Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson is the current frontrunner in the increasingly crowded contest to succeed outgoing Governor Jay Inslee as Washington State’s next chief executive, a new poll conducted this week for the Northwest Progressive Institute by Public Policy Polling has confirmed.
25% of 773 respondents interviewed June 7th and 8th for the Northwest Progressive Institute said that they preferred Ferguson for Governor.
17% said they favored Republican Raul Garcia. 10% say they’d vote for ultra MAGA Republican Semi Bird. 9% said they preferred another Democratic contender: Hilary Franz, the current Commissioner of Public Lands. Another 7% back a third Democratic candidate, State Senator Mark Mullet.
33% of respondents said they were not sure.
In NPI’s last seasonal survey, which fielded in March, we asked 874 respondents, also a group of likely 2024 voters, to react to a hypothetical field of candidates for governor. That group included Ferguson and Franz along with two county executives who have taken themselves out of the running: King County’s Dow Constantine, a Democrat, and Pierce County’s Bruce Dammeier, a Republican.
When that poll fielded, we didn’t know what Governor Jay Inslee’s plans for 2024 were, which was why we asked about a hypothetical field of candidates.
Now we know that Inslee plans to pass the torch. Washingtonians will be picking a new governor next year. It’s an exciting time in state politics.
A lot of people have either said they’re running for governor or are thinking about doing so. A poll that asked about dozens of declared or potential obscure candidates wouldn’t yield useful data, so we came up with a set of criteria to determine which candidates to include. Those criteria are as follows:
- Must be an officially declared candidate for the office who has filed a C1 with the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC)
- Must have declared an affiliation with a major party (the Democratic Party or the Republican Party)
- Must have reported raising at least $50,000 in early money for their current gubernatorial campaign or have previously raised at least $250,000 in a prior campaign for any state-level office, or both
Seventeen people have filed for governor in 2024 with the PDC thus far, meeting the first of our criteria. Of those seventeen, fifteen have identified themselves as Democrats or Republicans, meeting the second of our criteria.
Of those fifteen, only five have either raised at least $50,000 already or previously raised a quarter of a million dollars in a campaign for state level office. The five who made the cut are Ferguson, Franz, Mullet, Garcia, and Bird.
As mentioned, Ferguson is the current Attorney General, Franz is Commissioner of Public Lands, and Mullet is a state senator from the 5th. Raul Garcia is a doctor and previous gubernatorial candidate (2020). Bird is a Richland school board member who calls himself a Black constitutional Christian conservative.
Here’s the exact text of the questions we posed and the answers we received:
QUESTION (VERSION A): If the 2024 Top Two election for Governor were being held today, would you vote for Democrat Hilary Franz, Republican Semi Bird, Democrat Bob Ferguson, Republican Raul Garcia, or Democrat Mark Mullet?
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 were being held today, would you vote for Democrat Mark Mullet, Republican Raul Garcia, Democrat Bob Ferguson, Republican Semi Bird, or Democrat Hilary Franz?
ANSWERS:
- Democrat Bob Ferguson: 25%
- Republican Raul Garcia: 17%
- Republican Semi Bird: 10%
- Democrat Hilary Franz: 9%
- Democrat Mark Mullet: 7%
- Not sure: 33%
Our survey of 773 likely 2024 Washington State voters was in the field from Wednesday, June 7th through Thursday, June 8th, 2023.
The poll utilizes a blended methodology, with automated phone calls to landlines (41%) and online answers from cell phone only respondents (59%).
It was conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP) for the Northwest Progressive Institute, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.5% 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.
Topline analysis
As mentioned, Ferguson is the clear early frontrunner for Governor.
Since our last statewide poll at about this time in March, which looked at a hypothetical field that included him, Hilary Franz, Dow Constantine, and Bruce Dammeier, his support has gone up, from 21% then to 25% now.
That’s a positive sign for his candidacy. Franz also saw a bump, albeit a very slight one: she went from 7% in March to 9% this time around.
Mullet’s 7% is the same number that Franz and Constantine were both at in March. Mullet’s path to victory looks awfully steep, especially with Republican Raul Garcia in the race. Garcia is the other winner in our survey.
Despite not having gotten far in his last campaign in 2020, Garcia’s candidacy seems to be resonating. Republican and independent voters like him more than Semi Bird, who has been in the race longer and has raised more money.
