How the Republican ticket in Washington betrays the shift in values of their voters
By Justin Chartrey
Behind a podium on stage at the Fox Theater in downtown Spokane, late in the campaign season, Republican hopeful Dave Reichert calmly stood opposite his Democrat opponent, Bob Ferguson, and proceeded to shed all of his conservative bonafides, rejecting both the value-based platform of traditional conservatives and even his own personal voting record of multiple terms in the US House of Representatives.
The former King County Sheriff Reichert, confronted by a question from the moderator about his position on abortion rights in Washington state, stared down the barrel of the camera and denied that there was any issue whatsoever with giving a woman “the right to choose what she does with her own body.” He went as far as saying that he was proud to uphold the laws of Washington state, citing his own time as Sheriff when he “kept the doors of Planned Parenthood open” despite protests in Federal Way.
Pressed on the issue by the debate moderator and Ferguson, the latter bringing up audio recordings in which Reichert allegedly expressed a desire to abolish abortion, Reichert doubled down, denying that he would ever pose a threat to women’s “reproductive healthcare.”
Despite all of his concessions and compromises, however, Reichert posted a double-digit loss to his Democrat opponent, the second consecutive such outcome for the GOP.
This small snapshot paints a much larger picture.
There has been an undeniable shift in Washington state’s opposition party. It is no secret that the nation’s 42nd state has worn a decidedly blue tint since the 80s, with state government increasingly achieving unassailable dominance in favor of a far-left progressive agenda. Controlling the Governor’s office, the legislature, and the courts, the Democrat party has made clean sweeps of major state races a regular occurrence for decades. To stem the tide, Washington’s GOP over the last 20 years has tried different tactics: the high business acumen of Dino Rossi in 2004 and 2008, a state attorney general in 2012, a former Seattle Port Commissioner in 2016, and finally, a small-town sheriff from Washington’s east side in 2020. But since 2004's highly contentious defeat – in which Rossi was defeated (after multiple dubious recounts) by a total of 133 votes – the gap has widened dramatically.
Enter Reichert, the last installment of Washington’s dithering right wing. Yet he did so bearing few hallmarks of conservatism. Pro baby murder, pro gay marriage, and even affirming the current Inslee policy of welcoming out of state women to Washington to kill their unborn children.
Radically aligning with progressive golden calves, Reichert even lost the bid for the Washington GOP’s endorsement, which instead went to Semi Bird. That did not stop him from receiving more than 37% of the primary vote and securing the bid to oppose Ferguson.
Alteration accomplished. What this race represented in Washington was another leftward shift against the traditional values of a large swath of the state, and an appeal to centrist tendencies trying to siphon support away from the state’s sizeable left wing. The only catch: selling out any immediate hope of reversing the course of sexual immorality, entrenched abortion rights, and unchecked illegal immigration. And for what? The hope of putting an R behind the name of a man in the governor’s mansion in Olympia?
The question to be asked is: how can conservatives stop the bleeding and bring stability and strength to a party with an identity crisis? A platform that shifts like sand has no identity, apart from being the opposition. For some, that has been enough. To speak to many local and state legislators, they automatically assume the mantle of “minority opposition.” For them, the name of the game is slowing down the agenda of their opponents. A “win” for those we send to Olympia boasting conservative backgrounds is to stall out whatever leftist initiatives they can until the session comes to an end.
Meanwhile, the other side – the platform in power since the 2012 gubernatorial election that seated Jay Inslee for three terms – has had one goal in mind: remake Washington in their image.
This has meant a ruthless adherence to battling “climate change” via tax credits, gas taxes, and bans on gas stoves and gas powered vehicles after 2030. It has meant establishing abortion as a guaranteed right for Washington women as well as those who flock from Idaho to kill their babies. It has stripped away law enforcement’s ability to stop criminals, flooded our streets with illegal immigrants, fentanyl, and homeless people littering the streets of urban centers. It created a nanny state hell-bent on removing any forms of self governance. This last was on clear display during the Covid insanity, with Washington being among the most draconian states concerning the depth and length of locking down its citizens.
But in those same 12 years, the GOP in the state has had no alternative framework, no clear single message to the people. All it has managed to assert is that “we aren’t those guys.” But that is not enough. The people need a vision of the future that looks different from the past. A party that boasts its ability to “conserve” the past has lost its way when the progressives have marched through every institution and altered it to their liking.
A few promising candidates have emerged in recent election cycles, men like Michael Baumgartner, who held a senate seat in Olympia from 2011-2019. After a six-year stint as Spokane County treasurer, Baumgartner recently took the baton of Washington’s 8th district at the US House of Representatives from retiring Cathy McMorris-Rogers. However, others, like failed gubernatorial candidates Loren Culp and the aforementioned Reichert, and 2022 US senate challenger Tiffany Smiley, have been so easily dispatched by their opponents that the conservative base has had no opportunity to coalesce under their leadership.
Washington’s GOP needs bold new leadership who can stand with strong backs, with clear vision, and who look to reform the land to its former station, not who simply talk about the status quo.
