Hilary Franz exits gubernatorial contest to run for Congress in WA-06, with Kilmer’s support

Hilary Franz con­firmed today that she’s pulling the plug on her six-month old guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign in favor of launch­ing a bid for Con­gress. The two-term Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands is now run­ning to suc­ceed out­go­ing Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer in the 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict with his sup­port and that of a num­ber of oth­er local lead­ers in Pierce and Kit­sap counties.

“I’ve talked to vot­ers in every cor­ner of Wash­ing­ton and heard the same con­cerns – ris­ing prices for neces­si­ties like hous­ing push­ing fam­i­lies out of the mid­dle class, pro­tect­ing repro­duc­tive free­dom and women’s rights, safe­guard­ing our democ­ra­cy, sup­port­ing our vet­er­ans and mil­i­tary fam­i­lies, and the cli­mate cri­sis bear­ing down on us,” Franz said in a pre­pared state­ment. “The chal­lenges we face extend beyond the bor­ders of Wash­ing­ton, and so must our solutions.”

“I am run­ning for Con­gress to bring my vision for bold, trans­for­ma­tive action to our nation’s cap­i­tal and keep fight­ing for fam­i­lies across our region.”

Franz’s updat­ed web­site, hilaryfranz.com, has the same hero image of Franz and near­ly the same cam­paign logo as before, but it now reads “Hilary Franz for Con­gress” instead of “Hilary Franz for Governor.”

Franz’s endorse­ments at launch include:

• U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer, WA-06
• May­or of Taco­ma Vic­to­ria Woodards
• Kit­sap Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er Chris­tine Rolfes
• Taco­ma Port Com­mis­sion­er Kristin Ang
• Taco­ma City Coun­cilmem­ber Olgy Diaz
• Pouls­bo May­or Becky Erickson
• Aberdeen May­or Pete Schave
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Chap­man, 24th Leg­isla­tive District
• Pierce Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Ryan Mello
• Pouls­bo City Coun­cilmem­ber Ed Stern

As of press time, Franz’s cam­paign paper­work had not yet land­ed at the Fed­er­al Elec­tions Com­mis­sion (NPI staff searched the fec.gov to check). It assured­ly will soon. Franz is already accept­ing dona­tions for her con­gres­sion­al bid with ActBlue.

Franz began her pub­lic ser­vice on the Bain­bridge Island City Coun­cil many years ago and has roots in the dis­trict. (Bain­bridge, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s beloved home, was once part of Wash­ing­ton’s 1st, but nowa­days it’s in the 6th.)

Franz has a home in Mag­no­lia, a neigh­bor­hood in Seat­tle, and had been reg­is­tered to vote there, but says she now resides in Grays Har­bor County.

That’s one of the rur­al coastal coun­ties that has his­tor­i­cal­ly backed Democ­rats, but has begun vot­ing for Repub­li­cans in recent years. It includes com­mu­ni­ties like Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Cos­mopo­lis, Ocean Shores, and Westport.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Wash­ing­ton State Sen­a­tor Emi­ly Ran­dall is also con­tem­plat­ing a run. Ran­dall just got reelect­ed to a four year term last year and could cam­paign for the U.S. House with­out giv­ing up her seat in the state Senate.

On the Repub­li­can side, State Sen­a­tor Drew MacEwen is inter­est­ed. He’s in the same boat as Ran­dall, hav­ing just been elect­ed to a four-year term, and can run for the House with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing his seat in the Legislature.

Franz’s deci­sion to get out of the guber­na­to­r­i­al race and run for Con­gress win­nows the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field down to two can­di­dates: Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son (the fron­trun­ner) and State Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let. Mul­let is giv­ing up his Sen­ate seat to run because it comes up in pres­i­den­tial years.

It remains to be seen where Franz’s guber­na­to­r­i­al endorsers will land. It’s not incon­ceiv­able that Fer­gu­son and Mul­let will split them. But a lot of key names have already lined up behind Fer­gu­son, pass­ing over Mul­let. Even before this week’s devel­op­ments, Fer­gu­son had received the sup­port of Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, and U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell.

Franz now has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue Fer­gu­son endorsers for her con­gres­sion­al cam­paign, adding to the sup­port she’s already announced, which notably includes Kilmer. If she and Fer­gu­son are suc­cess­ful in the Top Two, they will be on the 2024 tick­et togeth­er, just as they were in 2020 and 2016 when they ran for down­bal­lot posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive department.

Repub­li­cans have their own set of rival guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates who are rais­ing seri­ous mon­ey and col­lect­ing endorse­ments: Semi Bird and Dave Reichert.

Bird, an unapolo­getic ultra MAGA can­di­date, was recent­ly recalled from his perch on the Rich­land School Board. Reichert is a for­mer con­gress­man who con­sid­ered run­ning for gov­er­nor against Jay Inslee in 2016 and 2020, but passed both times.

If Franz (or Ran­dall) win and no oth­er incum­bent mem­bers of Con­gress lose in 2024, Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion would become three-fourths female as of the begin­ning of the next Con­gress. Take a look (exist­ing mem­bers of Con­gress who iden­ti­fy as female are list­ed in bold­face along with Franz/Randall):

1. Suzan Del­Bene
2. Rick Larsen
3. Marie Glue­senkamp Perez
4. Dan New­house
5. Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers
6. Derek Kilmer > Hilary Franz or Emi­ly Randall
7. Prami­la Jayapal
8. Kim Schri­er
9. Adam Smith
10. Mar­i­lyn Strickland
11. Maria Cantwell
12. Pat­ty Murray

The 6th had a Cook Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index of D+6, mean­ing the dis­trict recent­ly per­formed an aver­age of six points more Demo­c­ra­t­ic than the nation as a whole.

The 6th was for many years rep­re­sent­ed by the leg­endary Norm Dicks before he retired. Repub­li­cans notably failed to pick it up in the “Repub­li­can Rev­o­lu­tion” of 1994 or in 2010, and it isn’t a dis­trict that we think will be a good pick­up oppor­tu­ni­ty for them. It includes many places that reli­ably vote for Democ­rats in top of the tick­et races, includ­ing Kit­sap Coun­ty and por­tions of Pierce County.

While State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh might see an oppor­tu­ni­ty in Kilmer’s retire­ment to tar­get the dis­trict, nation­al Repub­li­cans are like­ly to remain more inter­est­ed in WA-03, which is now rep­re­sent­ed by Marie Glue­senkamp Perez.