If the party and Republican voters decide to rally behind Garcia, our team can see him consolidating enough support to secure one of those top two spots, leaving only one spot for a Democratic candidate, which our research suggests would be Ferguson. For Mullet or Franz to become governor, they’d likely need to make the runoff ballot in a Democrat-on-Democrat contest and be Ferguson’s opponent, then manage to reel in more votes than Ferguson in that final head-to-head.
It’s going to be exceptionally difficult for either of them to get more votes than Ferguson in the elimination round to make that runoff. Ferguson will have have plenty of money to work with as the frontrunner, and he’s better positioned out of the gate than anyone else to lock down additional Democratic support.
Breakdown by party
In this poll, 42% of Democratic voters back Ferguson, while 16% back Franz and 10% back Mullet. 27% are not sure. 2% of self-identified Democratic voters back Semi Bird; another 2% back Raul Garcia.
On the other side of the divide: 40% of Republican voters like Garcia; 24% are for Bird. 33% of Republican voters aren’t sure who they’re voting for. Ferguson and Franz each got 1% from self-identified Republicans; Mullet got 2%.
There’s really not a difference there.
If you’re a Democratic candidate in this race, you’re going to find it really hard to win over Republican voters to your side, even if you say you’ll take a hard line on tax increases, which is what Mullet is saying he’ll do.
Independents are the most undecided group. Two-fifths of them (40%) aren’t sure. 20% back Ferguson, and 17% back Garcia. 9% of independent voters backed Bird, 8% backed Franz, and 6% backed Mullet.
Independents are an ideologically heterogeneous group, lacking consistency in their values and principles, so it isn’t surprising to see splits like this.
It is noteworthy that Garcia has about three times the amount of support among independent voters that Mullet does at this point.
The Republican-leaning independent voters in our sample had the option of picking Mullet, a Democrat who says he’s a middle of the road guy who can beat Ferguson, but they went with Garcia. Fascinating.
Breakdown by region
Here’s who each region prefers for governor:
- King County
- Bob Ferguson: 29%
- Hilary Franz: 13%
- Mark Mullet: 11%
- Raul Garcia: 9%
- Semi Bird: 5%
- Not sure: 33%
- North Puget Sound
- Bob Ferguson: 33%
- Raul Garcia: 16%
- Hilary Franz: 9%
- Semi Bird: 8%
- Mark Mullet: 2%
- Not sure: 33%
- South Sound
- Bob Ferguson: 24%
- Raul Garcia: 13%
- Semi Bird: 11%
- Hilary Franz: 9%
- Mark Mullet: 7%
- Not sure: 36%
- Olympic Peninsula and Southwest Washington
- Raul Garcia: 18%
- Bob Ferguson: 17%
- Semi Bird: 11%
- Hilary Franz: 10%
- Mark Mullet: 9%
- Not sure: 35%
- Eastern and Central Washington
- Raul Garcia: 31%
- Semi Bird: 18%
- Bob Ferguson: 16%
- Hilary Franz: 5%
- Mark Mullet: 2%
- Not sure: 29%
Ferguson leads in the Puget Sound / I‑5 corridor and is tied with Garcia in rural Western Washington. Garcia leads in Eastern and Central Washington.
Breakdown by gender
A plurality of voters who identify as female prefer Ferguson: 29%. Garcia came in second with female voters, at 15%. Voters identifying as male were more split. 19% said they preferred Ferguson. Another 19% said Garcia.
Here’s the full breakdown:
Voters identifying as female
- Bob Ferguson: 28%
- Raul Garcia: 15%
- Hilary Franz: 9%
- Semi Bird: 7%
- Mark Mullet: 6%
- Not sure: 34%
Voters identifying as male
- Bob Ferguson: 19%
- Raul Garcia: 19%
- Semi Bird: 13%
- Hilary Franz: 10%
- Mark Mullet: 7%
- Not sure: 33%
Franz, the only female candidate in the survey, actually did a tiny bit better with male voters than female voters. It’s a symbolic, not statistically significant difference, but emphasizes that female voters just aren’t lining up behind Franz.
More gubernatorial polling coming in late 2023
We will take another look at the contest again in the autumn. For now, it’s really great to have this fresh data. Readers, feel free to leave a comment if you have a question about our research, or send us a message through our contact form.
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