Sparks fly in 6th Congressional District contest as the endorsements chase heats up

A new era of back-to-back polit­i­cal cam­paign­ing has gen­er­at­ed a cease­less con­test for endorse­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly when an incum­bent retires, and a cov­et­ed office comes open.  Just look at, and try to keep track of, who’s sup­port­ing who in the sur­pris­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive con­test for Wash­ing­ton’s 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict this year. 

The Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Fire Fight­ers has endorsed the can­di­da­cy of Hilary Franz, who cur­rent­ly serves as Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. But the South Kit­sap Fire Fight­ers have giv­en their bless­ing to Franz and State Sen­a­tor Emi­ly Randall. 

The Low­er Elwha S’Kallam Indi­an tribe is back­ing Franz while a Jamestown S’Kallam endorse­ment dec­o­rates the Ran­dall website.

The Franz cam­paign recent­ly pil­lo­ried Ran­dal­l’s cam­paign for incor­rect­ly claim­ing endorse­ments from the Low­er S’Kallam and the Lum­mi Nation.

“We have seen how Hilary part­ners with trib­al nations to fight cli­mate change, restore salmon habi­tat and strength­en our com­mu­ni­ties and trib­al treaty rights,” said a state­ment from Fran­cis Charles of the Low­er Elwha tribe.

Franz and Ran­dall, both Democ­rats, are bat­tling for the U.S. House seat being vacat­ed by retir­ing Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer. A sim­i­lar con­test is under­way among Repub­li­cans in East­ern Wash­ing­ton for the seat of Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, who’s hang­ing it up after twen­ty years in Con­gress rep­re­sent­ing the 5th Dis­trict.

Such posi­tions don’t often come open. 

Incum­ben­cy car­ries with it great advan­tages. Since the Gin­grich “rev­o­lu­tion” of 1994, only two-House mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion have been unseat­ed, most recent­ly Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler in South­west Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. The team of Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell have held office for twen­ty-four years, with Cantwell heav­i­ly favored to retain her seat this year.

As well, Wash­ing­ton and Cal­i­for­nia have adopt­ed elec­toral sys­tems where the top two can­di­dates move on to the gen­er­al elec­tion, even if they are of the same par­ty. The sys­tem has served up bat­tles between left-lean­ing Democ­rats in the Puget Sound area.  An exam­ple was the unsuc­cess­ful attempt by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to oust a pro-busi­ness Demo­c­rat, State Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let, from the Leg­is­la­ture. (Inslee’s can­di­date, Ingrid Ander­son, came close, los­ing by only a few dozen votes.) Mean­while, Repub­li­cans are vying to sound more con­ser­v­a­tive on the far side of the “Cas­cade curtain.”

Endorse­ments don’t always res­onate with vot­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the decline of news­pa­per cir­cu­la­tion. In 2012, most of the state’s dailies backed Repub­li­can Rea­gan Dun­n’s run for Attor­ney Gen­er­al. He was, how­ev­er, out­worked by Demo­c­rat Bob Fer­gu­son. The Seat­tle Times went all out for Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Rob McKen­na, only to see Seat­tle and King Coun­ty vot­ers pro­vide the win­ning mar­gin for Demo­c­rat Inslee.

The Stranger’s endorse­ment has long been cov­et­ed. The pub­li­ca­tion was a long­time cham­pi­on of Social­ist Alter­na­tive Coun­cilmem­ber Kshama Sawant, who won sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive city­wide and dis­trict-based coun­cil elec­tions. Late­ly, how­ev­er, it has backed the los­er in three suc­ces­sive Seat­tle may­oral elec­tions. And there was quite the to-do when Jim McDer­mott retired and the 7th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict seat came open. A pair of Democ­rats fought it out. The edi­to­r­i­al board backed Prami­la Jaya­pal while promi­nent colum­nist Dan Sav­age pro­mot­ed Jaya­pal’s oppo­nent Brady Walkinshaw. 

At times, how­ev­er, endorse­ments can be telling.

Long­time Repub­li­can back­ers of Her­rera Beut­ler could not stand ultra MAGA extrem­ist Joe Kent, who eclipsed her in the 2022 Top Two elec­tion along with Demo­c­ra­t­ic hope­ful Marie Glue­senkamp Perez. They pub­licly defect­ed to MGP’s can­di­da­cy. She was elect­ed to Con­gress in one of the year’s notable upsets.

 A decade ago, in Wash­ing­ton’s 4th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, retired Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Slade Gor­ton helped round up sup­port for the more con­ven­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive Dan New­house. New­house was pit­ted against Tea Par­ty activist (and for­mer NFL tight end) Clint Didi­er in an all-Repub­li­can gen­er­al elec­tion. Kooky state­ments by Didi­er were dis­played, help­ing New­house to a nar­row win. New­house will need such help again. He is fac­ing a Trump-endorsed ultra MAGA chal­lenger, Jer­rod Sessler, in this year’s election.

Influ­en­tial endorse­ments have changed over time, too.

The Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion poured resources into beat­ing back a 1997 gun safe­ty ini­tia­tive. Since then, aid­ed by wealthy con­trib­u­tors,  gun safe­ty advo­ca­cy groups have passed three statewide ini­tia­tives, in 2014, 2016, and 2018, and fol­lowed that up with a series of bills passed out of the Leg­is­la­ture. Last year, Wash­ing­ton became the tenth state to ban the sale and man­u­fac­ture of assault weapons.

The envi­ron­men­tal move­ment has also demon­strat­ed its clout. Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Action has giv­en a big boost to King Coun­ty Coun­cil mem­ber Dave Upthe­grove in his bid to suc­ceed Franz as the state’s Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. Just a few days after that endorse­ment was decid­ed, State Sen­a­tor Rebec­ca Sal­daña sus­pend­ed her cam­paign for the job.

Fuse Wash­ing­ton has been a force in the elec­toral are­na with its Pro­gres­sive Vot­er Guide, iden­ti­fy­ing and pro­fil­ing can­di­dates endorsed by labor, envi­ron­men­tal and LGBTQ+ groups. It pro­vides a notable boost to con­tenders in down­bal­lot races, for such jobs as city coun­cil and coun­ty com­mis­sion­er. Its goal is shift­ing the local bal­ance of pow­er, demon­strat­ed by rejec­tion of an oil export ter­mi­nal pro­posed for Amer­i­ca’s Van­cou­ver and the big Gate­way Pacif­ic coal ship­ment port planned north of Bellingham.

The endorse­ments chase has pro­duced one notable flop in Wash­ing­ton con­gres­sion­al races this cen­tu­ry. Prami­la Jaya­pal has per­haps the safest U.S. House seat any­where, but the chair of the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus has been unable to expand her base in the region. Jaya­pal poured resources into the 2020 cam­paign of State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Beth Doglio, who was sound­ly defeat­ed by for­mer Taco­ma May­or Mar­i­lyn Strickland. 

A year lat­er, an endorse­ment from Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders failed to help Seat­tle may­oral can­di­date Lore­na González, who lost in a land­slide to Bruce Har­rell.

Back to the 6th Dis­trict, where a bat­tle of big Demo­c­ra­t­ic names is brew­ing. Kilmer and retired Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Norm Dicks are in the Franz camp, while Sen­a­tor Mur­ray and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Glue­senkamp Perez are back­ing Randall. 

Vot­ers from Taco­ma to Cape Flat­tery will have to make up their own minds.