Lisa Brown’s ascendant candidacy for Mayor of Spokane has Republicans very worried

The last few years have been rough for Repub­li­cans in Wash­ing­ton State.

Since Don­ald Trump became the face of their “par­ty,” in cycle after cycle, whether local, midterm, or pres­i­den­tial, they’ve lost ground at every lev­el to the Democ­rats as Ever­green State vot­ers turn away from their increas­ing­ly tox­ic pol­i­tics and back­wards poli­cies. It’s a now-sev­en year trend that shows few signs of ceasing.

Con­sid­er the history.

With­in a year of Trump’s Elec­toral Col­lege vic­to­ry, in 2017, Democ­rats end­ed Repub­li­cans’ hold on the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate by win­ning a spe­cial elec­tion in the 45th Dis­trict that sent Man­ka Dhin­gra to the state­house. Dhin­gra has been over­whelm­ing­ly reelect­ed twice since then, and is now a can­di­date for AG.

In 2018, Democ­rats sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand­ed their leg­isla­tive majori­ties in both cham­bers, adding sev­en seats in the House and three in the Sen­ate. They also cap­tured the 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict from Repub­li­cans for the first time, elect­ing pedi­a­tri­cian Kim Schri­er to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2020, Democ­rats reclaimed the office of State Trea­sur­er from Repub­li­cans by elect­ing Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti, the only Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger to pre­vail over a Repub­li­can hold­ing statewide exec­u­tive office. The par­ty also main­tained its leg­isla­tive majori­ties by send­ing right wing leg­is­la­tors Steve O’Ban and Luanne van Wer­ven pack­ing in the 28th and 42nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­tricts at the same time Repub­li­cans were tak­ing over the 19th Leg­isla­tive District.

In 2021, Democ­rats expand­ed their major­i­ty on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil, elect­ing Sarah Per­ry to replace long­time Coun­cilmem­ber Kathy Lam­bert. Mean­while, long­time Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman resigned and was replaced via guber­na­to­r­i­al appoint­ment with a Demo­c­rat: Steve Hobbs.

In 2022, Democ­rats recap­tured the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in South­west Wash­ing­ton with Marie Glue­senkamp Perez and grew their majori­ties in the state­house by one seat in each cham­ber while retain­ing Steve Hobbs as Sec­re­tary of State — in what was sup­posed to be a “red wave” year.

And, of course, dur­ing this times­pan, Democ­rats have also suc­cess­ful­ly held on to what they already had — the oth­er statewide exec­u­tive depart­ment posi­tions, for instance, and Wash­ing­ton’s two U.S. Sen­ate seats and oth­er U.S. House seats.

Democ­rats aren’t done. This year, they’re look­ing for more gains, and one of their top tar­gets is the may­or­ship of Spokane, Wash­ing­ton’s sec­ond largest city.

The posi­tion is offi­cial­ly “non­par­ti­san,” but the absence of par­ty labels on the bal­lot does­n’t mean the can­di­dates don’t have par­ty affil­i­a­tions or strong­ly held con­vic­tions. Incum­bent May­or Nadine Wood­ward is a well known Repub­li­can, while her chal­lenger Lisa Brown is a well known Democrat.

Wood­ward, who is com­plet­ing her first term, suc­ceed­ed fel­low Repub­li­can David Con­don, who served two terms as May­or of Spokane. Alto­geth­er, that’s twelve years of Repub­li­can con­trol of the Lilac City, an era that began before the Trump years. And it looks like it might be com­ing to an end next month, with Wood­ward’s reelec­tion bid in extreme­ly rough shape and Lisa Brown ascendant.

Brown won the Top Two round, gar­ner­ing 47.53% of the vote, while Wood­ward only man­aged 36.59% — a tru­ly abysmal per­for­mance for an incum­bent. NPI under­stands that Wood­ward’s back­ers have data that affirms her weak stand­ing, which is why the Real­tors and oth­ers are spend­ing a for­tune to try to save her.

Right wing media is also sound­ing the alarm, show­ing how wor­ried Repub­li­cans are about tak­ing anoth­er big loss in a key Wash­ing­ton State race.

Con­sid­er this recent mini-edi­to­r­i­al from The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH:

[E]veryone needs to do what they can in order to get as much sup­port as human­ly pos­si­ble for final­ly, an actu­al Repub­li­can who’s in office and a may­or of a major city. So go with Nadine Wood­ward. Vote for her. Tell your friends to vote for her. Make sure you don’t have folks in Spokane that you haven’t con­nect­ed with and got this in front of them. Make sure they know not to vote for Lisa Brown.

These are non­par­ti­san races, right? These are… They’re tech­ni­cal­ly not run­ning as Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat. Wood­ward is a Repub­li­can and Lisa Brown is crazy, crazy, crazy to the left. Like crazy to the left, and she would be an absolute dis­as­ter for Spokane. 

If you think the crime cri­sis that has exist­ed as a result of the Democ­rats in the Leg­is­la­ture is some­thing to behold, wait until Lisa Brown gets in charge. It’s going to get much, much, much worse.

It’s real­ly telling that Rantz — a host in the Seat­tle mar­ket — is spend­ing air­time on his KTTH show to denounce Lisa Brown. It speaks to Repub­li­cans’ state of mind. They know Wood­ward is an incred­i­bly weak posi­tion, with lots of self-inflict­ed wounds, includ­ing her deci­sion to appear at a gath­er­ing orga­nized by white suprema­cist Matt Shea short­ly after the August Top Two elec­tion. And they know that vot­ers in Spokane aren’t hap­py with Wood­ward’s record, either.

So, they’re throw­ing every­thing they can at Lisa Brown. It’s des­per­a­tion time.

It’s amus­ing to hear Rantz gripe about how “nasty” the con­test is get­ting. (Rantz is espe­cial­ly upset that an anti-Wood­ward inde­pen­dent expen­di­ture is crit­i­ciz­ing one of Wood­ward’s wealthy back­ers, devel­op­er Lar­ry Stone, with this ad.) The attacks Wood­ward’s sup­port­ers are mak­ing against Brown don’t both­er him, of course, only what Brown sup­port­ers are say­ing about Wood­ward both­ers him.

Repub­li­cans have had more than a decade of con­trol in Spokane and plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to demon­strate an apti­tude for gov­ern­ing Wash­ing­ton’s sec­ond largest city — oppor­tu­ni­ties that have been repeat­ed­ly squan­dered. Wood­ward is the incum­bent may­or, but if you haven’t been fol­low­ing this con­test, you could be for­giv­en for not know­ing that, giv­en how poor­ly she’s per­formed so far.

Bal­lots are due on Novem­ber 7th at 8 PM and the first results in the Spokane may­oral and city coun­cil con­tests will be released short­ly after that.