Democrat Bob Ferguson defeated Republican Dave Reichert on Tuesday and will become Washington’s next governor.
Ferguson, 59, the state’s three-term attorney general, was beating Reichert, 74, a former seven-term congressman and prior King County sheriff, by a whopping margin of 56.3% to 43.5%. Results will be updated as more votes are tallied.
The Associated Press called the race for Ferguson shortly after 8:30 p.m.
Democrats have held the Washington governor’s office since 1985. Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s decision to retire means the state will get a new governor for the first time in 12 years.
A Ferguson victory would not be a great surprise. He entered the race a year ago as the presumptive favorite with a stockpile of cash from prior campaigns and support from Inslee and many of the state’s other best-known Democratic elected officials.
And he had a well-oiled campaign organization, the foundation for which he laid in 2020 when it seemed Inslee, after a failed presidential bid, would step aside rather than seek a third term. But Inslee did run again, scuttling Ferguson’s gubernatorial ambitions that year. Ferguson instead won another term as the state’s top lawyer.
A tireless campaigner, Ferguson vacuumed up endorsements of Democratic Party organizations across the state and was the top choice of the state Democratic Party. He had raised $14 million and spent nearly all of it days ahead of the election. And Ferguson also benefitted from the Democratic Governors Association spending of $8.2 million hammering Reichert.
Reichert, meanwhile, couldn’t match Ferguson’s fundraising and had spent nearly all the $6.5 million he raised.
He also had to overcome a difficult primary in which the state Republican Party endorsed the more conservative Semi Bird for governor. After the primary, the state party provided $215,000 to the campaign but lacked an organized get-out-the-vote effort on the scale of Democrats, leaving Reichert mostly on his own. The Republican Governors Association also sat out the contest.
Public safety was a top issue throughout the campaign.
Ferguson proposed spending $100 million on grants to help local governments recruit more police officers. He also said he wants to hire additional state troopers and ramp up Department of Corrections efforts to track down at-large offenders with active arrest warrants.
Reichert argued that policies embraced by Ferguson and other Democrats in recent years have led to police staffing shortages and rising crime. He, too, said he’d push to hire more police if elected and said he wanted to tackle an “epidemic” in juvenile crime.
National politics also factored into the race. Ferguson’s campaign and surrogates worked aggressively to tie Reichert to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and to highlight votes Reichert took in Congress in support of bills that would’ve imposed new restrictions on abortion.
Reichert countered by saying he did not plan to vote for Trump and said he’d defer to current Washington law on abortion.
Recent history shows battles for open gubernatorial seats are close. In 2004, Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi by just 129 votes following a hand recount. Eight years later, Inslee collected 51.5% en route to beating Republican Rob McKenna.
Washington’s last Republican governor was John Spellman. He was elected in 1980 but lost re-election. Since then, Democrats have won 10 straight gubernatorial contests.
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