­na­to­r­i­al race again next month, and this time, we’ll have an actu­al field to ask vot­ers about rather than a hypo­thet­i­cal one.