Dave Reichert is back in the electoral arena. His gubernatorial bid could be a tough slog.

After watch­ing Dave Reichert con­firm his 2024 cam­paign for Gov­er­nor in a very friend­ly KING5 inter­view with reporter Drew Mikkelsen, I opened my inbox, and found the Repub­li­can fron­trun­ner on the receiv­ing end of a high hard one.

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, a guber­na­to­r­i­al rival, was intro­duc­ing the ex-King Coun­ty Sher­iff to a Chica­go-born polit­i­cal tru­ism: “Pol­i­tics ain’t beanbag.”

“We have a new oppo­nent, anti-choice Repub­li­can Dave Reichert,” began Ferguson’s mon­ey appeal. “With a promi­nent anti-choice Repub­li­can now in this race, we know the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion will be ready to invest mon­ey and resources into Wash­ing­ton State.”

Nobody works hard­er than Bob Fer­gu­son, and no attor­ney gen­er­al in Amer­i­ca has worked hard­er to defend Planned Par­ent­hood against assaults by the Trump-Pence regime or access to med­ica­tion abor­tion care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs deci­sion. Wash­ing­ton’s Attor­ney Gen­er­al is deter­mined to dog Reichert with the issue from day one in the 2024 governor’s race.

Reichert has teased for years about a run for Gov­er­nor, show­ing leg to tele­vi­sion inter­view­ers but then back­ing off and seek­ing anoth­er term in Congress.

Now, out of office since 2019, he’s made the leap.

It looks very much like a jump into cold water.

The Main­stream of Repub­li­cans of Wash­ing­ton imme­di­ate­ly applaud­ed Reichert’s can­di­da­cy. Such back­ing would have been a big deal – in the 1970s.

But an ultra MAGA Repub­li­can, Ben­ton Coun­ty Repub­li­can chair­man Semi Bird, is already in the race and bring­ing his extreme cam­paign to the East­side Repub­li­cans’ sum­mer BBQ in Reichert’s old con­gres­sion­al district.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty has become a reflec­tion of hate­ful, big­ot­ed right wing media and patho­log­i­cal liar Don­ald Trump. Inter­viewed on Mur­doch’s FNC, Bird assailed gen­der affirm­ing care, gun respon­si­bil­i­ty, and “law­less­ness.” While call­ing itself the Emer­ald City, he said, Seat­tle is “more like a chunk of coal right now.”

The par­ty base loves such talk.

The Ben­ton, Yaki­ma, Lewis, Cowlitz and Ska­ma­nia Coun­ty Repub­li­cans have already endorsed Bird’s can­di­da­cy. The affa­ble, col­le­gial Reichert faces the chal­lenge of appeal­ing to such hard­line folks while some­how build­ing a major­i­ty coali­tion of vot­ers in a state that has vot­ed for mar­riage equal­i­ty, passed three gun safe­ty ini­tia­tives, rat­i­fied com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion in its pub­lic schools, and vot­ed to legal­ize the recre­ation­al use of cannabis.

And then there is the abor­tion squeeze. Reichert hails from a Luther­an Church-Mis­souri Syn­od back­ground, a denom­i­na­tion strong­ly opposed to abor­tion. He repeat­ed­ly vot­ed against repro­duc­tive free­dom in Con­gress, though he is soft ped­dling the issue and pledg­ing he will not leg­is­late to restrict peo­ple’s rights.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray won reelec­tion last year in a land­slide, with a 400,000-vote mar­gin in King Coun­ty, all in the face of a $20 mil­lion Repub­li­can effort from chal­lenger Tiffany Smi­ley and her Repub­li­can allies. Mur­ray ran a repro­duc­tive jus­tice-dri­ven cam­paign, stress­ing the endan­gered right of choice.

Mur­ray’s mes­sage res­onat­ed in a state which vot­ed to legal­ize abor­tion in 1970 – three years before Roe v. Wade – and strength­ened abor­tion rights in 1991.

Hence, Dave Reichert is in a vise. He faces the hard right in his own par­ty, and a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-trend­ing state elec­torate which has not put a Repub­li­can in the governor’s man­sion since 1980. In respond­ing to Post Alley cov­er­age, for­mer Young Democ­rats of Wash­ing­ton Chair Derek Richards won­dered if Reichert might not make it through the 2024 Top Two elec­tion. Wash­ing­ton might see a face­off between two Democ­rats. Fer­gu­son and State Lands Com­mis­sion­er Hilary Franz have, between the two, been on the bal­lot and won in five statewide races.

Semi Bird, mean­while, has an elec­tion com­ing up this year.

Vot­ers in Rich­land will decide on August 1st whether to recall Bird and two oth­er school direc­tors. Back­ers of recall say the trio vio­lat­ed the state’s Open Meet­ings Act, and the school district’s own poli­cies, when the defied a state man­date and vot­ed to make wear­ing masks mandatory.

Reichert def­i­nite­ly looks like the sher­iff he once was, a fact of which he relent­less­ly reminds us. In his sev­en­ties, the for­mer con­gress­man remains tanned, fit and ath­let­ic with a hand­some sil­ver head of hair. He usu­al­ly comes across as upbeat and opti­mistic. His admir­ers have drawn par­al­lels with Ronald Reagan.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty of today is not sun­ny and upbeat, how­ev­er. Just lis­ten to Bird’s recent Fox inter­view, in which hosts depict­ed Seat­tle as a cen­ter of deprav­i­ty, or inter­views with local far-right radio hosts Jason Rantz and Ari Hoff­man, who depict Puget Sound-area life in the most neg­a­tive light.

Tiffany Smi­ley tried Seat­tle-bash­ing — big­time — in her Sen­ate cam­paign, only to lose King Coun­ty by more than 400,000 votes.

Reichert is off and run­ning for Gov­er­nor on a sim­i­lar note, telling KING5’s Mikkelsen: “Seat­tle has become Gotham City. Where is Batman?”

The sher­iff has cho­sen to pur­sue high office instead of rid­ing off into the sunset.

But the prog­no­sis for his can­di­da­cy is not promising.