Republican State Senator Phil Fortunato decides to challenge Democratic Secretary of State Steve Hobbs

One of the most right wing mem­bers of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate has joined the crowd of sen­a­tors look­ing to move up to high­er office this year. 

Phil For­tu­na­to (R‑31st Dis­trict: rur­al King and Pierce coun­ties) has filed with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion to chal­lenge Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State Steve Hobbs, who took over from Kim Wyman in late 2021 fol­low­ing her res­ig­na­tion from Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment and was retained by vot­ers in 2022 despite a spir­it­ed chal­lenge from Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Ander­son.

For­tu­na­to is the sec­ond Repub­li­can can­di­date to file with the PDC to take on Hobbs this cycle. The first was Bob Hag­glu­nd, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran against Hobbs in 2022 along with Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Kei­th Wag­oner and ex-Sen­a­tor Mark Milos­cia. Hag­glu­nd also unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Dave Somers for Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive last year. 

Hag­glu­nd, Wag­oner, and Milos­cia split the Repub­li­can vote so effec­tive­ly last time around that Repub­li­cans found them­selves locked out of the gen­er­al elec­tion runoff, which pit­ted inde­pen­dent Ander­son, the sec­ond place vote get­ter, against Hobbs, the first place vote get­ter. (Wash­ing­ton State unfor­tu­nate­ly lacks a real pri­ma­ry and instead uses a “Top Two” qual­i­fy­ing elec­tion to choose can­di­dates for the gen­er­al elec­tion, which does not guar­an­tee polit­i­cal par­ties place­ment on the Novem­ber ballot.) 

In the wake of that deba­cle for the right wing, then-State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Brad Klip­pert, who had failed in his bid to take on Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan New­house, launched a write-in cam­paign as a Repub­li­can for Sec­re­tary of State. Tens of thou­sands of Repub­li­can vot­ers, urged to write in Klip­pert’s name by the coun­ty and state GOP, did so — and helped Hobbs defeat Ander­son, as our polling sug­gest­ed would hap­pen.

Klip­pert is now run­ning for a dif­fer­ent statewide office — Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion, along with six oth­ers chal­leng­ing incum­bent Chris Reykdal. 

(The post is offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san, but Reyk­dal is a Democrat.) 

For­tu­na­to is hop­ing to suc­ceed where Klip­pert, Hag­glu­nd, Wag­oner, and Milos­cia failed. But he faces steep odds. With the notable excep­tion of Wyman, Repub­li­cans haven’t pre­vailed in a statewide gen­er­al elec­tion con­test against a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date since 2008.

This isn’t For­tu­na­to’s first bid high­er office, either. For­tu­na­to was one of sev­er­al extreme Repub­li­cans who unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran for gov­er­nor in 2020, along with grifters Tim Eyman and Loren Culp. He received less than four per­cent of the vote in the Top Two, with Culp going on to be Inslee’s gen­er­al elec­tion opponent. 

For­tu­na­to’s bare­bones web­site does­n’t say much about why he is run­ning or what he hopes to do with the office. There’s the usu­al cod­ed “elec­tion integri­ty” lan­guage and not a whole lot else.

“Hav­ing served on com­mit­tees and boards that pro­vide over­sight and pol­i­cy changes on elec­tions, I’ve seen real needs for improve­ment and over­sight in our state’s elec­tions,” For­tu­na­to says on his home­page, with­out spec­i­fy­ing what he means. 

“That’s why I’m run­ning to be Washington’s next election’s chief. My oppo­nents will say they care about elec­tion integri­ty. We all do, but that’s not what this race is about. I’m run­ning for Sec­re­tary of State because there are seri­ous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in our elec­tion sys­tems that aren’t being addressed.” 

“We hire hack­ers to test elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty, but not the reg­is­tra­tion process,” For­tu­na­to goes on to say. “The fact is that motor vot­er laws and doc­u­men­ta­tion loop­holes are seri­ous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties allow­ing non-cit­i­zens and dupli­cate reg­is­tra­tions. To ensure the elec­torate that the entire process is secure, I say let’s test it.”

There is no evi­dence that non-cit­i­zens are mak­ing it onto Wash­ing­ton’s vot­er rolls, or that the rolls are plagued by dupli­cate reg­is­tra­tions. Nev­er­the­less, because they have lost so many elec­tions, there is a wide­spread belief in Repub­li­can cir­cles that some­thing — or mul­ti­ple some­things — must be wrong with our sys­tem of elections. 

A large num­ber of Repub­li­can activists, judg­ing by what our staff sees and hears, can­not accept the truth, which is that they keep los­ing because a major­i­ty of their fel­low cit­i­zens don’t trust them to gov­ern and dis­like their tox­ic, extreme, ultra MAGA agen­da. So, rather than chang­ing their ways, they are focused on exclu­sion­ary schemes and plots. For exam­ple, they want to pass vot­er sup­pres­sion laws to ensure few­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers are allowed to par­tic­i­pate in future elec­tions, both here and elsewhere. 

For­tu­na­to open­ly acknowl­edges this dynam­ic on anoth­er page of his website. 

“I sit on the Elec­tions and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Com­mis­sion. There seem to be two camps when it comes to elec­tions,” his very short “On the Issues” page reads. “Those that think every­thing is fine and noth­ing needs to be done; typ­i­cal­ly, the win­ners. And, those that feel the entire sys­tem is rigged against us; typ­i­cal­ly the losers. The truth is no mat­ter what side you are on, test­ing the sys­tem for flaws, does not under­mine vot­er con­fi­dence as some oth­er mem­bers of the Com­mis­sion believe.”

For­tu­na­to’s web­site does not men­tion Steve Hobbs by name or crit­i­cize any spe­cif­ic action or deci­sion he has tak­en. But it does con­tain a veiled swipe at Hobbs.

“[H]aving all [Demo­c­ra­t­ic] con­trol in the Leg­is­la­ture makes a Repub­li­can counter bal­ance even more impor­tant,” For­tu­na­to argues. “I take the job of fair­ly, impar­tial­ly and trans­par­ent­ly man­ag­ing our state’s elec­tions seriously.” 

“I will also be an advo­cate and watch­dog for our elec­tion integri­ty. My oppo­nent hold­ing this seat is like the fox­es watch­ing the hen house.”

For­tu­na­to’s web­site does­n’t explain how Hobbs is akin to a fox guard­ing a hen­house, so if you’re a vot­er who isn’t part of the ultra MAGA bub­ble that embraces con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, you’ll like­ly won­der what the heck For­tu­na­to is talk­ing about. Observers out­side of the Repub­li­can base have had very dif­fer­ent takes. For exam­ple, Hobbs’ pre­de­ces­sor Kim Wyman, who has left the Repub­li­can Par­ty, has spo­ken favor­ably about his work, and news­pa­per edi­to­r­i­al boards have large­ly giv­en Hobbs high marks so far. 

Wyman won three con­sec­u­tive con­test­ed elec­tions for the job by appeal­ing to Demo­c­ra­t­ic and inde­pen­dent vot­ers. Unlike For­tu­na­to or Hag­glu­nd, Wyman had been a coun­ty audi­tor before becom­ing Sec­re­tary of State, fol­low­ing in the path of Ralph Munro and Sam Reed. That Thurston Coun­ty to Sec­re­tary of State pipeline is now closed off to the Repub­li­cans, because the Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor nowa­days is a Demo­c­rat — Mary Hall. 

For­tu­na­to may be able to beat Hag­glu­nd and get on the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, if a more impres­sive Repub­li­can can­di­date does­n’t come along. But he will have a dif­fi­cult time con­vinc­ing vot­ers who aren’t part of the Repub­li­can base to pick him over Hobbs. 

For­tu­na­to’s deci­sion to launch a cam­paign web­site using a four-year old pho­to is evi­dence he’s not going to be giv­ing this effort he’s every­thing he’s got. (If you look close­ly at the pho­to above, you can see the For­tu­na­to sup­port­ers’ t‑shirts say For­tu­na­to for Governor.)

Fil­ing Week is now only a few weeks away, so we’ll soon know who all is run­ning for this posi­tion and every oth­er posi­tion that’s up for elec­tion this year.